‘Owning Manhattan’ star Ryan Serhant reacts to Jonathan Normolle’s claim that he planned his own firing
Ryan Serhant is getting real about Jonathan Normolle’s firing in the “Owning Manhattan” Season 1 finale.
The Serhant. Real Estate founder, 40, tells Page Six’s “Virtual Reali-Tea” podcast that he finds Normolle’s claim that he planned his own termination from the agency farfetched.
“I haven’t publicly commented. All I’ll say is I don’t fault anyone these days for trying to control their own narrative, but I think the facts tell a story and it’s almost like the facts were on a global Netflix TV show,” Serhant quips.
“When clients come on the show, they’ll say to me, ‘OK, I want to go on the show but I want to make sure you don’t make me look like a jerk,’” he elaborates. “I’m like, ‘OK, well don’t say anything that will make you sound like a jerk.’”
Normolle, 27, instigated drama on the Netflix reality show — which premiered last month — when he and fellow Serhant. real estate agent Jessica “Jess” Markowski recorded a podcast episode, during which he made vicious judgments about several of their colleagues. (Though Markowski, 31, engaged in the conversation, her comments were decidedly less harsh.)
As seen in the final episode of “Owning Manhattan,” Serhant confronted Normolle about the situation on top of The Edge at New York City’s Hudson Yards and ultimately gave him the pink slip as cameras rolled.
“It’s so awkward. It wasn’t my intent,” the “Million Dollar Listing New York” alum recalls to “Virtual Reali-Tea.”
“I don’t hire people with the intent to fire them,” he continues. “I didn’t hire any of the agents — who are actual real estate agents, who are actually at our company — with the intent to let them go. That was super uncomfortable.”
Normolle, for his part, claimed in a recent interview with the Daily Mail that he was the mastermind behind his own firing, further boasting that Serhant fell into his trap.
“I had a plan because I was under contract with Ryan and all the sponsorships,” Normolle told the outlet.
“The only way I could get out of those contracts was if I got Ryan mad enough for him to fire me,” he added. “… I went in on Ryan with all these things and he got upset enough to fire me on TV — and instantly these contracts were completely void.”
Whether Normolle had a hand in his termination or not, Serhant says he has no regrets over the ordeal as he believes his now-ex-employee had “taken it three steps too far” by speaking poorly of his peers.
“If I don’t act like a CEO, then I’ll lose all the good people and that’s a tough lesson for me to learn,” says the “Brand It Like Serhant” author, who oversees a team of roughly 750.
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However, Serhant teases that Normolle’s return to his agency — and a future season of “Owning Manhattan” — isn’t off the table.
“I came to New York City to do theater, so I got onto a soap opera [‘As the World Turns’]. So I played Doctor Evan Walsh IV. Not long after I started did I go from a good doctor to the doctor that kills everybody to then is murdered by his own grandmother. Which in ‘Actor World’ means you’re fired,” he shares.
“And I remember going to the executive producer and he’s like, ‘Hey, listen. If the audience loves ya, you can always come back from he dead,’” Serhant tells us. “And that’s what I’ll say.”
“Owning Manhattan” is available to stream on Netflix.
