After stepping back from celebrity styling over a decade ago, Rachel Zoe has opened up about the dramatic reason why.

The fashionista, 54, cited a desire to focus on her family and build her businesses as to why she left styling 12 years ago, but revealed it was also because she had been burned one too many times by her assistants.

‘In full disclosure, I just couldn’t trust assistants,’ Zoe told People in a new interview.

‘I think after being completely betrayed, for lack of a better term, in various ways, by enough assistants and not being able to trust them with my clients and stuff to represent what I do and how I am with my clients, it just wasn’t worth it any ,’ she explained.

Zoe styled celebrity pals such as Jennifer Garner, Kate Hudson, Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan over the course of her career, saying they felt like her ‘extended family’ at times, and there was ‘no margin for error.’

‘I never wanted to let them down, ever,’ she explained.

Zoe added that she also couldn’t be with multiple clients at once, so it was vital to be able to trust her assistants to help her.

‘You have to be able to entrust that in people that represent your work, and if you can’t do that, the system is broken,’ she said.

After stepping back from celebrity styling over a decade ago, Rachel Zoe has opened up about the dramatic reason why. She’s seen earlier this month

Zoe has previously opened up about falling out with her ex-assistant Brad Goreski, 47, who left his role as her assistant at her Rachel Zoe Inc. brand in 2010.

He was featured on her Bravo show, The Rachel Zoe Project, with both parties saying they parted ways amicably at the time.

In a September 2011 interview with New York magazine’s The Cut, Zoe claimed that after Goreski left her brand, he started to pursue her clients.

She alleged Goreski began attending events and doing ‘all the things he said he had no interest in’ within a week of leaving her company, after she claimed he had told her he wanted to put a pause on his styling career and spend time with his boyfriend and dog.

‘It’s not the first time I’ve been used. I would say it’s going to be the last time, though,’ the stylist told The Cut at the time.

Zoe also explained that motherhood impacted her decision, as her sons Skyler, 14, and Kaius, 12, whom she shares with ex Rodger Berman, were young children when she decided to step back.

‘It was hard to give styling my undivided attention and to get up and jump on a plane every other day, which is really what that life is,’ she explained.

She added: ‘It’s incessant and unpredictable traveling, with fittings at 2am. You are working for other people, and you are on other people’s schedules, and that’s very hard to do when you have multiple businesses, and you are the CEO and you have a newborn and a toddler.’

Zoe has previously opened up about falling out with her ex-assistant Brad Goreski, 47, who left his role as her assistant at her Rachel Zoe Inc. brand in 2010. The pair is pictured in 2010

Zoe told People ‘in full disclosure, I just couldn’t trust assistants’ as part of the reason why she stepped back from her job as a celebrity stylist. She’s seen earlier this month

In December, Zoe opened up about how their family dynamic has changed since she separated from her ex of 26 years, and the bitter complexities of her current relationship with her ex as co-parents.

While making her debut on season 15 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the fashion designer noted how her ex had been photographed with his current girlfriend just months after they went their separate ways in September 2024.

‘Rodger has had the same girl for a year,’ she said about her ex-husband, 55, and his girlfriend Bree Jacoby, 36, who he was spotted with just four months after their split, as seen in photos exclusively obtained by the Daily Mail.

They announced their split last September nearly three decades after they got married, and she filed for divorce in July, listing the date of separation as June 27, 2024, per documents obtained by the Daily Mail.

Berman and his younger girlfriend made their relationship Instagram official this past September, one year after he and Zoe announced their split.