Where they stand now. Mauricio Umansky and brother-in-law Rick Hilton have had their ups and downs over the years, but things have improved between them when it comes to business.
“Rick and I have a very good working relationship today,” the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, 52, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting his new book, The Dealmaker. “Obviously, it’s a different problem between the families.”
The reality star and his brother-in-law, 67, had a falling out in 2011 when Hilton didn’t promote Umansky to full partner at his real estate firm, Hilton & Hyland. Umansky went on to start his own brokerage, The Agency, which is now the subject of the Netflix reality show Buying Beverly Hills.
“We got through that,” Umansky said of the conflict over his promotion, adding that his wife, Kyle Richards, and her sister Kathy Hilton still have problems of their own. (Kathy, 64, has been married to Rick since 1979.)
“I just hope that as Rick and the family read my book, they realize that my stories are facts and real, and I’m certainly not throwing anything at them, because I love them more than anything,” the Netflix personality told Us. “And I think that what they do is fantastic. So, I just hope that that’s the way it’s read. Right now, they’ve got other issues that don’t have anything to do with me, so that’s OK.”
In The Dealmaker, Umansky claimed that Rick and Kathy stopped speaking to him and Richards, 54, after he started The Agency. “They couldn’t understand how I could just make the decision overnight and not give them a chance to convince me otherwise,” the University of Southern California alum wrote. “They cut all communication and no longer invited us to Thanksgiving dinners or other holidays.”
The two families eventually made up, but the sisters are now caught up in a different feud that stems from a cast trip to Aspen, Colorado, for season 12 of RHOBH. All of the drama wasn’t caught on camera, but Lisa Rinna said in a confessional interview that Kathy had an “absolute meltdown” over her youngest sister.
“She’s screaming she ‘made’ Kyle,” the former soap star, 59, claimed in a September 2022 episode of RHOBH. “Kathy’s responsible for Kyle and she said, ‘I will destroy Kyle and her family if it’s the last thing I ever do.'”
Earlier this year, the Halloween actress revealed that she and her sister hadn’t seen each other in “a while,” telling Page Six that “things are not great since the reunion,” which aired in October 2022.
Umansky, for his part, isn’t involved this time around, but he told Us he hopes that the two sisters will eventually reconcile.
“Family is family. They are such a tight family, they’re a very strong family and it’s just full of amazing, huge personalities,” he explained. “They’re sisters, they love each other. Their mom would want them to be always together.”
The Mexico native went on to note that the tension hasn’t affected the relationship his kids have with Rick and Kathy’s children. Umansky and Richards share daughters Alexia, 26, Sophia, 23, and Portia, 15. He is also the stepfather of Farrah Aldjufrie, 34, whom the Life Is Not a Reality Show author shares with ex-husband Guraish Aldjufrie.
Kathy, for her part, shares daughters Paris, 42, and Nicky, 39, and sons Barron, 33, and Conrad, 29, with Rick.
“Our nephews and nieces are amazing,” Umansky added. “The way that the cousins get along is amazing. It’s just sad that there has to be this kind of conflict because it would be so much better if there wasn’t.”
The Dealmaker is available now.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
