A surprising turn of events! Austen Kroll was a popular man while filming Winter House, and his castmates couldn’t really believe how it all went down.
“I still don’t fully understand all of it,” Amanda Batula told Us Weekly exclusively while promoting the new series, which premieres on Bravo Wednesday, October 20. “I feel like Austen was just very flirty.”
Kyle Cooke, for his part, said he wouldn’t use the term “ladies’ man” to describe what was happening, but he did notice some “bad decisions” being made on Austen’s part. “Some things, you introduce the element of alcohol, and, yeah,” the Loverboy cofounder, 39, joked.
The Southern Charm star, 34, seems to have made a connection with Ciara Miller, who joined Summer House in season 5.
Kyle said the rest of the group didn’t see anything romantic happening “out of the gate,” but “within the first 36 hours,” things had started to progress. “It was kind of a good breeding ground for that,” Kyle adds.
Austen’s fling with Ciara, 25, got even more complicated when Lindsay Hubbard arrived and set her sights on the “Pillows and Beer” podcast host.
“It’s like Survivor,” Amanda, 30 told Us. “[It’s] sticking everyone in a house and everyone has to team up, and naturally, people are going to fight for the same partner.”
Paige DeSorbo, meanwhile, said she “didn’t know the extent of what was happening” with Austen’s love triangle, but she thinks viewers will be surprised to see just how much he was “the man” of the Winter House.
“You’ll see how it all plays out,” the “Giggly Squad” cohost, 28, told Us. “But I will say in Vermont, he and Ciara — I mean, from the jump of them meeting each other, they both had, like, googly eyes for each other.”
Though the Winter House trailer played up the drama between Austen, Ciara and Lindsay, Paige claimed that the trio actually settled things without a ton of conflict.
“Ciara and Lindsay are both two very mature girls who know what they want,” she explained. “And I think if one of them said, ‘Hey, back off,’ the other one absolutely would. So, there wasn’t, like, a huge situation, but there was a situation.”
According to the trailer, Austen will also spend some time fielding text messages from ex-girlfriend Madison LeCroy, who recently announced her engagement to boyfriend Brett.
“When I was in Vermont, I didn’t know Madison, and I didn’t really know the ins and outs of their relationship, but [Austen] didn’t talk about her that much toward the end,” Paige told Us of Madison, 31. “But she definitely came up a lot in conversation.”
Winter House premieres on Bravo Wednesday, October 20, at 9 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
