‘RHOM’ Newcomer Stephanie Shojaee Dishes on Her Clash With Alexia Nepola: ‘It Gets Really Bad’ (Exclusive)

The Real Housewives of Miami‘s Stephanie Shojaee is teasing rough waters ahead with Alexia Nepola.

The newest Housewives cast member opened up to PopCulture.com after making her debut on Season 7 last week, revealing that the whole experience was a bit of a “roller coaster ride.”

“One day, I was loving it and I thought, ‘This was a great decision,’” she recalled of filming. “The next day, I was like, ‘This was a horrible decision. I should have listened to my friends and not done this.’”

One of the Housewives Shojaee “struggled to mesh with” throughout the season was Nepola. “It was really tough. I was like, we’re never going to understand each other,” explained the president of real estate developer Shoma Group. While Bravo fans have seen the two women go at it in the Season 7 trailer, Shojaee told PopCulture, “That’s nothing. Wait ’til the trip. It gets really bad.”

Asked about the root of her feud with Nepola, Shojaee answered, “I just feel like — she’s a queen, I’m a queen. I just feel like I don’t have to tell people I’m a queen. So when I’m with a queen that has to tell everybody they’re the queen, it irks me the wrong way.” She continued, “We’re also both very opinionated and you know, sometimes there just isn’t room for two of us in the same room if it’s not a large enough room.”

Shojaee said that despite it all, she and Nepola did eventually come to an understanding and are “really close” now.

Shojaee had no idea what she was in for when she first agreed to join RHOM. While she had on-camera experience, having previously filmed a reality show based on real estate developers that was never picked up, she had “never sat down” and watched an episode of the Bravo show.

Shojaee does have plenty of Bravo connections, however. She was close with both RHOM co-star Larsa Pippen and Real Housewives of Dubai star Caroline Stanbury before joining the world of Housewives, and while Shojaee joked that Pippen “threatened” to “kill” her if she didn’t sign on, Stanbury wasn’t so sure.

“Caroline Stanbury at first was very adamant about me not doing it,” Shojaee admitted. “She said, ‘You absolutely don’t need this. This is just crazy. This is just you liking the experience of having shot your last two pilots. I don’t think you should do this. It brings in a lot of opinions from the world.’”

“And then she called me back like a couple days later and she was like, ‘You know what, maybe you should do it, because you’ll regret it if you don’t,” Shojaee continued.

Shojaee also got some words of wisdom from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Lisa Rinna before signing on. “I had just met her, so her initial advice was don’t do it,” she recalled. “And then she got to know me, and after 15 minutes, she was like, ‘Oh my god, girl, you’re crazy. The things you say are wild. You’re meant for TV. You need to do this. You’ll love it. If you’re just yourself, it’ll be great.”

The Real Housewives of Miami airs Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo and the next day on Peacock.