Netflix / YouTube Sonika Vaid of "Buying Beverly Hills"
Many people experience one, if not several, career changes in their lives, and “American Idol” contestants are no different. Season 15’s fifth-place finisher Sonika Vaid has pivoted from music to real estate, and is now a regular cast member on the new Netflix reality show “Buying Beverly Hills”.
Vaid is a junior realtor at The Agency, a luxury real estate company based in Los Angeles and founded by Mauricio Umansky, husband to “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Kyle Richards. “Buying Beverly Hills” follows a group of The Agency’s employees including Vaid, Umansky, and his daughters, senior agent Farrah Brittany and junior agent Alexia Umansky.
Sonika Vaid Sings on ‘Buying Beverly Hills’
All eight episodes of “Buying Beverly Hills” are out now on Netflix. In the show, Sonika Vaid works for The Agency as a junior realtor for the Grauman Rosenfeld Group. Vaid and her colleague Brandon Graves are mentored in the series by senior agent Jon Grauman. Vaid also works alongside her boyfriend Kevin Stewart, who is another realtor at The Agency.
Prior to working for The Agency, Vaid had been pursuing singing after a very successful run on “American Idol” season 15. Vaid first auditioned at 20 years old with “Look At Me” by Carrie Underwood, which Harry Connick Jr. called a “perfect performance”. Jennifer Lopez and Keith Urban agreed, and the judges skipped the formal vote and just insisted Vaid was going to Hollywood. After surviving Hollywood and a good run in the live shows, Vaid fell in the bottom multiple weeks in a row and was eliminated in fifth place.
Although Vaid has taken a step away from singing to focus on her real estate career, she seizes multiple opportunities to sing during the series and says her love of singing has not lessened at all, and that she wants to still pursue music and real estate.
In the premiere episode, Vaid and Graves meet other junior agents Alexia Umansky and Joey Ben-Zvi out for drinks. When the discussion moves to their creative passions, Vaid sings a few lines of an original song, garnering applause from the surrounding tables.
In the finale episode, Grauman invites Vaid to a meeting with comedian, actress, and writer Whitney Cummings, to see her newly renovated home that she is thinking about putting up for sale. At this point in the series, Vaid is still torn between her loves of real estate and singing and is in need of a confidence boost. During the meeting, her “American Idol” past comes up, so Cummings asks her to sing. Vaid delivers, giving viewers a verse of “Amazing Grace” to show off Cummings’s new home’s acoustics.
Sonika Vaid Released a New Single
In addition to the release of “Buying Beverly Hills”, November 4th marked the release of a new single by Sonika Vaid. The “American Idol” finalist and realtor put out a new song “Lost”, a song about being lost in a relationship, to coincide with her new Netflix show. At the time of publication, Vaid has not posted about “Lost” on her Instagram page.
Prior to “Lost”, Vaid has released four singles, three of which are with collaborator Sam Smyers. Vaid also auditioned for “The Voice” prior to her “American Idol” success. The singer auditioned with “Give Your Heart a Break” by Demi Lovato, but failed to secure a chair turn from any of the fourth season’s coaches, Adam Levine, Shakira, Usher, or Blake Shelton.
All episodes of “Buying Beverly Hills” are available now on Netflix.
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