Ryan Serhant Breaks His Silence on Controversial Owning Manhattan Fight

Ryan Serhant is seeing certain situations — including a controversial onscreen fight — different after watching season 2 of Owning Manhattan.

“So I just want to clear up that I saw the show for the first time this weekend too,” Ryan, 41, shared in an Instagram video on Monday, December 8. “I know I am an executive producer and I saw a lot of it when we finished filming in May, but I didn’t see the final cuts like the rest of you guys.”

The CEO of SERHANT only learned more information once the second season premiered on Friday, December 5.

“So the actual context of these scenes and how they went down has taken me a minute to process,” he noted. “There’s definitely some things in both Miami and with Nile and that whole scene that I would have handled differently.”

Ryan concluded: “I just wanted you to hear it from me that I am processing it at the same time.”

Owning Manhattan follows Ryan and the agents at his real estate firm as they tackle New York City’s most expensive listings in their pursuit of becoming the number one firm in the city. The first season starred Chloe Tucker Cane, Nile, Tricia Lee, Jade Shenker, Jessica Markowski, Jessica Taylor, Jordan Hurt, Jonathan Nørmølle, Jordan March, Savannah Gowarty and Jeffrey St. Arromand.

Season 2 featured a tense scene where Jess Taylor and colleague Eric approached newbie Genesis Suero in the office to accuse her of attempting to steal a client. Genesis denied any wrongdoing but the situation took an uncomfortable turn as Eric and Jess stood over her, which caused Nile to step in.

“You never come up to a woman in a business scenario, stand above her, and say ‘We need to talk,’” Nile fired back. “You don’t talk to her like that!”

Nile and Eric nearly started a physical fight, which Ryan later addressed. He was more upset with Nile after hearing the basic outline of the fight but has since reconsidered which side he reprimanded after getting more context — and saw the backlash online.

Viewers of the show took to social media to defend Genesis while calling Jess out for potential “micro-aggressive” behavior. Jess, for her part, has yet to address the reaction after getting emotional on screen over the confrontation.

Ryan, meanwhile, spoke exclusively to Us Weekly about how working on a show like Owning Manhattan meant going all in.

“I made a deal with myself and my family and my company and Netflix. I said, ‘If we’re going to make this show, we’re going to put it all on the table. We really make sure that people know when they’re watching it, ‘Holy s***, this is real. This is authentic. This is uncomfortable at times. This is hilarious at other times, and this is really inspirational right now,’” he told Us. “The CEO side, though, is a big part of the struggle. There’s going to be professional and personal sacrifice for anybody who has ever loved what they do. Sometimes when you love it too much, it could potentially be a bad thing. I have fallouts with three of the main cast members this season and it’s brutal — and it has to be on camera because it’s real.”

He concluded: “It’s always really hard and I’m actually super nervous for people to watch it. I just do the best I can and hopefully the world sees that I’m trying my hardest.”

Owning Manhattan is currently streaming on Netflix.