Selling Sunset costars Bre Tiesi and Heather Rae El Moussa are BFF goals — through thick and thin.
“[Heather,] I don’t even know where to start!! You instantly became one of my closest friends,” Tiesi, 32, wrote via Instagram Story on Saturday, September 16, sharing a birthday tribute to El Moussa, 36. “I am so grateful that I had such a genuine, compassionate human with me in the hardest year of my life.”
She continued: “Sending you so much love and blessing on your birthday.”
Tiesi — who did not detail why this past year has been so difficult — met El Moussa when she joined the cast of Selling Sunset in season 6. Tiesi’s reality TV arrival came shortly after she welcomed her first baby, son Legendary, with Nick Cannon in July 2022. (Cannon, 42, is also a father to 11 other children from different relationships.)
During Tiesi’s Oppenheim Group debut, she quickly bonded with El Moussa over motherhood. El Moussa was pregnant with her first baby with husband Tarek El Moussa at the time. Heather and Tarek, who shares two older children with ex-wife Christina Hall, welcomed son Tristan in January.
“She was the closest [costar] that I got to in the beginning,” Tiesi exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, September 12. “I spent a lot of time with Heather in season 6, so I love her. I adore her, and we were literally a couple months apart [at the] same part in our lives. I think it was also really cool and helpful to her because there was a lot of things I wish people would’ve told me. So, it may have scared her a little bit, but I had to give her the real [truth about postpartum].”
Heather Rae and Bre Tiesi. BG020/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Heather, according to Tiesi, was “absolutely” grateful for the candid postpartum advice. “Even after, she’s like, ‘Girl, you were right,” Tiesi quipped to Us. “She’ll be texting me at 3:00 in the morning because I’m already up. And she’s like, ‘Girl, I’m crying right now.’ I’m like, ‘Me too, it’s fine.’ So it [is] a really good support system.”
While Tiesi gushed about watching her pal as a new mom, she admitted that it was hard to film season 7 without Heather. (The Flipping El Moussas star previously claimed that she wasn’t asked back for most of the season even after her maternity leave had ended.)
“Oh, yeah [I missed her.] I mean, I love Heather and we [are] so close,” Tiesi said on Tuesday. “I mean, she is a part of [season] 7, but just the dynamics are different because I actually get to hang out with everybody a little bit more, and I’m not at home with a newborn.”
Tiesi’s first season saw her frequently defending her non-monogamous relationship with Cannon, which made the overall experience difficult. “I think it was just I’m already sleep-deprived, and I am arguing or defending myself or just trying to be in a whole new situation,” she theorized. “So, I think a lot of it was just [that] I was too tired to deal with anything.”
For season 7, Tiesi was “ further along [in her] postpartum” journey and felt “a little bit more human.”
“I think I just started to get a little more comfortable, to be honest,” she shared with Us. “And I really got to bond with the girls a lot more in 7 than I did in 6. So, I think that dynamic shows a little bit more [of] my personality, which is what I really felt wasn’t shown too much in 6. I was a little bit more defense mode [at the time.]”
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
