Since summer should be fun, the Summer House cast tried to put the drama aside by hashing out their issues once and for all during the part 2 of the season 7 reunion on Monday night.
“I feel like we had such a solid group last summer in so many ways that it would be so nice to continue building all those friendships or mending friendships,” Amanda Batula told outlet at the launch of Loverboy’s Limoncello Spritz on Thursday in New York City. “We had a great time all together.”
Lindsay Hubbard and Carl Radke’s budding relationship led to tension with their best friends Danielle Olivera and Kyle Cooke during filming last summer, but this week's reunion finale saw some of those friendships get back on track.
Cooke, 40, apologized to Radke, 38, for talking about his addiction on camera, leaving Radke feeling like he might be up for filming another season.
“I would love to go out to The Hamptons this summer and have a fun summer before we get married, do it all again,” Radke said to Hubbard, 36, during the finale.
Cooke told outlet at Gelso & Grand restaurant that he wishes he didn’t bring up Radke’s past.
“Obviously, I regret talking about something that he's already talked about and already tried to put in his past,” the Loverboy CEO and founder said. “That was never my intention. I had regrets the second that unfolded in the moment. To have to relive it, that's the hardest part of doing this, in my opinion. I love the guy to death.”
Radke apologized to Olivera, 34, for not reaching out to her after she broke up with boyfriend Robert Sieber and for not including her in his August proposal to Hubbard. Hubbard even suggested redoing proposal to include Olivera.
“It felt like there would be no resolve between the two of them their entire conversation,” Batula said. “It wasn't until the very end that it seemed like maybe there's a little bit of hope.”
Cooke credited host Andy Cohen with playing a “critical” role in Hubbard and Olivera working their way back to one another.
“He's the host, but he was a moderator and a mediator,” Cooke said. “Trying to get Lindsay and Danielle to have any type of reconciliation was everyone's hope. And it really took Andy towards the end, [he] went full psychiatrist mode.”
In the first part of the reunion, Paige DeSorbo went in on Hubbard and Radke, claiming, "they spin everything." Batula stands by her best friend’s statements.
“I think almost all of Paige's points and feelings were valid,” she said. “She really wears her feelings on her face. She can't hide it. The last reunion, I was the one that was trying to be more vocal on behalf of my friends. Sometimes it's hard to speak up.”
Being real friends outside of the show led to spats that occurred off camera and eventually came up during the reunion, such as rumors about Cooke cheating on Batula and conflict stories about Hubbard’s behavior at BravoCon last October.
“There are some real friendships here, so, stuff goes down the other nine months, and producers are off and left puzzled like, ‘How do we make sense of this?’” Cooke said. “Because we didn't film that, so, it's a constant struggle.”
Batula admitted that even she and her husband “have a hard time tracking it all.”
“There's a lot of history because we are actually friends with each other,” the New Jersey native said. “I feel like some of the other shows, once the cameras are down, they go their separate ways until they have to get back together. And ours is just one big, happy mess of the family.”
Despite all the drama, Cooke said the housemates enjoyed their time together last summer. “There was tension. There was some falling out between some of the OGs or whatever you want to call us,” he said. “Meanwhile, we had a ton of fun.”
One especially fun moment season 7 viewers didn’t get to see: a candy-themed party thrown by Sam Feher.
“I think we were having too much fun and maybe too much to drink and not enough going on,” Batula speculated of why the party got left on the cutting room floor. “Sam threw a great party. She designed it so well, she decorated everything amazing. Our outfits were great. There was a bouncy house. It was a lot of fun.”
Batula hopes the entire 2022 crew returns for this coming summer as per outlet.
“I do think that it would be nice to have, for once, everyone come back and continue,” she said. “It's hard when there's always new people coming in and people leaving. We really had a good group. There was a good balance. There were people that really wanted to have fun, but also let us get to know them. I would love to be able to actually continue that instead of having to start over.”
Summer House season 7 is streaming now on Peacock.
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