Two sides to every story? Robert Drenk, who went on a blind date with Chrishell Stause during season 4 of Selling Sunset, is convinced she was already with boyfriend Jason Oppenheim during the cast’s yacht party.
“100 percent. It’s a fact. Yes, she was with Jason,” Robert exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, December 16, claiming that the 4-year-old reality star’s actions on their boat date were a result of her already being in a relationship. “They had been hooking up prior to that. There’s no way you would go on a date, a friendly [date], and then not even give the guy any time of day to get to know you whatsoever. I could feel the awkwardness.”
Chrishell was set up with Tarek El Moussa’s friend on the new season of the Netflix series, which debuted last month. While the Dancing With the Stars alum hung out with her costars on the upper deck, Robert grabbed her and carried her to another part of the boat so they could “get to know each other.”
Robert told Us, however, that the scene was taken out of context and didn’t happen right after they were introduced.
“Everybody thinks, like, ‘Hey, here’s Robert. He just man-handled her and took control of her.’ And no, that’s not what happened at all. That wasn’t the intention,” he explained. “I’m a funny, outgoing Scorpio guy [who] likes to have fun. So that was my last attempt at trying to get to know Chrishell as I walked to the back of the boat when they were all fun and bubbly.”
Chrishell Stause and Jason Oppenheim with Robert Drenk insetted. Shutterstock; Inset: MEGA
The businessman claimed the production crew was pushing the “narrative of us getting to know each other.” In a final effort to follow their story line, he tried — and failed — to get her attention.
“I had walked back there and I put my hand out and she grabbed my hand and I’m like, ‘Hey, you’re too hot. You know, I wanna cool you off.’ [I was] just being funny, [but] it came across super bad, obviously, but I was nervous,” he said on Thursday. “It was my real first time on any type of reality TV show. So, maybe I didn’t say the right thing. I put my hand out, she grabbed it and she came kind of into my arms. I just picked her up and walked her over [there] and I was trying to be cute and flirty.”
After the awkward moment — and hours of filming on a cold yacht — Robert told Us he “took off” and ran to his car. He claimed that once he got to his vehicle, Chrishell tried to talk to him, but he was done with the whole situation.
“To be honest with you, I was so hurt [and] I felt so used. I’d never once in my life been on any type of date that I was treated like that — just ignored and belittled pretty much,” he said. “I turned around and I kind of just put my hand up and I was like, ‘Hey, no thanks, Chrishell.’”
Robert recalled blocking the former soap opera star on Instagram after the disastrous date because he wanted to “move on” from the bad experience. “Honestly, [I was] in disbelief that A: my friend would even put me in that type of situation and B: how she handled herself,” he added.
The way he sees it, Chrishell’s discomfort was a sure sign that she was seeing Jason, 44, at the time.
“I was there and I’m a human, I’m a normal person. I can feel when something’s off. … So when I felt that this was way off, I just couldn’t grasp that,” Robert continued. “It was Jason. I was like, ‘Really? You’re gonna date your boss?’ I don’t date people I work with [because that] doesn’t make for good business. So I never grasped that, but it really hit five days later when we were in Las Vegas [together]. That’s when I knew, like, for sure. I was like, ‘Oh, crap.’ And Heather [Rae Young] knew.”
The Days of Our Lives actress recently slammed Robert after he questioned the timing of her relationship with the real estate broker. “Jason & I did hook up in Vegas that weekend actually after he had put it out there but I wasn’t sure,” she wrote via social media on Tuesday, December 14. “Thank you for showing me what I did NOT want.”
She concluded: “I was single. You were rude. It wasn’t a match. Let’s all move on please.”
Robert, however, told Us on Thursday that there’s “no doubt” in his mind that they were an item when the boat date took place prior to Chrishell and Jason’s Las Vegas rendezvous.
“I would go as far [as] to say, and not to come off the wrong way, but if Chrishell wanted to take, like, a polygraph [test] to prove that — if she proved that [she] and Jason had no relationship or no connection at that point — I’ll donate $50,000 to a charity of her choice,” Robert added. “If she’s that honest, I would happily do that, but I don’t think that’s the case.”
The Kentucky native and her boss went public with their romance in July while on a European vacation.
“Chrishell and I became close friends and it has developed into an amazing relationship,” Jason told Us at the time. “I care about her deeply and we’re very happy together.”
Selling Sunset season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
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