Whatever Happened to Marisa Zanuck?
After 'RHOBH,' the realtor started her own firm and feuded with friend Kyle Richards.
Looking back at our Real Housewives franchises, there are often people we wonder about after they leave a show. Where did they go when their moment in the spotlight was over? What are they up to now? Each week, we'll be looking into the lives of one of these familiar faces. Today, it's Marisa Zanuck from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
In her brief tenure as a "Friend of the Housewives" on RHOBH's third season, Kyle Richards' friend Marisa Zanuck—a Beverly Hills realtor who'd been pals with Kyle and her realtor husband Mauricio for years—tried her best to keep things low-key. "There's so much drama, and I'm not a drama person," she told All About the Real Housewives of her less-is-more approach to interacting with the cast. "It's like, 'why can't we get along?'"
But she still managed to cause a few ripples, whether she was getting annoyed with Taylor ("Taylor kind of bugs," she admitted) or giving Brandi Glanville ammo to criticize her (like the time Marisa told her own husband, producer Dean Zanuck, that he wasn't her type? Ouch!). Still, she has no regrets. "Housewives was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I am grateful that Bravo gave me the opportunity to step into their crazy world," she told Celebuzz after her season wrapped.
Clearly reality TV agrees with her: After leaving RHOBH, Marisa appeared on several episodes of Bravo's Million Dollar Listings Los Angeles. And in late 2013, she left her role at prestigious real estate firm Hilton & Hyland to start her own Beverly Hill brokerage with Million Dollar Listings New York star Ryan Serhant called Nest Seekers/Zanuck—and she hasn't looked back.
"I'm a mom with three kids in grade school. Spending time 9 to 7 in the office every day managing other agents… This is [a] whole new level of commitment," she told the Beverly Hills Courier. "I'm scared to fail. But being scared motivates me. Every day [my husband] tells me, 'I'm so proud of you.'"
Although the only drama in her life these days appears to concern selling multi-million dollar homes, Marisa did have one awkward moment with Kyle after leaving RHOBH in 2013 when she took to Twitter to announce that Kyle had unfollowed her. "Guess we aren’t friends anymore," she tweeted before adding, "Life is too short to concern myself with a housewife unfollowing me whom i thought was my friend!! #toopetty."
But Kyle insisted it was just a misunderstanding—and Marisa later deleted her tweets: "That wasn't on purpose," Kyle responded. "My twitter does that a lot randomly."
[Sources: AllABoutTHR.com, Beverly Hills Courier, Celebuzz, AllAboutTHR.com, Kyle's Twitter]
