Selling Sunset Star Apologizes for Claiming She ‘Owns’ California Town

It sounded odd when new Selling Sunset cast member Alanna Gold said that she and her husband own a town in the California desert called Pioneertown, and there’s a good reason for that: It’s not true.

Gold has apologized for stating that she “owns” Pioneertown on Season 8 of the Netflix reality series, admitting in a statement to People: “I certainly do not own Pioneertown, I never should have said that and I apologize for doing so. I want you to know that I did not mean any harm, I absolutely love Pioneertown and I simply got too excited talking about it.”

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Gold explained that she and her husband “wanted to become part of the community, so we invested in a home and other properties there,” adding that “I would never want to disrespect the town’s history or any of the people who make it such a wonderful place.”

The apology follows backlash from the residents of Pioneertown, a desert community two hours east of Los Angeles that has served as a shooting location for many Old West-themed movies and TV shows over the years. The residents posted a joint statement on Instagram calling Gold’s claims on the show “baseless,” noting that she only “has a small minority non-controlling interest in an entity that owns six of thirty-five parcels in the Mane Street area, constituting less than 1% of Pioneertown’s total 640 acres. The claim that she owns the ‘entire town’ is verifiably false.”

In Season 8 of Selling Sunset, which premiered last Friday on Netflix, Gold tells her fellow real estate agents that “I own a little Western town in the desert.” (The others then marveled that she could own an entire town.) She even took a few of them to visit Pioneertown in a later episode, with the ladies donning Western-themed gear and taking in the sights.

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