Justin Hartley Had ‘Reservations’ About Chrishell Stause Joining ‘Selling Sunset’ Before Divorce

Selling Sunset fans want to know: Why did Justin Hartley and Chrishell Stause divorce? Netflix released the trailer for the upcoming third season on Friday, July 24, which showed the realtor in tears after news broke of her divorce from her husband of two years.

The trailer, which shows Stause’s Selling Sunset cast receive a news alert about her divorce from Hartley in real time, shows the soap star crying next to her costar Mary Fitzgerald, who asks if Hartley “blindsided” her with a divorce. Stause then nods yes. At the end of the trailer, Stause can be seen at her costar Christine Quinn’s wedding as another costar asks, “Obviously, Justin has his own side right?” That’s when Stause proceeds to leave and take off her microphone as she says, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

The This Is Us actor, who married the reality TV star in October 2017, filed for divorce in November 2019. He cited irreconcilable differences. Though Hartley claimed the date of the couple’s separation was July 8, Stause claimed that the couple separated on November 22, the day Hartley filed for divorce.

In an exclusive interview with StyleCaster in May, Stause confirmed that Hartley, like many close to her, had “reservations” about joining Selling Sunset in 2019 when they were still married. “I think everyone would probably have reservations signing up for something like this, which is fair,” she said at the time. “That was a normal conversation that you have with anybody in your life who cares about you. They were normal conversations of concern.”

Stause also told StyleCaster that she considered quitting the show, which was hinted in the scene of her leaving Quinn’s wedding. “If I’m being perfectly honest, my knee-jerk reaction was I can’t do this,” she said at the time. “[Quitting the show] did cross my mind. This isn’t something that anybody would sign up for or do on purpose. I would’ve given anything if everything had happened after. It’s a lot easier to talk about a little blurb and move on and just talk about the show. However, that being said, it was out there anyways, so now it’s almost like ripping a Band-Aid off.”

Stause also opened up to StyleCaster about how her life changed after news broke about her divorce and why, in the end, she decided to document her split for Selling Sunset. “All of a sudden, I had not only the show following me, I had paparazzi on me,” she said at the time. “It was the most bizarre thing I’d ever lived through in my life,” she says. “Even now, when I look back on it, it seemed like it was a dream. A nightmare, to be honest. I didn’t necessarily choose to talk about it. It was unavoidable. They filmed what was going on. I had to address it.”

As for why Justin Hartley and Chrishell Stause divorced, it’s still unclear. Stause’s Selling Sunset costar, Christine Quinn, told Page Six in July that the two were in therapy to fix their relationship. “We all just thought maybe they were having communication problems for a while,” Quinn told Page Six. “We heard that they were in therapy, so obviously there were some issues going on with them.”

Quinn continued, “I think… the understanding that they had is that he wanted to be totally private in regards to Selling Sunset, which she respected. So, we’re never going to see him on the show, and we’re never going to see her talk about him, and I really don’t think there’s ever any resolve unfortunately.”

However, Stause later tweeted that Quinn’s information about her marriage couldn’t be trusted. “Let me be VERY clear. She knows absolutely nothing about the situation and is obviously desperate to gain attention by doing so. Anything from her is either a complete lie or total conjecture on her part,” she wrote.

https://twitter.com/Chrishell7/status/1282767410940899328?s=20

TMZ also reported in December 2019 that Justin Hartley and Chrishell Stause may have divorced over money. The site reported that Hartley and his This Is Us costars signed a deal that would’ve paid them $250,000 per episode for the next three years. With 18 episodes a season, that would amount to $4.5 million each year. TMZ, which reported that the couple didn’t have a prenup, also speculated that Hartley listed his separation date as five months earlier than Stause to avoid his new salary being included in their divorce.

A source also told Us Weekly in November 2019 that Hartley hadn’t been happy in his marriage for a while. “Justin had been having problems with the marriage for a while,” the insider said at the time. Despite this the source added that “the divorce filing was a big surprise to everyone around Justin and Chrishell in terms of their friends.” So it looks like the only people who know why Justin Hartley and Chrishell Stause divorced is the couple themselves, and it’s best to keep it that way.