Chelsea Lazkani is living the dream as an estate agent in TV show Selling Sunset... a world away from her humble upbringing in a London council house.
Dressed in dazzling designer clothes, she has a £4million beachfront mansion in California and sells luxury homes worth five times that for a living.
The glitz, the rivalry and the drama is all caught on camera for the Netflix reality show – and Chelsea, 29, is loving every minute.
Back in London, she used to share a bedroom with two siblings as her parents scrimped and saved to give them the best they could afford.
Chelsea remembers those tough days but is keeping her feet firmly on the ground after finding TV fame in Los Angeles.
Selling Sunset has just begun its fifth series, revolving around the Oppenheim Group, a high-end real estate firm run by twins Jason and Brett Oppenheim.
We caught up with Chelsea for an exclusive interview inside her latest listing – an £18million Manhattan Beach mansion just a stone’s throw from her own home.
Her commission, if she completes a sale, will be a tasty £350,000. Chelsea tells us: “We don’t come from money. We had nothing at first. My dad came to the UK with just £13 to his name.
"When I was four to seven we lived on council estates. I remember going to a store and not being able to pick out an extra loaf of bread. Because we had nothing, we had to be cost conscious. I always knew the value of a pound.”
Chelsea’s dad Segun trained as an architect in Nigeria and made a successful career in the UK – while her mum Elizabeth is a human resources executive at Emerson College in LA after the family relocated to the States.
They also own several flats and houses across London and Kent – including their old council home, where Chelsea, sister Oyinda, 30, and brother Richard, 24, shared a room.
Chelsea says: “I will never, ever let go of that house. It was tiny, but I want to keep it as a reminder.” We ask how she would promote it if she ever did sell.
With a smile, Chelsea replies: “Compact family home, much loved! Room for family of five but ideal for a couple with a baby.”
She also talks passionately about having a solid work ethic: “My parents are immigrants from Nigeria. They’re workaholics, workhorses.
“All my parents’ success has come from hard work. I always had a strong work ethic because I saw my parents work so hard. My mum worked in a supermarket when I was young. She got into human resources and started to climb the corporate ladder.
“She’s been phenomenal. When I was 12 she got an opportunity to work in Lausanne. Dad stayed in the UK to work and we all uprooted and moved to Switzerland.
“It was a great opportunity, a chance for a better life. My dad would visit us at weekends.”
After a year the family was reunited in Edgware, north-west London – a few miles from their old Mill Hill council house and the first time Chelsea had her own bedroom.
After A-levels, she studied economics at Buckingham University before gaining a Master’s in oil and gas management at the University of Dundee. She worked as a business strategist and solar analyst with oil and gas companies before heading to the US in 2015 – with just one suitcase, expecting to stay a few weeks.
But she met future hubby Jeff Lazkani, managing partner at a marketing and advertising company, on her first date.
Chelsea, said: “I didn’t plan on staying for long. But then I got busy on Tinder! Jeff and I are very similar. We hit it off right away.”
They married in 2017 and have son Maddox, three, and daughter Melia, 18 months. Chelsea gained her real estate licence in 2017 and first worked for a firm called Rodeo Realty, overseeing more than $10million in sales in a year.
Overcoming prejudice has been tough – but working “with great people and great properties” is a blast.
Chelsea says: “I had some negative experiences as a black agent. I saw my peers working less than me and getting listings.
“I thought, ‘What’s going on here?’ I realised people wanted a real estate agent who looks like them. They want an agent they see themselves in. I thought, ‘I can sink or swim’. I kept working and working and eventually got one client, which led to another, then another.
“It was very slow, but I still wanted to go to a luxury brokerage to further my career.”
Then Chelsea got her big break at the Oppenheim Group.
She is now navigating LA’s cut-throat property market and says she feels “a strong bond” with her Selling Sunset pals, including Chanel-obsessed Christine Quinn, former Hollywood actress Chrishell Stause, and one-time Olympic swimmer Emma Hernan.
Chelsea says: “I knew I had to be a big character with a ‘can do’ attitude to make it work and to be a success. I did feel some pressure. But I had to make it work because I did not want brown-skinned women around the world seeing that I hadn’t succeeded.
“I put pressure on myself, I said to myself every day, ‘I’m going to turn up, going to look good and I am going to sell real estate. I’m not going to allow anyone to take that from me’.
“I am the first full black woman on the show. I’ve taken flak for my British accent, but I laugh it off. I get it! But I’m British, I’m black, I’m Nigerian and I’m also American, I now have an American passport. I’m proud.”
So what of the future?
“The sky is the limit,” she says. “I would love to build a real estate team. I’d love to have a team of minorities. I don’t see many people like me in LA doing this, so I want to make it happen. But my main focus now is my work for Brett and Jason and making the show and my work a success. Doing this is my calling.
“It’s an opportunity for me to give back and I know I’m very blessed.”
