“Selling Sunset” star Alanna Gold says she is “deeply sorry” for claiming to own a small town in California.
Gold, the newest real estate agent at the Oppenheim Group, a brokerage firm based in Los Angelees, says in Season 8 of the Netflix reality show that she and her husband, Adam Gold, “own a little Western town out in the desert.”
“It’s called Pioneertown,” she said on the show. “So I’m sheriff of a town, yeehaw!”
She also called Pioneertown her “home away from home,” and when Jason Oppenheim, the brokerage co-owner and one of the show’s stars, asked her how much it would cost to buy the town from her and her husband, she answered with a laugh, “You guys don’t get to know that. You can’t have it, it’s ours!”
She also spoke about Pioneertown in an interview with TODAY.com in September, saying she and her husband felt purchasing a “large portion” of Pioneertown was “an incredible opportunity not only to strengthen our ties to the community but also to preserve a piece of history.”
She said the couple and their business partner David Corso, as well as investor Gary Friedman, founded Pioneertown Land Management “with a mission to restore Pioneertown to its original vision and purpose.”
Pioneertown is a rural desert community near Joshua Tree, California, with a population of about 400 people.
The town was created in 1946 as a “living breathing movie set,” according to the town’s website. Pioneertown is built in the style of an 1880s Western town with rustic storefronts lining its dirt-paved main street, including a general mercantile and a custom leather and saddle shop.
Several classic Westerns were filmed in Pioneertown, including “Cisco Kid,” “The Range Rider” and “Buffalo Bill Jr.”
Soon after Gold claimed to own Pioneertown, the Pioneertown Gazette, a local newspaper, set the record straight in an Instagram post, with a statement attributed to the town's residents.
“Selling Sunset’s Alanna Gold does not ‘own Pioneertown,’” the statement began.
“The people of Pioneertown kindly request an apology from Selling Sunset and Alanna Gold,” the statement continued. “The baseless claims by Selling Sunset’s Alanna Gold that she ‘owns Pioneertown’ undermines 78 years of internationally celebrated film, arts and cultural history.”
The statement went on to say that Pioneertown is “privately owned by more than 100 independent parties” and said Gold “has a small minority non-controlling interest in an entity that owns six of 35 parcels in the Mane Street area, constituting less than 1% of Pioneertown’s total 640 acres.”
The statement concluded that “the claim that she owns the ‘entire town’ is verifiably false.”
After the Pioneertown Gazette released this statement, Gold responded with an apology message to the town’s residents, which representatives for Pioneertown provided to TODAY.com.
“I want to reach out to personally say I am so deeply sorry for the confusion I have caused. I certainly do not own Pioneertown, I never should have said that and I apologize for doing so,” she said. “I want you to know that I did not mean any harm, I absolutely love Pioneertown and I simply got too excited talking about it.
She added that she held her wedding at Pioneertown, and said she and her husband “wanted to become part of the community so we invested in a home and other properties there.”
“We are contacting any and all reporters to make sure they update their stories and correct the record,” her statement continued. “Again, I am so sorry to the people of Pioneertown, I would never want to disrespect the town’s history or any of the people who make it such a wonderful place.”
Gold and her fellow Oppenheimer Group agents took a group trip to Pioneertown in this season’s fifth episode, called “Once Alanna Time in the West.”
Lindsay Lowe has been a regular contributor to TODAY.com since 2016, covering pop culture, style, home and other lifestyle topics. She is also working on her first novel, a domestic drama set in rural Regency England.