Kyle Cooke and Carl Radke may have their differences on this season of Summer House, but don’t expect that to be the end of their longtime friendship. Despite Carl’s decision to step away from his role at Kyle’s LoverBoy brand, and the building tensions amongst the close friends on the show, Kyle told HollywoodLife that he’s hoping the two can “build back up” their friendship and “make up for a little lost time.” “I think we’ll be able to go back to focusing on our friendship,” the LoverBoy founder said in an EXCLUSIVE interview, following Carl’s exit from the company. “We can have some good laughs.”
Kyle admitted that he went into this season of Summer House “a little gun shy” as he and Carl were dealing with their “first ever conflict.” “It wasn’t really a fall out from a friendship standpoint, but it’s just us trying to come to terms that we’re not seeing eye to eye.” He says that at the end of day, he doesn’t regret Carl coming on to LoverBoy as an early investor and employee, despite the status of their friendship. “I feel very fortunate to have had a friend buy in and invest and want to work for us early on, and it felt like such a cool situation to be in — building something together that’s going to give both of us purpose and we had a heck of a ride,” he explained. “His role morphed into more of a support role where he’s out in the market doing these activations and surrounding himself with wholesalers and retailers and fans at these LoverBoy parties. I think that it just was wearing him down. And if he’s not drinking, I want to be as respectful as I can.”
He added, “There’s obviously lots of moving pieces here, but that that’s the big one, and I have to respect his decision.” Last week on Summer House, fans saw Kyle reach what he told HL was his “breaking point,” where he and Carl had a confrontation, during which the 40-year-old accused his friend of being tapped out from the business since last August — which is when Carl began his relationship with Lindsay Hubbard. Carl clapped back, telling Kyle that he has felt under-appreciated and undervalued at the brand, despite feeling like the “face” of the company. Things worsen later in the episode after the boss learns LoverBoy lost its distributor for the entire Coachella Valley and Carl heads to LA for the weekend without filling in the team.
Despite their conversations, Kyle believes that Carl’s relationship with Lindsay has made him rethink his decision to work for LoverBoy. “The only thing that has changed between last summer and this summer is a very intense relationship where they’re like, boom, together at all times and clearly talking about some of his frustrations at work,” he told HL. “Now I think we got to get back to the roots of our friendship and put that on the front burner and make it a priority.”
Tune in to see how things work out in tonight’s episode of Summer House on Bravo at 9 PM ET!