Kyle Cooke has some thoughts about Craig Conover’s latest career move investing in a competitor to the Summer House star’s alcohol company, Loverboy.
During the Thursday, May 23, episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Cooke, 41, was asked about Conover promoting the drink company Spritz Society, founded by Instagram personality Boy With No Job a.k.a. Ben Soffer. While Cooke initially claimed that there’s “no bad blood” between him and Conover, 35, Cooke changed his tune during the episode.
“I think this is being blown out of proportion,” Cooke first told Andy Cohen. “I don’t really think there was an investment, and it seems like all the press is referencing me.”
Cooke launched his beverage brand, which sells both alcoholic and non-alcoholic teas, cocktails and spritz cocktails, in 2018. Conover announced that he had become an investor in the drink company Spritz Society last month.
“Look, I wish him the best, but the way he handled it, and we don’t have time to get into it, really rubbed me the wrong way, and I’m just trying to take the high road,” Cooke said. “He has a reputation of lying and he lied to me.”
During Thursday’s WWHL After Show, Cohen brought up the topic again after pointing out that Cooke looked “upset.” Cooke claimed to Cohen, 55, and guest Paul Scheer that the founder of Spritz Society “took me out to dinner days before they inked the deal and failed to mention any of that and milked information from me.”
Cooke continued: “I think Craig had already signed the deal when he confronted me, and then he claimed that he didn’t know I have a spritz. He thought I just have sparkling hard teas. And I’m like, ‘Bro, we launched our spritz line a year and a half before this company.’”
Cooke went on to cite past times Conover tried Loverboy’s variety of drinks, explaining, “We launched our espresso martini while we were filming Winter House. He knows we don’t just do teas, he was there, he’s had all these products. So, don’t tell me you thought we were just a tea company. He was like, ‘I thought you just do sparkling hard teas.’ And I’m like, ‘What? If anything, the company you just ‘invested in’ took a page out of our book and launched a copycat a year and a half later.”
He concluded the discussion by stating, “Whenever someone says, ‘Kyle, it’s just business,’ that’s to basically justify something they did that was kind of wack.”
Conover has not publicly addressed Cooke’s comments but did address Spritz Society’s competition with Loverboy in an interview with Page Six earlier this month. “I understand why he’s had to work so hard, because the grind in the alcohol business is extreme,” he told the outlet, adding that he “would have loved to invest” in Loverboy but wasn’t given the opportunity.
Also involved in Cooke’s Loverboy company is his wife, Amanda Batula, who is BFFs with Conover’s girlfriend, Paige DeSorbo. Batula, 32, exclusively told Us Weekly last month that she had “taken a slight step back” from the brand for the sake of their marriage.
“I think we needed a little bit of that separation for now,” she told Us. “If we had our relationship issues and we had our work issues, then it was a lot. So this seems to be working for us right now.”
