Safety first. Maya Vander wasn’t taking any chances with her — or her baby’s — health when she refused to film scenes for Selling Sunset at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We filmed literally the week of everything shutting down [in March],” the Netflix star exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, July 7, while promoting the show’s third season. “We had the final interviews and I was already in Miami because I’m seven months pregnant and I was, like, ‘OK, I can try to make it back in March to do a few pickup scenes.'”
Vander shares her 14-month-old son, Aiden, and 2-month-old daughter, Elle, with her husband.
“I was supposed to fly literally the weekend before everything shut down officially,” she continued. “I basically told them, ‘Yeah, no way I’m not flying. So if you guys need any scenes from me, unfortunately, it’s not going to happen. Use what you filmed with me before,’ because I wasn’t risking flying during the beginning of what looked like a pandemic to L.A. and being on a plane,” she explained.
The realtor said that producers “were disappointed but they understood.” Days later, production shut down entirely on the Netflix series.
Coronavirus had already affected Selling Sunset months before people began to understand the gravity of the pandemic. Christine Quinn revealed on Goss.ie’s Goss Chats on Sunday, July 5, that she was sick with the respiratory illness when she married Christian Richard in December 2019.
“I was really, really sick on my wedding day. I actually had what I now know is corona,” Quinn, 31, recalled. “I got really sick in late December and we were traveling, and I was sick for about a month when we were filming. I couldn’t even have a bachelorette party. I was so bummed about that because I was so sick.”
Vander told Us that during that time Quinn “was really weak” and “had a fever,” adding that the reality star was “sick to the point where the wedding was a big question mark.”
The Israel native said that Quinn’s illness was especially noticeable during her engagement party. “She put up a brave face and she looked gorgeous and nobody could tell she was sick, but she was really bad,” Vander recounted.
Season 3 of Selling Sunset drops on Netflix Friday, August 7.
With reporting by Kayley Stumpe
