British socialite and Real Housewives star Caroline Stanbury has said the war engulfing the Middle East is ‘not all bad’ – because it will help ‘correct’ the ‘ugly’ influx of expats into her adopted home city of Dubai. 

The 49-year-old former friend of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor made the candid remarks this week while stranded in Los Angeles, unable to fly back to her twin sons after Iranian retaliatory missile strikes shut down commercial airspace across the Gulf.

The US and Israel launched joint airstrikes on Iran last month, triggering a wave of retaliatory drone and missile strikes across the region. 

Dubai, which is packed with influencers and content creators from the UK, was hit repeatedly, with debris from an intercepted missile setting fire to a luxury hotel on the famous Palm Jumeirah, and a drone later striking the US consulate in the city.

Speaking on her podcast, Uncut and Uncensored, Caroline said she has been in the US since early February, having left to film the latest series of the US version of hit reality show The Traitors.

She has been unable to return to Dubai, leaving her 14-year-old twin sons Zack and Aaron at home in the city with their father, her ex-husband, investment banker Cem Habib.

She described the situation in Dubai as ‘crazy’ and said the constant missile alerts were ‘not good for your nervous system’ – but insisted the conflict had a silver lining.

‘I feel like I’m going home to maybe a different Middle East… maybe things will slow down a bit, but I actually don’t think that’s bad,’ she said.

Caroline Stanbury (pictured) has said the war in the Middle East is ‘not all bad’ because it will help ‘correct’ the ‘ugly’ influx of expats into her adopted home city of Dubai 

The 49-year-old socialite has starred in Ladies of London and The Real Housewives of Dubai 

The Address Creek Harbour Hotel in Dubai after being hit by an Iranian drone attack, forcing residents to evacuate

‘I think there needed to be a little bit of a correction because everybody was coming. And when that happens, you get the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

‘I think some of the ugly needed to go and I’m not unhappy about that. Not to mention the traffic.’

Caroline, who was born in London and educated at the prestigious Westonbirt boarding school in Gloucestershire before attending King’s College London, has called Dubai home for nearly 12 years.

She moved there after her then-husband, Cem, received a job offer in the region. The couple divorced in 2019 after 15 years of marriage, and in 2021 she married Spanish former footballer Sergio Carrallo, who is 19 years her junior.

She added: ‘I know that people are second-guessing choices, like, will I feel okay to go back to the Middle East? I love America. I work here. It’s given me so many good opportunities and memories and things like that, but I don’t consider it safer than living where I live, the Middle East. In fact, I would say the Middle East where I am is still safer than America today.

‘There has been no real damage in Dubai but it can’t be much fun sleeping all night and getting these alarms that go off on the phone to let you know that there’s been another missile attack. That’s not good for your nervous system.’

Caroline, who was an original cast member on Bravo’s Ladies of London from 2014 to 2017 before joining the inaugural cast of The Real Housewives of Dubai in 2022, continued: ‘I’m very, very attached to the city. So no, I won’t be moving even after this.

‘My home is there. My children are there. My life is there. I love it. I really love waking up in the sun. I love the way it makes me feel. I love the opportunity that gives me to be my best self.’

Ms Stanbury has lived in Dubai for nearly 12 years. Pictured with her husband, former Spain footballer Sergio Carrallo, who is 19 years her junior

Dubai is home to around 240,000 British expats, including Kate and Rio Ferdinand (pictured)

Caroline in The Real Housewives of Dubai. She was born in London and educated at the prestigious Westonbirt boarding school in Gloucestershire

She hit back at suggestions she is paid by the Emirati government to promote the country, insisting: ‘I keep hearing these things like the government pay me… the government doesn’t pay me anything. 

‘I don’t even know if the government particularly knows I exist at this point. I’m definitely not paid to say all this. It is just the actual truth.’ 

Before quitting the UK, Caroline was a fixture of London’s upper-class social scene. She is the daughter of venture capitalist Anthony Stanbury and his wife Elizabeth, who is connected to the Vestey dynasty, one of Britain’s wealthiest families. 

She added: ‘Working in London and getting to where I was, there was always this feeling of like, she was handed it, she didn’t work for it, she’s lucky. And that just doesn’t exist in the Middle East. 

‘I proved [that] to everyone because when I got to the Middle East, I didn’t know anyone. So no one’s given me a hand up. 

‘No one’s making it easy for me and no one’s handing me anything. And it was at the end of my court case and the end of my marriage. So I didn’t have real money left. 

‘I started from nothing, essentially, in the Middle East. And I’m more successful today than I ever have been.’

Dubai’s tax-free status, she added, had been a key part of her success. ‘It gave me energy because I didn’t have to give half of my money away to tax,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t have to worry about these things. So I had excess money to start businesses.’ 

Ms Stanbury has been unable to return to Dubai, leaving 14-year-old twin sons Zack and Aaron at home in the city with their father, her ex-husband investment banker Cem Habib (pictured with her new husband, Spanish ex-footballer Cem Habib)

Petra Ecclestone (pictured), socialite and daughter of F1 magnate Bernie Ecclestone, is among the wealthy British expats who have moved to Dubai 

Caroline added that the timing of the conflict in Iran has been a personal blow: ‘It’s my 50th in April. That kind of got kaput too because I had planned the biggest party and it was a really big deal for me to do my 50th, for so many reasons.

‘One, because 50 is a milestone and I feel great. I had all the people I cared about coming. I had amazing singers, I had the perfect venue, I had caviar in balls. It was just going to be amazing.

‘I’m now going to have to move it till September, I think… I had about 190 people due to come. I really wanted to celebrate with everyone – my family, my friends – and also my achievements.

‘I feel like I finally got myself into an amazing place. It has been such a long time where I haven’t had to worry about me and worry about how I’m going to do things.’

She continued: ‘I was so excited to do it – for my friends, even – and just to give the party of the year. Everybody was so into it. So that’s a little sad.’

Caroline, who has daughter Yasmine with ex-husband Cem, said she had found it hard to make sense of what she called a run of bad luck this year, which had also included the LA wildfires.

‘I’m finding it really hard to reconcile why all of these things are happening to us at once,’ she said. ‘It’s been a very funny year because it started with the fire, which took me weeks to put out of my mind.

‘And then now this for us… apparently we are the most-hit-with-missiles country in the shortest period of time ever.’