This Is Michelle Saniei

Most of you probably know me from a show I'm on called The Valley, and I'm doing this because I want you to know who I really am. I know that I'm hard to read at times. It's something I've heard all my life. I'm more shy and quiet than most people on reality TV. But this is my life and I want you all to know the real me. I do think in order to understand who I am, I am you really need to kind of know where

I come from and how I got here. So I have two immigrant parents that came to LA in nineteen eighty five. My mom is from Guiliacan, Mexico, and my dad is from Tehran, Iran. They were both born and raised in their countries and decided to move to LA in their thirties. My dad was super intelligent, very strict with me, and he spoke five languages, hence why I

have a little accent. I was raised by two parents that came from two different sides of the world, and I loved it because I got to experience two different cultures, food, languages, lifestyles. But they were both super loving and I couldn't have had a better upbringing In terms of love. I saw my parents truly love each other, respect one another, and it was an ideal marriage, at least in terms of

my eyes. Prior to my parents getting married, my mom was actually married in Mexico and had my brother and sister, but her first husband passed away in a plane crash, and that is one of the reasons why she went to La. That is when she met my dad, and my dad said, come to LA I want to get married. And he raised my brother and sister as if it was his own children. So I never even got to feel that I had a half brother and sister. To me,

they were just my brother and sister. So for a very long time, everything was amazing with my parents, my brother and sister, you would call it like the perfect family. I didn't see them fight, they respected each other. My dad was romantic. It was just like a very loving, normal household. And when I was about twelve years old, things slowly started changing with my dad's personality and mental state.

Was studying psychology, she was getting a master's degree, and my mom would tell my sister the things that my dad was saying and doing, and we all had to sit down and have a conversation with him that he needed to get help and maybe get diagnosed. And that is when I remember. My dad picked me up from school one day and sat me down, and it was the first time I saw my dad cry. And he asked me if it was okay if he divorced my mom and if he could leave me because he didn't

think it was safe for me to be around. And I said yes. So my life drastically changed in a matter of a day. I went from loving parents to suddenly my mom has to get her act together and figure out how to financially take care of me, to get a job, and to do everything else at the house. I was raised in West Hollywood and then we went

to a really nice neighborhood in South Pasadena. That's where I lived with my parents and I went from living to a very nice community to all of a sudden, I had to move to San Diego by the border, a city called sanny Sidro, and everybody lived by the Mexican border, so you either lived in Mexico or in Sandy Sidro, and everybody spoke Spanish and it was just

like a completely different culture change overnight for me. So fast forward to a crazy high school where I have girls just want to fight me, and it was just really hard because they called me the white girl. So I never really quite fit in because when I lived in La I was the Mexican Persian girl with the accent, and then I go to a Mexican school and then I'm the white girl, so I was just always out

of place. Then I go to college and I have to support myself because my brother and sister had a degree, so I have to of course have a degree just because I want to be like everybody else. And that was always important to my dad. He always thought, no matter what school, even with a new general, that you

need to have that knowledge and background. So to me, I was like, Okay, I'm going to go to cal State get a degree, but I also have to pay for school and there was a Hooters nearby, so I was like, what is the best way to have a night job, get paid well, and go to school. So I was a Hooters girl for about five to six years. And I was naturally a very quiet and shy girl. So working at Hooters was actually one of the best things that I could have ever done for myself because

I opened up for my show. I had to have conversations with people that I didn't necessarily want to have conversations with, and it just helped me grow into who I am today. So I thank Hooters for that. So once I started working at Hooters, I started making really good money, and I realized, like I was a hustler by heart. I always wanted more. I was like, how can I make more money? How can I work harder?

How can I just live a nice life? And that was the first time that I got a tape of having some of my own money while I'm in college. And so when I graduated, I knew I got a business degree. I knew I wanted to be a real estate agent. My brother owned. My brother was a very successful lender. So I graduated, I went and moved in with my brother while I was studying to get my

real estate license and I was his assistant. He told me, if you want to make really good money, the only way to do that is to prospect, and you do that by three ways, but the most important is one cold calling. So you literally have a list of five hundred numbers and you call one after the other and you set up listing appointments, and then you go door

to door. So you go on a street, you pick a street, and you're gonna knock on fifty houses and you're going to introduce yourself and ask people if they want to sell their house. And that is literally how I first did it. And it was kind of crazy because I got my license and in the matter of eight months, I sold nineteen houses all by myself. And I worked for a prestigious company in San Diego, co

WOA Banker, and I got Rookie of the Year. My brother at the time, so I started doing really well and he's like, have you ever watched Million Dollar Listing New York? I had never seen it, so I start watching it and I'm like, holy shit, I want to be just like these guys. They sell ten million dollar condos, twenty million they're hustlers, they wear nice suits. Like I

want to be that version in a woman. So I google all of their names and email and I email all of them and Ryan Sarhant emails me back and he says, I'm opening up an office in LA. I'll be there next week if you want to have a meeting. So I did. I remember that meeting with him. I was very nervous because I'm like, oh my god, there's this guy on TV and opening up an office. And I remember driving down LA and I was in Beverly Hills.

It's they call it the Beverly Hills Flats and it's close to Rodale Drive and I was just driving by myself, not knowing the area, and I'm like, wow, holy shit, if I just sell one or two of these houses, I'm gonna make so much money. So I impressed him with what I told him, and I think he saw what a go getter I was and that I just had huge dreams for myself, and he hired me immediately. He said, you can work under my team. I'm opening up sir Hanna in LA. And mind you, I didn't

know anybody in La. I was from there when I was a child, but I didn't talk to people I went to school with. So I went from being such a successful agent at what twenty four years old in San Diego, already knowing that if I stayed there, like I would make millions of dollars. But I just had this fire in me and I'm like, I need to do this. I want more in my life, Like I want to live in LA. I want to live in Beverly Hills. I want to meet millionaires and celebrities, and

I want that life for myself. So I literally told my family, I'm like, sorry, I'm leaving. And I found an apartment online and I moved. And it was very scary because I'm like, I don't have any source of income, and I went I started from scratch. So here I am in LA working for nest Seekers, which was a huge company in New York, but it wasn't big in LA.

They were just starting their brand in LA. And so after being there for a couple of weeks, everybody kept saying the most prestigious, the highest, the hardest place to work for is Hilton and Highland. They only hire really top agents. They are the best of the best. So what do I do I call Hilton and Highland and I set up a meeting and I have an interview

with the bosses. Rick Hilton, which is Kathy Hilton's husband, met with me and again I think you could just I always had this fire in me, especially in my twenties, because I just thought anything's possible, and if you do the work, it will show and I'll be okay, I'll figure it out. I did it in San Diego, I can do it again. And they saw that and they actually hired me, not being a big agent in La

so I just start working at Hilton and Highland. And after a couple of weeks, I remember walking in one day and I was on the phone having a conversation with my mom and I had to pick up some marketing materials and Jesse Lally was working at Hilton and Highland and he saw me and so he follows me down the street, hoping that I get off the phone, which I don't. So then he actually messages me on FAMEOK, this is back in twenty fifteen. He messages me on

Facebook and he says something cheesy. It was like I don't even remember. It was something about air conditioning. It was really hot, so I had never seen him in person. When he messaged me, he had seen me and he asked me, Hey, we have an office meeting on Tuesday. Would you like to go out on a date with me that night? And I said sure, and he's like, great, why don't we have a cup of coffee before the office meeting so you can get to know who I am,

and then we'll go out at night. So I see him, and I think he's very handsome, but he does literally all the wrong things any guy can ever do. He sits down, apparently he had like twenty cups of coffee. He doesn't ask me a single question about me. He's just talking about, rambling on about himself. And then he's he's saying things like, oh, I just got out of a committed five year relationship and I don't want anything serious, and I'm just looking like he's just that is not

what I wanted to hear. Mind you, in my mind, I'm like, I need to be married before thirty. So I was trying to find a serious boyfriend, a serious relationship, and he's literally telling me the opposite of what I want to hear. So I go to the office meeting, I'm like, how am I going to get out of this date? And so that night I text him, I'm so sorry, I have a migraine, and I end up

going out with my girls. So this is the infamous story because a lot of people I got feedback and they're like, why would you Why would you have a child with a one night stand. But I don't think people realize that that is not what I was looking for. I go out with my girlfriends. Yes, I get drunk, and I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna He's not husband material, so I'm just gonna use him as a booty call, and that is what I did. So the following day,

he actually acts totally normal. He's contact me, he's texting me, he wants to see me, and we just start spending every day together. And that is what I was looking for. I wanted something serious. So it was very contradicting what he first told me when he met me as to how he was treating me and him and I started going out a lot, going to restaurants, sitting at bars

and people. We were just organically having conversations with people about the real estate market and about buying and selling, and so we would meet people and they're like, oh, we want to look for a house, and we're like, oh, we can help you. So we just became partners without even trying to be partners, because it just made sense, like we can both help you, and so it just organically happened. Where As soon as we started dating, we were business partners and we started closing a lot of

deals together. Jesse and I were I think people get confused because they saw the very end of our relationship, but it was like that in the beginning. It was amazing, it was easy. I thought. What I loved most about Jesse is that I saw that we could build a great life together, that I could have a partner, that we could you know, we didn't have a lot of money at the time, and throughout the years we were doing bigger deals. We started from three million to ten

million to twenty million. We sold the house for forty million, and I just saw that we could enjoy life, travel and just do it together. And that's really what I wanted because all my life I felt like I always did everything on my own and I wanted that partner. So Jesse and I were together for a long time and things were really good. There were obviously red flags, but when you're young, you don't really pay attention to them, or you just think you brush them under the rug

and you just think it's going to be fine. And for the most part, things were good, and I just thought, nobody's perfect, it'll be okay, we'll figure it out and just keep moving forward. You guys watched season one. Our marriage didn't end up working, but I'll get back to that in a second. While we were married, Jesse and I are constantly going out meeting people, and we meet two very important people, Jack's and Brittany. Apparently Jack's and

Jesse were roommates over twenty years ago. They lived in New York City and they were trying to be actors and models. They had a falling out, and I don't really know what happened, and I think that's their story to tell. So Jackson Jesse finally reconnected once Jesse and I were married, and he introduced me to Brittany. I remember when Brittany and I first met where we talked

about how old we were were the same age. Then she mentioned she was a Hooters girl and I said it too, and we're like, wait, what, We're both Hooter girls. We were Hooter managers, and we just like, from that moment on, we got it, because you know, once a Hooter's girl, always a Hooters girl. I guess what I really love about Brittany is that she was just a happy person. No matter what, She's always happy. She was

very inviting, and she introduced me to everybody. So the more I would hang out at Brittany's house, the more I was meeting everybody. And then I ended up being friends with Stasi, La, La, Sheena, Katie, just basically everybody. And what's ironic is I would hang out with all of these girls and people would send me messages and I'm like, well, I've never seen Vanderpump Rules. I'm not gonna watch it now because that would feel weird that like I'm watching my friends on TV. So to this day,

I've never watched the show. So here I am back in twenty eighteen. I'm married to Jesse. We have an amazing friend group, and I finally have a group of girlfriends that you know, I call my girlfriends, which I never really had before growing up. Things are great. We finally say we want to have a child, so I get pregnant and we're looking forward. I always wanted a girl. We get the news that we're having a girl in

twenty twenty, and what happens. COVID hits And actually, the one of the biggest fears I ever had in life was giving birth. I hate hospitals, I hate blood. I can't stand any of those things. I'm like, how am I going to have a child? It's my biggest fear. I've thought about it since I'm a little girl. Crazy but true. And so I'm eight months pregnant and then we start hearing about COVID things. I'm like, what is this COVID? And It'll be fine, And then suddenly in April,

the worst time to have a baby. I'm like, I am scared out of my mind to have a child. I can't do this on my own. So every single day before I had a baby, I didn't even know if I was going to be by myself or not during labor. So April fifteen rolls around. I am a week early and at night on the thirteenth, I I'm sleeping and I wake up and I start having contractions and I tell Jesse and he's like, wait as long as you can, because people get sent back to the hospital.

So I let the guy sleep all night while I'm having contractions at home by myself, and so I wait. He finally wakes up and he's like relaxed, and he's like, all right, are you ready to go to the hospital. And I'm like shaking at this point, I'm like, we need to go right now. And he's like, well, why don't you have breakfast because they don't have good food at the hospital, and then we can go. So he makes me eggs and I immediately vomit the eggs and he's like, I'm like, we need to go to the

hospital now. I don't think you understand I'm having a baby. I don't even remember arriving, Like he had to get a whale chair because I couldn't walk up to the elevator. They're like, well, wait a minute, we have to check if she's if she can stay. They're like, but by the sound of it, I think she's good. So as soon as I check and they're like, oh, yeah, she's four centimeters, she's good. So they I go in the hospital and they said there's very strict rules. People are

not allowed. I'm at the best hospital in La theaters and it looks like ghost town, like it literally looks like like the Walking Dead, like it was like walking Dead at the hospital, like dark, nobody around, and they put me in the last like dungeon room with no window. I get anxiety just thinking about that day. So so I arrived to the hospital and I said give me that epidural immediately. And Jesse was very anti everything he

wanted natural and like, this is not happening. I'm four centimeters and I'm gonna die, so give me it now. So they gave it to me. And when I did do the epidural, I was stuck at seven centimeters for like a day, and so my doctor was like, you have high pressure. I wasn't feeling well. He's like, if we don't do someth thing about it, then we're gonna

have to do C section. And then Jesse starts arguing with the doctor like, no, she's not gonna have there was something he wanted to help induce me, and they're arguing he's and finally my doctor is like, do you want her to die or do you want to have a healthy baby. We're doing this now, I'm overruling you, and she's I'm doing it, and he did it, and

thank God, that night I delivered Isabella. So Jesse actually got to be with Isabella for about ten minutes and then he had to leave and they it was one in the morning. They put me in my room and I had no nurses. I had nobody around, nobody. I didn't even know that. I couldn't get out of bed and like walk to the bathroom and pee. Like when I tried, I was like, oh, I like stitched up. I couldn't do anything, so and even ringing the nurse button,

it took like thirty minutes to get a nurse. So I just had the worst COVID baby experience that any woman fears of. Then of course that happened to me. So finally my life was checking off all the boxes and everything was great. I wanted to have a husband, I wanted to have a beautiful, healthy baby girl, thank the Lord, and everything seemed great. But once I had a child, your life instantly changes as a mother, and that is when things slowly started changing. And this is

the part that my marriage became a nightmare. It was a very lonely time for me. But my world at the time was my daughter. And my home, and unfortunately that wasn't the same with Jesse. He continued his life as if he was still kind of a single guy, and I was expected to be at home, and he really kind of stop communicating with me. He was gone all the time, and even when he was home, he was always on the phone or he had his vodka

on the rocks. And I never had that one on one where somebody asked me how I'm doing, or would have a conversation with me. And he was just getting further away while I was becoming more of a mother. He was not doing his part in trying to be a father. A lot of people ask me why didn't I leave sooner? When you're married, you don't just walk away. It takes time, and us as women, it's like you're married. I got married and I had no intention of ever

getting divorced. I wanted to be married to him for the rest of my life. That was my mindset and what I wanted as a goal of happiness. But he changed and not for the better. I felt like I grew and he was just going backwards in life and I stay. I stayed as long as I did because the unknown is super scary. I had no idea how was I going to start all over in my thirties now with the child and have to move out and

possibly get a new work at a different place. Because we work at the same office, and my life with Jesse was very intertwined. We had work together, our entire relationship, we did a TV show together, we share a child together, and it was just so scary to think that I

would be literally starting over from scratch. And it takes a lot to be able to tell yourself like, this is not what I deserved, this is not what I want in my life, and I'm going to do something about it and start over, even though it's going to be one of the hardest things I have to do in my life. So our relationship really started changing once we had a child, and when Isabella was about one years old, that's when we were introduced about possibly doing

a reality TV show together. And things weren't that bad. There were you know, I thought there were bumpy roads and ups and downs and marriages, so I just thought this was something that was going to get better with time. And then we get a call and they're like, well, you're we're going to start doing this show soon, and that was literally the worst time of our relationship, and it was also the worst time of my life. I had the worst news anybody could ever get before starting

to film a TV show. So before we start filming the show, my mom comes to visit me in La We go out to a restaurant and she actually thought she had food poisoning because she wasn't feeling well the following day, and I said, I felt fine, why don't you go to the hospital or go to the doctor and get a checkup. My mom had always gone to the doctor's yearly get checkups. She was always proud of how healthy she was was and didn't even have any high blood pressure or anything like that. So she calls

me and she's like, I'm a little confused. They have to do all these MRIs. We don't know what's happening. So my sister immediately goes with my mom, and my sister and Mom call me and she's like, Mom has stage four cancer. And this is probably a week or two before I start filming the show. So internally, I'm going through such a difficult marriage and I'm confused because I don't know what to do. I'm like, do I leave, Do I stay? Do I do this TV show? My

mom has cancer? What does that mean? I've never known anybody to be sick, let alone cancer, and it was stage four, so they said she had to have surgery immediately and then do chemo right after. So right, I think it was a week before filming. I had to go to San Diego be with my mom while she had all of these surgeries, and then go into filming while me and my husband want to kill each other and everything is just horrible. And I thought naive of me.

But I had never seen reality TV. I had thought I could just hide it and not say anything and just keep it to myself. And now watching back the show, I see how miserable I was and how much I was actually going through mentally, and I tried to hide it. And you know, I've heard that I look like a robot, and I think it's because I was. I didn't know how to handle it internally. I didn't know if was my mom going to get better with chemo? Was she

going to die? Like? There was just so many unknowns, and I could not at the time make the decision whether I was going to stay or leave. One thing I want to mention is before filming, there was a point where Jesse and I were really bad and I didn't even think about it, and I just sat him down and I'm like, I want a divorce. This is horrible. I'm going to get an apartment a block away and

we'll figure it out and we can do therapy. And I remember doing it in my office because I just didn't want him to change my mind, and he was crying so much, and he it was a four hour conversation and he really begged me, and he made me feel like he woke up and was going to change, and I was very vocal. I told him that I was so unhappy and all of the things he did were very severe. His drinking was very severe, his spending habits was very severe, him never being home. It was

just it took a real toll on our relationship. And so he promised me, and he said, give me a year, and if you're unhappy in a year, I will walk away and I will make sure you're taken care of. I will make sure everything is good. And I said, well, I owe that to our marriage and to our daughter. And so I did stay because I wanted to give him that last chance, so I gave him the chance, and that's when we got the call that we were going to start filming. So I was giving him the

opportunity when in fact I was already mentally done. And Jesse can be very convincing, and he convinced me that he was going to change and he was going to do anything to fix the marriage, and he guaranteed me and promised me that he would make sure that everything would go smoothly even if I wanted to leave, and that didn't happen. I should have known, but that didn't happen,

and I'm still struggling. But I'm happy that I left because I'm not miserable every single day, and so much has happened since then, and it's a very difficult divorce. I think I'm going through one of the most difficult and complicated divorce because I'm dealing with a difficult person, and even though it should be easier, it's not. But I'm trying to navigate that because I know that this

is not going to last forever. I was in a really bad place mentally while filming, and it really showed in my demeanor, and I was just so unhappy and I wasn't true to myself. And finally, when we stopped filming, I just realized, like, it's now or never. I have a at the time two year old. I don't want to do it when she's ten. Why am I going to be unhappy year after year? This is not what I signed up for. This isn't when I said I

do this is this was not the agreement. And so oh, we had a wedding anniversary right after filming, and I just told myself, like, do I want another wedding anniversary and be miserable? And I said no. So I woke up and I sat him down and I said, there is nothing you can do or say to change my mind, so please listen to what I have to say. And I feel like I was very fair. I said, I gave you the time, but I'm going to ask for a divorce. Nothing's changed, and I want it to be

as easy as possible. I don't want to take your child away. I want to be fifty to fifty. I want to live near each other. I want to learn to co parent and be friends with one another. And I think that I couldn't have made it easier on him.

And I realized that I had a responsibility to show my daughter what a healthy relationship was because I started envisioning my parents, and I remember being three years old and five and ten and looking at my parents in love and my dad coming home and bringing my mom and I flowers, and he would put music on and dance and it was just such a happy household that I thought to myself, Isabella doesn't even know what that

looks like. She's never even seen her dad kiss or hug her mother, and that was not something that I wanted her to grow up thinking that was normal. And I really thought about her before anything, and I just realized that this will be the best thing that I ever do for my daughter. My mom was such a strong woman, and I want to raise my daughter the

same way. I want her to look at me and think one day when she grows up like my mom was a strong woman and she did everything she could to be happy, and so that I'm happy and have a good life. And don't get me wrong, it's not easy getting divorced, and there's different stages and it's difficult before it gets better, and I'm in the heart of it, and it is hard and dealing with lawyers and fighting

with an ex about custody or financials. It's not fun stuff, but I think that in the end it's going to be worth it for me and my daughter. And I wanted to do this podcast because I want you to know the different layers of me and to be able to talk about friendships, marriage, divorce, co parenting, having a child, being a mother, death, finding love again, business, real estate,

you name it. No topic is off limit. I have felt a lot of support from friends and even on Instagram people I don't know, and this is why I want to share, so that I feel the support and so that I can support you. So if there's anything you want to know or want me to talk about, please do share. I do read the comments. I see the good ones and the bad ones, so whatever you want, nothing is off limits. I've always been in the pursuit

of something, apparently ever since I was born. I've had a difficult life, and I have always been in the pursuit of happiness, of joy, and now sassiness. This isn't just my own pursuit of sassiness, but it's all of us. So I'm super excited that we're gonna go on this journey together.