Brittny Gastineau meets 20-year-old half brother Killian for the first time

26-year-old socialite and model Brittny Gastineau was a small child when her father left her mother for Brigitte Nielsen in the 1980s.

So it’s not very surprising the that child born of Mark Gastineau’s affair with Nielsen later the next year would be a stranger to the family he abandoned. While Brittny remains close with her mother (and co-star of The Gastineau Girls), she has not seen her father in 17 years. But this weekend Brittany and half brother Killian Marcus Gastineau met for the first time.

Brittny tells People that the existence of her brother was never a secret to her but that “he was totally off the radar. It was like he didn’t exist.” Things changed when Lisa Gastineau and Brigitte Nielsen crossed paths at Ivana Trump’s wedding last year. The two exchanged numbers, and last week Nielsen informed Gastineau that her son was “in town” and wanted to meet his sister. The two families convened last weekend, says People:

So, Brittny and her mother met Nielsen and her husband Mattia Dessi, along with Marcus, for dinner at Il Pastaio in Beverly Hills.

“It was very weird and surreal,” says Brittny, who hasn’t been in touch with her father for several years. “I didn’t cry. I’m too tough to cry. But we hugged, we talked about old stories. He said he watched Gastineau Girls in Italy, so he knew what I looked like.”

Brittny says she plans to keep in touch with her new little brother, despite linguistic differences stemming from his upbringing in Italy.