Kemsley is no stranger to the camera; he will be familiar to fans of reality TV show The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, where he has appeared alongside his wife, Dorit. But the Jewish estate agent never imagined he would end up in glamorous Beverly Hills, let alone in front of the camera.
Neither, perhaps, could his local shul. Growing up in Stanmore, Kemsley and his family were members of Edgware & District Reform Synagogue — although the young PK was expelled for letting off a stink bomb there.
He became an estate agent at 17, went on to establish a property empire said to be worth £500million, and even served as a vice chairman of Tottenham Hotspur.
Yet it all came crashing down when the 2008 financial crisis hit: the business went bust and Kemsley was declared bankrupt.
Paul Kemsley in Super Selling Houses (Photo: Channel 4)
But, showing true Jewish grit, he dusted himself down and moved to the US to rebuild his career.
Now, after 13 years in LA, he has set up a super-prime property division on his home turf, at London’s RIB agency, where he is a 50 per cent stakeholder, to sell the UK’s most impressive homes.
Viewers have already got a taste of what is to come on Selling Super Houses, with the property tycoon testing contestants’ mettle, putting them in “uncomfortable positions” and introducing them to people that “they would ordinarily not meet”.
Things will “heat up” as the challenges become tougher and, Kemsley promises, he too “become tougher”.
Paul and Dorit Kemsley (Photo: Getty Images)
But while he may inspire fear in the contenders vying for a job — and he’s certainly no gentle Great British Bake Off-style judge — he insists that he isn’t as terrifying as Lord Alan Sugar, despite the comparisons drawn between the two.
“I’m much nicer,” Kemsley laughs. In fact, the pair have worked together before; from 2005 until 2008 Kemsley appeared alongside Lord Sugar in episodes of The Apprentice, assisting him with the interview process.
Armed with his industry experience and ability to pick himself up following a setback, Kemsley serves as part-judge, and part-guide on Selling Super Houses, providing a role model for the budding estate agents starting out in their careers.
“Everyone should have a mentor,” Kemsley believes.
Aspiring estate agents competing for the job of a lifetime, showcasing and selling super prime properties for Paul Kemsley in Super Selling Houses (Photo: Channel 4)
It should not come as a surprise then that he, too, has a mentor: the Jewish, Hendon-born founder of Planet Hollywood, Robert Earl, who lives in the US and with whom Kemsley speaks “all the time, every day”.
What does the property magnate’s own home look like? Kemsley says his Beverly Hills pad is very modern, measures 11,000 sq ft and is decked out with mezuzahs that Dorit kisses daily.
He describes his family as “observant traditionalists”. They keep a kosher house and Dorit, whose father is Israeli, speaks Hebrew. The couple’s children — Phoenix, aged seven, and Jagger, nine — are home-schooled in Jewish studies.
For the High Holy Days, the family go to shul, at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and they celebrate all the Jewish holidays: “The Kemsleys tend to celebrate anything!”
One of the mansions featured on Selling Super Houses (Photo: Channel 4)
Reflecting on his career, he credits his business success to both the people who surround and support him, and his own lack of fear. He said: “I was not frightened to take a risk, and [I’ve] proven over my life that I had the ability to pick myself up when things went wrong.”
As for whether he could have dreamt as a teenager that he would one day front a primetime TV show, he adds: “Absolutely not. I’ve [found myself in] so many surreal scenarios.
“When I was a kid going to Tottenham Hotspur in the stands, I could never imagine that I would be in the boardroom. It was inconceivable.
“I could not imagine half of what has happened to me.”
