Selling The OC, Netflix’s Selling Sunset spinoff that premiered in 2022, is back for its highly-anticipated second season. In addition to more massive properties, relationship rumors, and workplace drama, Season 2 introduces an unexpected new cast member: Ali Harper.
Ali, whose full name is Alexandra Harper, has to use a nickname for obvious reasons. But the fact that she’s the FOURTH Alexandra in the Orange County office isn’t the most surprising thing about her. What really baffled me is the fact that she randomly joined the cast of this real estate reality show, and was hired by real estate mogul Jason Oppenheim himself, without — wait for it — A REAL ESTATE LICENSE. She really did that!
Ali Harper’s sheer presence in Selling The OC Season 2, plus the fact that the show portrays her hiring as fully unplanned, is bold, absolutely nonsensical, and lightly terrifying. Yet, here she is! She made it to the real estate/reality TV big leagues by essentially flying to Orange County from Nashville, walking into an O Group open house, and chatting up the show’s stars. It’s impressive, really!
So who is Selling The OC‘s Ali Harper? What was she doing before she joined the show? And what’s her age and Instagram handle? Here’s everything to know about the new Season 2 cast member and aspiring realtor.
Ali Harper is a 30-year-old Miss USA pageant winner from Nashville, Tennessee who starred in 2018 episodes of Music City, a CMT series about “a group of aspiring young entertainers” who “pursue the ultimate superstardom in Nashville as they balance their career ambitions with love, everyday life and the connections they make along the way.” You can follow her on Instagram at @alexandra__harper, where she currently has 15,800 followers and a feed full of food porn and delicious recipes. And you can learn a lot about her from Selling The OC Season 2, as well.
We first meet Ali in Season 2, Episode 2 when she walks into an O Group open house at one of Tyler’s dad’s listings and hits it off with Tyler, Polly, and Austin. She explained that she’s interested in the real estate market and her boyfriend flies from Nashville to Orange County every week for work, so she doesn’t know anyone in the area.
After Polly escorted her to the house’s million-dollar kitchen, Ali casually dropped the fact that she was in a Miss USA pageant and was crowned as Miss Tennessee USA. Per Harper’s alma mater, The University of Tennessee, she won the crown in 2017, decades after her mother won the pageant in 1981.
Ali explained that she’s dabbled a bit in Nashville real estate, but since she and her boyfriend are considering relocating to The OC, she figured it made more sense to get her license there. Polly, relating to her story, invited her to the O Group office to meet the rest of the team and hopefully impress the boss. And in Episode 3, Ali took her up on the offer.
Her trip to the office raised suspicions with Gio, made a good impression on Alexandra Jarvis, and secured her an impromptu interview with Jason, who asked her why he should hire her without a license, what her grades were (?!), and why she’s interested in real estate. (She loves people, of course! Oh yeah, and houses!) Later in the season Ali met Jarvis for lunch and the two bonded over Nashville, their similar lifestyles, and their shared Conservative Christian backgrounds. Oh, I forgot to mention that Ali refers to her Nashville fam as The Kardashians of the South.
Speaking of Nashville, Selling The OC even took us to Tennessee to film Ali in her mom Sharon’s house and show the two trying to decide if she should relocate to California and become a realtor. (Of course she’s going to do that! There’s a camera crew in her mom’s house!) In the finale, Ali tells the rest of the cast that she’s officially joining The O Group, which concerns Gio, who remains unconvinced she’s serious about real estate.
Ali bets Gio that she can sell a house within two months after she gets her license, and if she wins, Gio has to strut through the office in a bikini as a nod to her pageant days. For the sake of good reality TV, let’s hope she proves him right. But we’ll have to wait for Season 3 to find out.
Selling The OC is now streaming on Netflix.