22 The Times Magazinenna Shay lowers her voice to a
conspiratorial whisper – so that she
cannot be overheard by the half-
dozen people who are waiting in
the room next door for her to
begin a photoshoot. “Let’s go
shopping right now,” she says,
giggling. “Or do you want to
come to New York with me at
the weekend? You can stay with
me in the presidential suite at the Carlyle.”
Well, gosh, I demur, the thing is... Shay
cuts in: “People put too much thought into
the stupidest things,” she declares dismissively.
“If you want to come, just come.”
This is classic Anna Shay: hugely impulsive,
strangely charismatic, very bossy and
fabulously bonkers. She is the breakout star
of Bling Empire, the Netflix reality television
series. The show focuses on a group of
wealthy Asian and Asian-Americans living in
jaw-dropping opulence in Los Angeles and has
echoes of the 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians. The
difference, of course, is that whereas Crazy
Rich Asians was fiction, Bling Empire is – as
Shay puts it – “unscripted reality”. After
spending a day with Shay, 62, I begin to
believe the unscripted part is true: you
simply could not make her up.
We meet at her Beverly Hills home, a
lavish Tuscan-style villa perched high in the
hills, invisible from the road. Security cameras- and a security guard – overlook the long
drive leading up to her gate, which is no
ordinary gate but a 12ft wrought iron sculpture
that resembles a tangle of antlers. It quickly
becomes clear that “understated” is not part
of Shay’s aesthetic.
The daughter of the late billionaire
industrialist Edward Shay and his Japanese-
Russian wife, Ai Oizumi, Shay is an unlikely
reality TV star. Until Bling Empire aired, she
had enjoyed a private, almost reclusive life,
married and divorced four times. She had no
social media profile and, although a familiar
figure in the designer stores of Rodeo Drive,
was otherwise unknown. Now she has
325,000 followers on Instagram and Bling
Empire is one of Netflix’s biggest hits.
Shay is the show’s mischievous matriarch,
hugely generous to her friends, capable of
felling an enemy with a single withering
glance. She seems to speak and act with no
filter. In the show, she first appears on camera
taking a sledgehammer to her closet wall with
impressive might, despite being barefoot in a
strapless red designer dress and diamonds.
“Oh my God, Anna,” pleads her best friend
Maria. “You have to call the construction
people.” “No, Maria,” says Anna. “Why?”
asks Maria. “Because they’re stupid.”
A similar scene plays out today. Shay,
delighted at the photographer’s idea that
she brandish a paintbrush as she balances on
Louis Vuitton suitcases, wants to take it several
steps further and actually start redecorating
her house. “Please don’t paint the staircase,”
cries Maria. “I am going to paint it,” announces
Shay adamantly, dunking the brush into a
container of green paint. “Please stop!” pleads
Maria, in vain, as Shay daubs the railings.
When season one of Bling Empire was
filmed, Shay was living in what is rumoured to
be Shirley Temple’s former home, later owned
by Italian mobster Tony Milano. But she has
moved since then and her new house has a
different sort of pedigree: talkshow host Phil
McGraw bought it in 2007 for his son Jordan,
who was 20, and it has been decorated in a
sort of goth-horror homage to Tim Burton,
director of Beetlejuice. Shay got rid of the fake
slithering snakes that dripped over the banisters
but left much of the interior unchanged: there
are still light fixtures slung in black chains, a
wall of guns in solidified dripping tar behind a
glass screen, and a shiny black kitchen.
Shay settles on a sofa in a darkened room,wearing a pink baggy sweatshirt and tracksuit
bottoms covered in dog hairs (she has two
elderly golden retrievers). She describes how
her old friend Jeff Jenkins, the TV producer
best known for Keeping Up with the
Kardashians, asked her to be in Bling Empire.
At first she assumed he wanted her to help
behind the scenes in production. When she
understood what he was asking her, she was
staggered. “I said, ‘Do you realise how old I
am? Do you realise I’m not supposed to be in
front of the camera? I’m fiercely shy and there
are all these girls who want to be actresses.
I’ve never wanted to be one.’ Jeff is like, ‘But
Anna, you’re so funny.’ I said, ‘There’s nothing
funny about me. And let’s not forget I always
run late: that would mean going over budget
and over time. You are better off without me.’”
Jenkins persisted and eventually she agreed- to shut him up. She was confused when she
started receiving cheques from Netflix and
did not bother cashing them. Of course, she
doesn’t exactly need the money... “It’s not a
matter of need or not need. It’s a matter of,
‘Why?’ I did this not thinking about the
money. But then I got in trouble [for not
cashing them].” So she has now put the money
aside so that the Bling Empire crew can have
a big party. “The crew put up with me – I’ve
tried to fire myself so many times.”
She takes delight in sharing her money and
genuinely seems to have no ulterior motive
in her generosity. This, combined with her
ebullience, is what has charmed viewers. In
one episode, she is pulled over by the police
for riding a hoverboard down Rodeo Drive.
Unfazed, she just wags her finger at them.
And they obediently back off.
The cameras often follow her on shopping
trips. Does she ever look at prices? “No,
never!” exclaims Shay today. “I know I sound
like a snob. Maria got so mad at me yesterday
because I didn’t know the price of gas.” So
Maria keeps you real? “She doesn’t know the
price of gas either. She just pretends to.”
Everyone comments on her childlike
qualities. “Anna is very innocent,” explains
Maria, “like a little kid.” Even her 28-year-old
son, Kenny, is bemused by her. “It’s true,”
giggles Shay. “Kenny says to me, ‘Mum, don’t
be so ridiculous. Why don’t you grow up?’ ”
Her guilelessness means that people often
take advantage of her. “The problem is she
trusts everybody,” explains Maria. “I am
62 years old,” says Shay, “and I think at 57
I figured out that not all people are good.”
This was the year that her bookkeeper stole
nearly $6 million of jewellery from her. Even
then Shay found it hard to condemn her.
“I figured [she] really needed it.”
I ask her if money makes it harder to work
out whether people are genuine. “Or not!”
jokes Shay. She has learnt to navigate people
“with time and instinct and knowledge. I go in
believing or wanting to believe that the whole
world is good. [But] you learn about jealousy
and envy: when you don’t know what those
feelings are, it’s very hard to understand how
to deal with it... People get intimidated by
[money]. They hate you for it, without even
getting to know you. Some people will say
‘You owe me.’
“I think money is the root of all evil,” she
continues. “It can hurt people. They say that
blood is thicker than water, but not when it
comes to money. And it’s really sad, because
the most important things in life are those
things that money cannot buy. I’d rather have
my parents than the money.”
She worships her late parents – literally.
There is a shrine to them in the front hall, full
of photographs, vases of roses and miniature
bottles of their favourite drinks: Grand Marnier
and whisky. “My mother would have Grand
Marnier with milk in a tea cup.” Her father died
in 1995 and her mother in 2015. “There is not
one day that I don’t think about my parents.”
Born in Japan in 1960, Shay moved to the
States when she was eight and attended the
Buckley School in the San Fernando Valley
area of Los Angeles (other former students
include Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton).
She has an older half-brother from her
mother’s first marriage and a younger brother,A
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SHE’S BEEN MARRIED
FOUR TIMES. ‘I HAVEN’T
HAD A BAD DIVORCE. THE
PARTIES WERE AMAZING’