Credit: Instagram
Amanda Batula admitted that she and Kyle Cooke were at a “crossroads” before they announced their split on Monday.
Ahead of their Instagram announcement, and before Andy Cohen, 57, addressed the Summer House couple’s breakup on Watch What Happens Live, Amanda, 34, and Kyle, 43, opened up about their marriage, filming season 10, Kyle’s budding career as a DJ, and more, as their castmates, including Carl Radke, 40, Jesse Solomon, 31, and Lindsay Hubbard, 39, weighed in on the drama they faced amid production.
“We’re figuring out what we want out of life and out of the relationship,” Amanda told Us Weekly before they confirmed their split. “We’re sort of trying to talk through that and figure it all out in real time. It’s going to be a very raw season.”
While Kyle’s DJ career has seemingly caused tension between him and Amanda, due to Kyle’s late nights out and Amanda’s desire to have her husband at home, he claimed his new job wasn’t to blame for the challenges they faced.
“There’s no particular issue — what you’re seeing is a 10-year relationship. … A lot of people don’t make it very far, and that’s on or off camera,” he insisted, describing the career as “an easy thing to point a finger at.”
According to Kyle, he always traveled for work.
“I’m not trying to discredit how Amanda feels — her frustrations are totally valid. I think that’s part of what we’re trying to figure out,” he explained.
Kyle then admitted that he wasn’t aware that Amanda had gone public with his late-night at a fan’s house until he saw the trailer for season 10.
“I had no idea she talked about that. That was something that happened last February, so, literally almost a year ago. I think a lot of people jump to conclusions,” he said. “Trailers are trailers — you don’t have context. That’s why they’re so riveting and dramatic. … It was by no means just me spending the night with some fan.”
Carl and Jesse agreed that Summer House has been known to intensify issues within relationships.
“If you pointed a camera at 95 percent of people’s marriages, we’d all be like, ‘Oh, my God, wait, what?’” Carl reasoned. “I give Kyle and Amanda a ton of credit — it’s not easy when your relationship is a topic of conversation every summer. … It’s a gift and a curse that they allow us in.”
“What you see on TV is the boiled-down, most intense moments,” Jesse added. “I really do feel like they are each other’s person. … I just want both of them to be happy — whatever that means for them.”
As she prepared for the premiere of season 10, Amanda said it may shed light on her marital hardships as she hoped for “healing.”
“Being on the same page with what our future looks like, what we want in life, where we’re going career-wise. … Things just sort of became different for us,” Amanda said. “I mean, honestly, I’m gonna have to watch it back and figure it out with everyone else, because I still don’t know! … I’m going to be learning a lot watching the show back.”
As for Kyle, he said season 10 was his “most challenging season ever.”
“Love is challenging and complicated. Relationships are challenging and complicated. Marriage is challenging and complicated,” he posed. “I’m proud of how open and honest [Amanda and I] are. I think there’s gonna be a lot of people that can relate or identify or learn from some of the challenges that we’ve had. Ultimately, we’re just trying to navigate this just like anybody else. It’s just very different, because for a decade, we have had the luxury of all of our friends talking excessively about our relationship and then the entire internet. So, it’s not easy, but I realize this is what we signed up for, but I think that I’m hoping people understand and hopefully have some level of respect for us putting it all out there, and this is by no means a moment to choose sides. We’re trying to navigate this to the day.”
“I hope people appreciate our willingness to put it all out there,” he added.
Moving on to In the City, the upcoming spinoff of Summer House, Kyle confessed that it was “the perfect storm.”
“Normally I film Summer House, I give it my all, and then, literally, the weekend after Labor Day, I try to recuperate and decompress. I am off to the races with my business making up for lost time. [This year], I’m thinking to myself, ‘I’m having the most challenging year professionally ever as an entrepreneur, and I’m going to literally film two shows back to back,’” he explained. “Even when we did Winter House, there was a six-month gap.”
Lindsay also spoke out, saying that when it came to Amanda and Kyle, “I don’t know what’s gonna happen. There’s a lot of moving parts at all times.”
In other Summer House news, Andy mentioned Kyle and Amanda’s split on Tuesday’s episode of WWHL, giving a nod to Kyle’s infamous Summer House phrase, “Summer should be fun,” which he told Amanda amid a fight on a past season.
“Tonight’s Jackhole goes to the bombshell news that broke over the last 24 hours that Summer House’s Kyle Cooke and Amanda Batula have broken up after four years of marriage,” he announced. “I am sure that was a difficult decision, but we are proud of you two for choosing what is best for you because, to paraphrase a certain someone, ‘Marriage should be fun.’ We wish you both the very, very best.”
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After the clip was shared, Kyle offered a response in a comment, which featured a crying emoji and a red heart emoji.
Summer House season 10 premieres on Tuesday, February 3, at 8/7c on Bravo.