Heavy/NBCUniversal Lindsay Hubbard, Andy Cohen, Kyle Cooke.
“Summer House” fans are speaking out following the two-part season 8 reunion—and many do not like how it played out.
The bulk of the season-ending sitdown focused on Lindsay Hubbard and Carl Radke’s breakup. In August 2023, Radke ended his engagement to Hubbard as Bravo’s cameras picked back up a few days after production had originally wrapped.
During the reunion, Hubbard, 37, said she was blindsided by her fiancé’s decision to end their relationship. She also claimed Radke planted seeds to “villainize” her all season and she insinuated that he may have contacted producers to catch the breakup on camera.
But during the reunion, host Andy Cohen shut Hubbard down and went so far as to suggest that since she got engaged on camera, why would it be unexpected to have it end on camera? Fans also felt the Bravo host went easy on Radke and his best friend Kyle Cooke.
Here’s what you need to know:
Andy Cohen Said Producers Wanted an Update After Radke & Hubbard Had a Difficult Final Weekend in the Summer House
Cohen spoke candidly in a surprising segment during the reunion. He noted there was a “narrative in the press” that Hubbard was blindsided by Radke’s decision to break up with her.
“I want to make a point that I think is important,” the Bravo host said to the “Summer House” cast. “Ya’ll — and you all know this — you guys don’t decide what is shot on this show. Production decides what is shot on this show.”
Cohen noted that Radke and Hubbard had a “horrible” final weekend of filming in the Hamptons, which prompted producers to request another check-in once they were back in the city. “Production wanted to follow up and see that aftermath of this terrible weekend,” Cohen explained. “So I just want to say, the notion that Carl called and said ‘I want you to come to my apartment to film…’”
Kyle Cooke interjected to accuse Hubbard of creating the narrative that Radke called producers to film the breakup. As Hubbard continued to claim she was “blindsided” by the on-camera breakup, Cooke interrupted her.
“I’m making it clear to the audience because that’s the narrative,” Cohen agreed. “I asked production, ‘When you went there did you know that was going to happen?’ They told me they did not know.”
Cohen went so far as to hint that the former couple’s problems were so obvious that he wouldn’t have been surprised if Hubbard had been the one to end the engagement that day. Other cast members chimed in to agree, with no one backing Hubbard at all.
Fans reacted to the exchange in the comment section of Bravo’s clips from the reunion.
“Andy’s questioning was so biased and wack!” one Instagram commenter wrote. “Allowing Carl weak a** to skate through any responsibility was ridiculous.”
“There are two sides to every story and why didn’t Carl get grilled as much as Lindsay did?! … @bravoandy you’re so easy on the guys,” another wrote.
“It was not evenhanded at all. Both of them deserved to be questioned about their behavior and actions this season and the demise of their relationship. But Carl wasn’t really grilled and everyone spoke up for him. The reunion was not handled well,” another chimed in.
“Am I missing the decision to only ask Lindsay negative questions? Are we going to just pretend Kyle is a poor sympathetic puppy??? What is happening on this reunion?” another asked.
“Andy let everyone including himself gang up on Lindsey,” another agreed.
“It was a disgusting display of misogyny, she was gaslight by everyone with Andy leading the charge 😡,” another commenter wrote.
Another Instagram post read, “BOTH Carl & Lindsay are responsible for their relationship’s demise but just because they got engaged on film doesn’t mean LINDSAY NEEDS TO BE OKAY WITH CARL ENDING IT ON FILM!! 😤 For Andy to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. ….The pileup on Lindsay was wrong.”
Fans Want to Know Why Kyle Cooke Got Off So Easy During the Reunion
The reunion ended with Cohen cutting off Cooke’s mullet. But not all fans were down for the cutesy ending, especially since some of Cooke’s most controversial “Summer House” moments weren’t addressed during the reunion.
On Reddit, one fan wrote, “I don’t get why Kyle and Carl didn’t get a single hard question at all this reunion.”
Others note that Cohen “bypassed” questions about Cooke’s tantrums. “Andy is gentle parenting Kyle. And has been for ages,” another Reddit user remarked.
“Andy did a better job at cutting Kyle’s hair than holding the men accountable lmao,” another commenter wrote.
“Kyle acts like a child w a temper tantrum multiple times and calls his wife a B but that gets a fluff piece?” another asked.
On the “Summer House” season 8 episode titled “Rocking the Boat,” Cooke got into an argument with his wife Amanda Batula after she told him she wanted to take a step back from his canned beverage company, Loverboy. He later called her an “[expletive] b****” as he stormed off.
Cohen asked Batula about the incident when she was a guest on “Watch What Happens Live” in May 2024. After Cohen asked her how she reacted to her husband calling her a “b****” on camera, Batula replied, “We didn’t really talk about it yet. I think there’s a bigger conversation to be had.”
Hubbard addressed Cooke’s reunion behavior in an interview with Rolling Stone in June 2024. “I cannot stand when a man tries to tell a woman how she should or should not feel,” she said. “I also think that Kyle isn’t Carl’s mouthpiece. Carl can speak for himself. This is not Kyle’s fight to fight. He has his own stuff that he needs to worry about. Walking away from that, I was just like, ‘Bro what are you doing? Where’s your apology to your wife for calling her an [expletive] b****? I would love to hear that. Kyle loves to police apologies but then not give them, so I don’t think he’s one to talk.”