{"id":359093,"date":"2026-04-01T20:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/359093\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T20:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:07:13","slug":"everyones-team-ciara-at-soft-bars-summer-house-watch-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/359093\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyone\u2019s Team Ciara at Soft Bar\u2019s Summer House Watch Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Devoted Summer House fans are still coming to terms with their new reality.
\n Photo: Rebecca Jennings\n <\/p>\n

It\u2019s immediately apparent upon entering Carl Radke\u2019s Soft Bar that the Summer House\u2013themed bingo cards are outdated. In between spaces for classic tropes like \u201cKyle mentions DJing\u201d and \u201cJesse Solomon hits on new girl\u201d there is a big pink dot labeled \u201cTeam Amanda.\u201d Because tonight, nobody is Team Amanda.<\/p>\n

For a decade, viewers have cringed at Amanda Batula and Kyle Cooke\u2019s rocky relationship, the d\u00e9nouement of which is currently playing out on season ten of Summer House<\/a>. When the couple announced their separation in January, it seemed as though Batula would join the reign of hot divorc\u00e9es<\/a> currently running Bravo. That was before rumors began circulating on social media that Batula had been hooking up with West Wilson, another cast member who dated Batula\u2019s house bestie, Ciara Miller, in 2023. One of the central narratives of season ten, filmed last summer, is the ongoing flirtation between Wilson and Miller, despite Miller\u2019s residual humiliation at the way he\u2019d dismissed her in the press after their breakup. Cast members (including Batula, Wilson, and Cooke) denied the rumors of them dating for weeks, but on March 31, the Bravoverse emitted a collective shriek when Batula and Wilson simultaneously posted on Instagram that they indeed had a relationship \u2014 er, \u201cconnection.\u201d<\/a> If this is Summer House\u2019s Scandoval, it\u2019s Miller, not Batula, who\u2019s the Ariana Madix here, ready to turn her pain into the highest echelon of reality TV (hosting Love Island USA).<\/p>\n

March 31 also happened to be an extremely glorious day in New York, the kind of weather that demands a margarita with which to gossip about Bravo drama on a rooftop. Alas, Soft Bar is both indoors and alcohol-free, but if there\u2019s one place Summer House fans were guaranteed to congregate, it was here at Radke\u2019s Greenpoint bar-slash-caf\u00e9, the concept for which his ex-fianc\u00e9e, Lindsay Hubbard, famously said, \u201cSorry, I\u2019m gonna have to say no to that one.\u201d The watch party is hosted by comedian Rachel Lander<\/a> and takes over the back half of the warehouselike space every Tuesday. It is full when I arrive at 7:30 for the 8 p.m. airing, though the vibe is rather subdued. Perhaps the fandom is preparing for a kind of funeral, if not necessarily for the show itself but for what it once was<\/a>; perhaps because the thing about a sober bar is that it is not exactly the environment for yelling at the TV.<\/p>\n

Lander tells me Radke\u2019s absence is emphatically not because he wants to avoid the drama but rather because he is traveling. He comes to the screenings whenever he\u2019s in town, she says, and that a few weeks ago guests were asking about the rumors. \u201cCarl was like, \u2018They\u2019re not true!\u2019 Which, I don\u2019t think any of them were until, like, a week ago, but he was like, \u2018That\u2019s ridiculous.\u2019\u201d (Like me, Lander believed them from the beginning.)<\/p>\n

The menu is Summer House\u2013themed for the occasion; I order the Shoulder Pads on the Beach, an exquisite mocktail of pink champagne, a saffron-y yuzu spirit, and peppercorn, while my friend Megan gets the beer-and-shot combo: a white peach Loverboy and a blend of nonalcoholic citrus spirits. They are $15 and $12, respectively, both of which cost more than the vodka lemonade spritzes we\u2019ve just had at the rooftop happy hour next door, but as the menu notes, every cocktail purchase enters you into a raffle to win a signed copy of Radke\u2019s memoir, Cake Eater. The lovely bartenders Kendra and Sasha tell me they don\u2019t watch Summer House, and therefore have had to tell nosy patrons (including me) that they \u201chave no tea to give,\u201d but were briefed by management not to comment on the news regardless.<\/p>\n

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\n From left: The nonalcoholic menu at Radke\u2019s bar. Photo: Rebecca JenningsA dated Bingo card. Photo: Rebecca Jennings\n <\/p>\n

\n From left: The nonalcoholic menu at Radke\u2019s bar. Photo: Rebecca JenningsA dated Bingo card. Photo: Rebecca Jennings\n <\/p>\n

I am sort of ambiently curious whether anyone in the room is supportive of Batula and Wilson\u2019s relationship connection, but it is clear that basically everyone is on the same page. \u201cI\u2019m so disappointed,\u201d says Nadia, 25, who has prime seats with two friends. \u201cCiara deserves the world. Like, forget those two, honestly.\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t want to believe it,\u201d adds Audrey, 28, sitting in the overflow zone with her boyfriend. \u201cBut three weeks ago, my friend showed me a video she had taken two weeks prior at a bar, and she said that West and Amanda were very canoodle-y somewhere in downtown Manhattan.\u201d Like many online, Audrey thought it could have been a case of mistaken identity with one of their mutual friends who looks like Wilson (because a solid quarter of the 25-to-35-year-old white men in New York City look like Wilson). But now, she says, \u201cI think it\u2019s so wrong. I don\u2019t think Amanda owes Kyle anything because their relationship deteriorated so much, but I think she owes Ciara a lot from being there for her this summer. West, as a friend to Kyle, owed him decency, and I think he also owed Ciara a lot more decency.\u201d Everyone also agrees on what they hope for in the reunion (receipts, proof, timelines, screenshots<\/a>), and nobody can quite agree on what should happen to the show. \u201cI personally wouldn\u2019t come back if I were her because it\u2019d just be like, Why do I need to put myself through this continually?\u201d says Nadia.<\/p>\n

Only one person I met was still actively in denial. Jordan, 36, tells me that \u201cI think this is all a big April Fools\u2019 joke, particularly because of the photo of Ciara sitting outside<\/a>, it doesn\u2019t feel like a Ciara move. I\u2019m waiting till tomorrow to make my official judgment,\u201d he adds, as his friend John covers his face with his hands and shakes his head. \u201cI 100 percent think this is real,\u201d says John. \u201cThere\u2019s way too many news outlets and way too much information involved for them to just come out and be like, \u2018This is a stunt.\u2019\u201d \u201cI may be in denial,\u201d admits Jordan. (Jordan, if you\u2019re reading this on April 1, I\u2019m so sorry.)<\/p>\n

A few minutes before 8 p.m., Lander takes the stage. \u201cThe rumors are true,\u201d she announces, \u201cCarl\u2019s book is good!\u201d She assures the crowd she\u2019s on the right side of history (\u201cToday I posted, \u2018I stand with Ciara\u2019 like she\u2019s a country in the Middle East\u201d). It is at this point that the show begins; what follows is a fairly nothingburger episode in which the loudest noises from the crowd are cheers when Soft Bar is shown or mentioned. There are a few \u201caws\u201d and an equal number of laughs when Cooke begins to cry in one scene and a couple stray boos when Wilson shows support for Miller buying her grandparents\u2019 house. There are, disappointingly, zero screams of rage as Miller consoles Batula for the zillionth time and tells her to leave her terrible marriage, blissfully unaware of what will happen in just a few months\u2019 time.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Rebecca Jennings\n <\/p>\n

Within ten minutes of the episode ending, the bar is empty. Everyone is tired and sober and full of delicious, expensive juice. \u201cI\u2019m fatigued,\u201d John tells me. \u201cThere\u2019s too much happening. Two new Housewives dropped this week, and there\u2019s this news, and there\u2019s a Jen Shah interview coming out tomorrow via People. It\u2019s just, like, a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

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