Q & A with Shauna Raisch

An encounter with reality TV star Shauna Raisch in real life is just as intense as it is on TV. I’ve actually known Raisch for a long time, before she became a local “situation,” so to speak, with two ridiculously dramatic appearances on Bravo’s The Millionaire Matchmaker. Whenever I would bump into her—this is way before she locked horns with cartoon-like characters such as Matchmaker’s Patti Stanger—she was already acting like she was an eccentric phenomenon living on prime-time cable. The 42-year-old owner of Wayzata’s sleek Twiggs Salonspa was usually dressed in something tight and black, whether at a charity event or poolside at the Calhoun Beach Club, and she always had her goofy little gelled-up nephew David in tow. If anybody actually deserved to be on reality TV, it was Raisch.

Do you think Millionaire Matchmaker worked out? It seemed like you volunteered to be humiliated.
Well, you haven’t been on reality TV, but the shows definitely set you up. It all happens in the editing room.

But you did stiff the 52-year-old guy, right? That wasn’t a camera trick.
I did. That was not a camera trick. But he wasn’t 52. I think he was in his later 60s. He looked like it to me, anyway. Again, that wouldn’t necessarily matter to me.

It was funny when you accused that guy of having “old energy.”
Age doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t care if somebody is younger. I don’t care if they’re the same age. And I don’t care if they’re older. It is about their energy for me.

As long as they have young energy.
Yeah, actually. And it’s even more than just young energy. It’s just great energy. Exciting, fun energy that is going to add to my life versus taking away from it.

You come from a competitive hairstyling family, right?
Yup, both my mom and my dad.

What does it take to be a champion hairdresser?
What it takes to be a good competitive hairdresser is commitment and diligence. Just like when you watch the Olympics. Because if you don’t live and breathe that, you will not win.

Patti kept making mean jokes about you having to lose your penis. Do you think your competitive nature is what bothered her about you? She seems competitive too.
People who know me know that I have a lot of traits like Patti, but I’m very different than she is. I’m actually a very gentle-hearted person. I take care of everyone in my life. I lost my mother at age 15 and my dad was paralyzed when I was 19—I took care of him until he died when I was 22.

What is it about you that makes these people want to pick on you? Is it the plastic surgery?
Patti does not know at all what she is talking about. I’ve never had a facelift in my life.

You’re never separated from David in real life or TV. How do you think that relationship plays?
Biologically he’s my nephew, but in all other senses of the word, he’s my son. I have pretty much raised him. And we work together: David has wanted to be in my industry since the time he could talk or walk. I used to bring him mannequins so he could color their hair when he was 3 years old, and he had these big gloves on that would hardly stay on his hands. I have pictures that are so adorable you’d die.

Are you pulling a Heidi and Spencer by choosing to become a reality TV villain?
It’s not that I want to be a villain. I don’t. I never chose to be a villain.

But I don’t think that you have a choice anymore.
I do have a choice actually—I now know that I have to be extremely careful of who I allow to work with me. Because I believe I have a gifting. It’s not necessarily TV. Everybody has a gifting—some people just don’t know that they do. I’m still trying to figure out what mine is, but I know that I have a huge message to deliver.

Five Things You Didn't Know About Shauna Raisch
1. Her favorite restaurant in LA is Katsuya, “even though I don’t like raw fish at all.
2. Twiggs’ interior redesign will be highly influenced by Katsuya and STK, another LA favorite.
3. Her pet Chihuahua is named Gucci. “I feel if you have a pet you should love him beyond belief.”
4. David picked Gucci out in Beverly Hills.
5. Her moisturizer is Z. Bigatti.