It’s been weeks since the reality television scandal of the year broke the internet – and we’re still gagged. Bravo’s Summer House viewers were blindsided, shocked and perplexed this season, following a love triangle intertwined with friendship betrayal. After rumors and fan speculation, the news finally broke this spring: Summer House cast members Amanda Batula and West Wilson are exclusively dating.
The new couple initially confirmed their relationship in a joint Instagram statement back in March. The tea, however, is that Batula was best friends with cast member and fan favorite Ciara Miller, who is also the ex-lover of Wilson. Even more diabolical, Batula, is the estranged wife to the show’s star Kyle Cooke, who is a beloved friend to the entire cast.
For 10 seasons, Summer House captured young affluent professionals living and partying in the Hamptons. Miller joined the hit reality show during season five as the first Black cast member. Miller, a former ICU nurse, now a reality star, model, and influencer, has a personality that brings life to the party. Moreover, Miller was a ride-or-die friend to Batula throughout the series. Miller even consoled Batula multiple times this season as she cried about her troubled marriage to Cooke. So when the Summer House scandal, coined “Scamanda,” exploded, everyone tried to make sense of it all.
Numerous reality TV experts, including Andy Cohen himself, shared their opinions about the scandal, emphasizing how unfathomable it seems. “This was one of the most intense [reunions] we’ve ever shot. This was a lot. This was a lot. It was very intense, you guys,” Cohen explained on social media, amid an audio leak from the Summer House reunion in April. What’s more, before Batula and Wilson’s hard launch, Wilson spent the entire summer this season seemingly trying to win Miller back. Fans even wondered if the exes were going to spin the block on their relationship. But of course, the flirty on-again, off-again behavior between Wilson and Miller fizzled out post-Scamanda.
Nonetheless, at the center of it all is the looming race factor that unfortunately has to be addressed. Earlier in the season, a thought-provoking episode of Summer House confronted the literal reality of being part of a predominantly white cast and also dating interracially. Miller along with Summer House newbies KJ Dillard and Mia Calabrese, who are also Black, expressed their lived experiences.
“I don’t think you guys realize the interracial aspect that also exists and all of the s*** that goes on” Miller said on the episode, noting that she receives blowback that’s very racial. “I was the first Black person in this house, and then dating publicly, dating white guys publicly, it’s like a whole contraption that I don’t think you guys even understand and/or can even empathize with.” Dillard added, “It may seem like, from your guys’ perspective, that she’s complaining, but it’s just reality.”
Miller has repeatedly addressed some frustration regarding her love life. Aside from Wilson, she was previously romantically linked to former Summer House cast member Luke Gulbranson and Southern Charm star Austen Kroll, all of whom are white men. Rachel Lindsay, the first Black Bachelorette, said it best on Watch What Happens Live this week. “…It plays into the fears that Black women have when they date outside of their race,” Lindsay explained. “That they’re fetishized and that’s exactly what West did to her. You know, we’re not for your curiosity or a social experiment that you get to try on for the summer and throw out when you’re through with us.”
Since Scamanda unfolded, Miller has blossomed in her own right. She graced the cover of Glamour and Harper’s Bazaar for exclusive interviews. She has also appeared in national commercials and will even be a contestant on the upcoming season of Dancing With the Stars. In the three-part Summer House reunion, which concluded this week, Miller sits on the opposite side of her former best friend and ex. Her tone is unapologetically assertive in part one, stoic in part two and emotional in part three.
“There were times I lost sleep, didn’t eat, thinking about what this was going to do to our friendship — even the fact that these feelings existed,” Batula expressed in a lackluster apology, sitting next to an emotionless Wilson. “No it doesn’t Amanda,” Miller angrily responded. “You f**king text me 24 hours before the statement is gonna come out finally admitting the truth. Meanwhile, I’m calling Kyle [Cooke] like, ‘What the f—k is this?’”
