Summer may be over, but the feud is still heating up. Kyle Cooke is firing back at Lindsay Hubbard calling him “calculated” — and he isn’t mincing words.
“She thinks I’m calculated? I think she’s the most calculated person I’ve ever met, so I find that hysterical,” the 40-year-old Loverboy founder exclusively told Us Weekly. “I mean, she goes into summer with a game plan. I’m just living my life.”
Lindsay, 36, made waves earlier this month for comments about Kyle on Peacock’s The Traitors. “You know what’s so funny, I’ve been, like, watching the show and the first thing he says is he’s like, ‘People don’t know this about me, but I’m calculated,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh really? I know this about you,’” she said on Page Six’s “Virtual Reali-Tea” podcast on February 10.
“What I think I was actually referring to on Traitors is that I play this goofball on Summer House where I don’t look like I’m taking myself too seriously on the weekend, which is where 95 percent of the footage for our shows takes place. But I actually am a very strategic thinker,” Kyle explained. “Like, I am calculated when it comes to assessing things and sniffing things out and making judgments and seeing people for who they are — that’s what I was talking about. I’m, like, take out the party element and people are gonna see a different side of me. Not that I manipulate people, which is I think the word that usually follows calculated.”
When asked what Lindsay’s “game plan” was going into season 7, Kyle said with a laugh: “To make it about her and Carl.” In the premiere, which aired on February 13, viewers start to learn that Carl Radke is unhappy with his role at Loverboy.
“Look, they can say what they want. Every couple’s gonna go through challenges, so no need to put up the facade. We’re all friends here, we’ve all been through some s—t. I think that it was very clear to me that they’ve had multiple conversations about Carl quitting. I paid him a full-time salary for an entire year when he spent most of it checked out,” Kyle told Us. “I was just hurt that considering how patient I’ve been with him and how many chances I’ve given him and how I was working with him for quite some time to allow his role to evolve.”
Carl, 38, confirmed earlier this month that he’s no longer with the brand, with Kyle telling Us that he quit in November 2022. There haven’t just been issues between the men, however. Lindsay and Kyle’s wife, Amanda Batula, have also struggled to see eye to eye over the years.
“Lindsay and Amanda have had a complicated relationship ever since, you know, Lindsay basically tried to bully her out of the house season 2 and at the season 2 reunion. I commend Amanda for taking the high road for years and years and years,” Kyle said. “I’ve tried to not let it affect my relationship with Lindsay, but I kind of hit a breaking point when she kind of went off on Amanda for simply responding to a question on Watch What Happens Live.”
Amanda made headlines in October 2022 after Andy Cohen asked which Winter House castmate is the “rudest” to fans. After the producer mentioned Lindsay’s name, Amanda said: “From my experience. … [But] she was wonderful at BravoCon. It’s been more [when she’s] caught off-guard.”
Lindsay subsequently went off on social media, sharing a series of photos she took with fans at Loverboy events with Carl in recent years.
“We’ve all been in that hot seat. Amanda wasn’t even the one to mention Lindsay’s name,” Kyle continued to Us. “I mean, anybody that’s ever worked with Lindsay knows that she can be rude, that she can be a lot. So the fact that she directed so much s—t towards Amanda and then made it about Loverboy — when it had nothing to do with Loverboy — was just kind of insane to me. She really spins things.”
Kyle added that he’s “yet to really reconcile with” Lindsay as he “wanted to start with Carl.”
He continued: “But some things that she pulls off behind closed doors, I don’t know if they can be reconciled. And I’m not just talking about me. … A lot of people can’t quite understand the tension and they just label the other girls ‘mean girls.’ I think that’s a very unfair and inaccurate nickname for people that have quite frankly been on the opposite side of the meanness.”
While Carl was there to officiate Kyle and Amanda’s wedding in September 2021, the New Hampshire native isn’t expecting to get the same call when Carl and Lindsay wed — but is still expecting an invite. (The twosome are close to booking a venue for fall 2023.)
“I do not expect to return the favor or be asked to. I don’t think it’s like, ‘Hey, you officiate my wedding, I officiate yours.’ I love Carl. I’ve always said I love Lindsay like a sister, we have our moments. I’m happy that they’ve found each other,” he concluded. “I really do think that, you know, they built something amazing [from] this friendship and this support system that they’ve been for one another. And so I’m looking forward to their wedding. I’d much rather organize a bachelor party and maybe help them hire a DJ than officiate.”
Summer House airs on Bravo Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
