Through thick and thin. Summer House’s Carl Radke and Kyle Cooke’s reality TV bromance has been going strong since at least 2016 — but has it always been smooth sailing?
Fans met the duo when Summer House premiered in 2017 after filming the prior summer. As two of the original cast members of the Bravo show, the pair have grown both together and apart. They even started working together at Loverboy in 2019 after Kyle founded the business one year prior.
Carl was a self-proclaimed “recovering f—kboy” going into season 3 of the show in 2019 after he hooked up with former housemate Lauren Wirkus on seasons 1 and 2. While he had a few more lows along the way — including confronting his complex relationship with alcohol — he found love in the Hamptons as well, proposing to Lindsay Hubbard in August 2022.
Kyle, meanwhile, had to face the consequences of cheating on his then-girlfriend, Amanda Batula, during season 3. The couple overcame their issues and tied the knot in September 2021.
Through it all, Carl and Kyle remained one of the strongest friendships in the house. In fact, when the Maryland native married Amanda, Carl served as their officiant.
The following year, however, Kyle and Carl’s relationship seemingly hit a bump in the road as they began to drift apart following Carl’s romance with Lindsay.
Tension appeared to be at an all-time high between the pair while filming season 7 of the reality series in summer 2022. In a January 2023 teaser for the show, Kyle claimed that Carl was “checked out” as the VP of Sales of Loverboy.
Carl, meanwhile, alleged in the trailer that everything he was doing for the business was “not good enough” for Kyle.
Ahead of the season 7 premiere in February 2023, the Pennsylvania native exclusively told Us Weekly that he was trying to “find a healthy place” with Kyle as friends amid their recent struggles.
“I love being around Kyle. I care about him and I love him but it’s been hard. I’m not gonna lie. We’re gonna navigate it the best we can,” the salesman explained, noting that their business relationship had begun to affect their friendship. “I haven’t had a drink in, at that point, a year and a half, and working at an alcohol brand, it didn’t feel like it aligned authentically for me.”
That same month, Carl revealed that he was no longer working for Loverboy. “I’m still an investor, I’m very proud of that,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “I’m fully supportive of the company.”
Summer House airs on Bravo Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
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Scroll down to see what both Carl and Kyle have said about their friendship amid their work shakeup and beyond:
