From fleeing a revolution to becoming a Beverly Hills party boy and now, a Bravo star – Reza Farahan has lived a life few could imagine.
Now, the Shahs of Sunset star, 52, is spilling it all from exile to celebrity classmates, steamy encounters, and reality TV secrets in his explosive new book.
The Daily Mail got an exclusive early look at Memoirs of a Gay Shah: My Story of Family, Fame, and Becoming a King, ahead of its April 7 release.
At just four years old, Farahan’s family vacation from Tehran to Beverly Hills turned into a one-way trip.
His family would never return home due to the fiery revolution that toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought Islamic Republic leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power in 1979 – leaving his family stranded in the US and their wealth wiped out overnight.
‘Look around your house,’ he writes, ‘Seriously take a second and look around. Can you imagine walking away from it all thinking you’d be coming back after a week in Tokyo only to find out later that you’d never see any of it again?
Shahs of Sunset star Reza Farahan opens up about fleeing Iran, finding fame in Beverly Hills and the wild moments behind his new tell-all memoir
Farahan was just four when he and his family left Tehran in what turned out to be permanent exile after Iran’s 1979 revolution
‘That’s how it was for us,’ he continues. ‘One minute we owned a nice house and successful business in Tehran, the next we’re terrified our green cards will get revoked for some indiscretion and our desire to become instant Americans will end up with a one-way trip back to face a hangman’s noose.’
His father, Manoochehr, was Jewish, and his mom Shahin a Muslim – a marriage that put them at risk under the new theocratic dictatorship.
When the Ayatollah took power he ‘hung people from cranes. People like my parents,’ he writes.
Fortunately, his family was able to rebuild their fortune in the US, thanks to his father’s shrewd business acumen and knowledge of the Persian rug market.
Soon, Farahan, would find himself growing up in what he calls ‘the Persian bubble’ of Beverly Hills with fellow exiles, including his longtime pal and future co-star Mercedes ‘MJ’ Javid, 53.
The teenaged Reza could be seen driving up to Beverly Hills High School in a brand new BMW and nice clothes.
Farahan reveals he even had a brief sexual relationship in high school with friend and future co-star Mercedes Javid before he came out
The explosive new book, Memoir of a Gay Shah – published April 7 – charts Reza Farahan’s journey from exile to reality TV stardom
Some of his more famous classmates included Erik Menendez and Monica Lewinsky.
‘Erik was in my health class,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘When a girl who sat next to me asked why my car was so much nicer than Erik’s, he replied, “the mafia blew up my Porsche.”
According to Farahan, Lewinsky was on the scene, but the two ran in different social circles. He would later bump into her often as they all lived in the same building in the upscale Wilshire corridor of Los Angeles.
He’d see her again in his twenties, when she did photoshoot with Herb Ritts at a popular gym where he was working at the time.
The memoir chronicles his journey to being the out and proud man he is today – which includes his brief sexual encounter with Javid in high school.
‘Yes, MJ and I boned,’ he writes. ‘If you wanted some salacious Shah’s tell-all fodder, there you have it. The truth is out there.
‘Although I’m gay – and have been since I learned what sex was – I wasn’t anywhere near ready to come out at that point.’
He describes a sex romp in the shower where things got ‘steamier’ than he had intended with his best friend.
Farahan and longtime friend Mercedes Javid have been close since their teenage years in Beverly Hills
Farahan has risen to fame on Bravo’s hit reality show Shahs of Sunset, which followed the lives of Iranian-Americans in Los Angeles including Golnesa Gharachedaghi (left) and Mercedes Javid
But it is his sexual encounter in his twenties with The Biggest Loser fitness coach Bob Harper, 60, that nearly had a fancy hotel in Beverly Hills nearly burn down.
Farahan recalls renting an expensive suite at L’Ermitage for his first encounter with the handsome trainer.
Along with bottles of Cristal, Dom Perignon, grapes, and other snacks, ‘I lit what must have been a hundred of those little votive candles.’
Their liaison ‘surpassed my wildest fantasies’, he admits.
Afterwards, the two got hungry and he tried to call down for room service. The phone went dead. He then realized the phone cord was on fire.
‘I freaked out. I launched, screaming from the bed, inadvertently sweeping more candles off the nightstand, dumping wax everywhere. One of them lands on my pillow and burns a hole in it,’ he writes.
‘I’m scrambling around the room trying to put out these little fires. I accidentally kicked the platform bed which is of course flush to the ground.
‘I kicked it full force too, and I broke two of my toes. No joke. I was wailing in pain.
Farahan recounts a chaotic early romance with fitness trainer Bob Harper (pictured with Jillian Michaels) that ended in a near-disaster hotel fire
Farahan now lives in Los Angeles with his husband Adam Neely (pictured together with co-star Golnessa) after more than a decade together
‘The room was a mini inferno. Bob was cracking up. This whole dream-date turned into the most expensive hookup ever.’
In 2015, Bob Harper was asked about his romance with Reza on Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live show, and said yes, he had a ‘tawdry past.’
‘We had a thing – a very, very, very long time ago!’ Adding, ‘I love Reza though.’
Reza writes in the book that he and Bob remain friends and that he even sold his house for him recently.
Other inside-baseball revelations of the memoir include a look at how reality shows really get those explosive fights and rating-grabbing moments from their cast members.
Reza recalls getting taxi vouchers from production so that the cast would be encouraged to drink and yet get home safely.
Farahan – seen taking part in protests against Iran’s oppressive regime in 2022 – reflects on his home country’s turbulent past and present in his book
‘Nothing like a little social lubricant to pump up the volume.’
One problem was that if the taxi drivers knew you were using one of these they wouldn’t pick you up.
‘It’s apparently a lot of paperwork for them and they don’t want to do it.
‘So, you had to call them, get in, wait until you got to your destination, then pop the voucher on them.’
There are plenty of behind-the scenes revelations about some of the first and last seasons of Shahs which aired from 2012-2021.
Ryan Seacrest Productions had initially wanted to call the reality show, ‘The Sultans of Sunset,’ until the Persian cast informed them there were no Sultans in Iran, and that everyone admired and wanted to be like the Shahs who ruled the country before the revolution.
‘The Shah’s Iran was progressive, opulent, glamorous, and promoting of an open and inclusive society.
‘The Shah himself was grand. He wore a huge crown and a cape. A real-life man in a cape? He was Superman to me!’
The book was written prior to the demise of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei who was assassinated on February 28 in a massive air strike on his compound in the center of Tehran by Israeli and US forces.
Subsequent strikes had eliminated possible replacements by the regime.
Reza proudly became a US citizen in 2000.
‘To us, [Khamenei] was ten times worse than Osama Bin Laden. The equivalent of someone like Hitler who has destroyed the country, killed so many people, and sponsors terrorism globally. For us, it felt like pure evil had been eliminated.’
While he dreams to go back to visit Iran one day, he says he doesn’t want to be on one of those first flights.
‘Maybe to be on the 17th or 18th flight of tourists that go in and come back. I want to make sure gay people aren’t killed upon arrival.
‘I want to make sure we’re good, good, right? I don’t need to test the water.’
Reza is a successful real estate agent living in Los Angeles with his husband of a over a decade Adam Neely and can be seen in the hit Bravo show The Valley: Persian Style.
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