Bravo’s Summer House is a first-time Emmy nominee, and while the stars of the show are not technically billed on the nomination list, they are incredibly excited about the show and the people who work behind the scenes receiving such high praise.
“I’m so happy for our entire team at Summer House, from top to bottom. This is such a huge accomplishment for everyone,” Lindsay Hubbard told The Hollywood Reporter on a phone call shortly after the nomination was unveiled. Kyle Cooke added, “I feel like this is just a testament to everybody putting in so much hard work, so many different people.”
The Bravo series picked up a nod in the unstructured reality program category, marking its first Emmy nomination following quite the headline-making 10th season.
Summer House dominated the pop cultural landscape this year after West Wilson and Amanda Batula confirmed their newfound relationship; it sparked virality because Wilson formerly dated their co-star Ciara Miller, whom Batula used to be close friends with. Batula also announced her split from her husband, Cooke, in January, convoluting the scandal further.
Cooke admits it’s “bittersweet” for season 10 to receive such recognition from the Television Academy as it was a “highly personal” season. Though he’s still able to celebrate the nom, which he says “makes me extremely proud.”
Hubbard, Cooke and Carl Radke are the only original Summer House castmembers who have remained on the show through season 10, and they each shared their thoughts on the show’s Emmy nomination below in separate edited conversations with THR.
How are you doing this morning?
LINDSAY HUBBARD I am just beside myself. I cannot stop screaming and texting people. I’m so excited. I have goosebumps and chills. I’m so happy for our entire team at Summer House, from top to bottom. This is such a huge accomplishment for everyone.
KYLE COOKE Excellent. Much better now.
How are you feeling about Summer House receiving its first Emmy nomination?
COOKE It’s a little surreal. You grow up hearing about the Emmys, the Oscars, these award shows that just feel so prestigious. (Laughs.) And here we are. Sure, this season was bittersweet, but it’s things like this that make it on the sweet side. (Laughs.) Hey, I’ve always been proud of our show, and this makes me extremely proud.
CARL RADKE It’s amazing, surreal. I think it’s a testament to Bravo and our fans and the audience that has been supporting us for these last 10 seasons, and also our producers and the crew. This is, honestly, the award for everybody but the cast. There’s amazing people that work on our show that give up their weekends, give up a lot of their lives to make Summer House what it is. I think this is the nomination for all the people that work on Summer House, and all the people that have made our show happen behind the scenes.
Ben Waddell, Bailey Taylor, Mia Calabrese, Lindsay Hubbard, Kyle Cooke, Ciara Miller, Andy Cohen, Amanda Batula, West Wilson, Carl Radke, Jesse Solomon and KJ Dillard at the Summer House season 10 reunion.
Jocelyn Prescod/Bravo
What were you doing when you found out the show had received its first Emmy nomination?
HUBBARD (Laughs.) I had the Emmy YouTube channel up, listening and watching the nominations, but I then had to jump onto a psych evaluation call because we’re prepping for Summer House filming this summer, and as soon as I got on that call, we were nominated, and I was like, “Ohhh! Oh my God!” I was like, “Doc, hold on, hold the phone for a second. I need to deal with this, give me one minute, I’m so sorry.” And she’s like, “Take your time, this is the most exciting.” Yeah, so just randomly was in Summer House prep for this coming weekend.
Have you talked to any of your other castmembers or anybody that works behind the scenes on the show yet?
HUBBARD As soon as it was announced, I texted our head editor, I texted our executives at Truly Original, because just the way that they have navigated this past season, mixing our last summer of filming, which is the past, with the present of all the drama that’s been going on in our world, I thought they did it so seamlessly and flawlessly. It’s such a deserving win for the entire team behind the scenes. They work so hard, and it was such a great season. We had a 20 episode season, which is unheard of these days.
COOKE I’m on text with a lot of producers, editors, people that have worked on the show for many, many years. It truly is a team effort. We feel it on our show, perhaps more than others, just because we have that house as the epicenter, and we all gather, and you certainly feel like you’re part of a community. I feel like this is just a testament to everybody putting in so much hard work, so many different people. I mean, we get to party, other people give up their summer to work six days a week. It really is a testament to whether you’re a PA or executive producer and everybody in between just really chipping in to make a great TV show.
RADKE Lindsay texted me and Kyle when she found out. I didn’t think she was serious at first, and then another one of our other colleagues at NBC texted me. But the last two hours, my phone’s been getting lots of texts from people that have helped bring the show to life. One thing about our show [that] is so cool is typically in reality TV, you don’t have people that return to work on the same shows. With Summer House, because we’ve built such an amazing thing, people really have been working with us for multiple seasons, so it’s cool that we have a lot of contributing people that have come back year after year after year. I’ve gotten a few texts from some of those people, and I’m thanking them. I’m like, “This has nothing to do with us, this is for you guys,” like it really is, because none of this is possible without amazing people that help bring the show to life.
As original castmembers on the show, what do you think it says specifically about season 10 that this was the season to earn Summer House its first Emmy nomination?
HUBBARD It’s been 10 years of most of us just sharing our blood, sweat and tears and journeys with the world, and I think fans and audiences and viewers have really, really taken those journeys with us. It’s an exciting moment that as we put our real lives out for the world, it’s now getting recognized and appreciated 10 years later.
COOKE I think in the moment, you know when you have a good season, even if it means you’re having a rough one. But there’s so much more to this season than my kind of marriage crumbling. There was just a lot to take in at any given moment. I feel like everybody pulled their own weight, and I’ve always just been proud of our show for being as real and raw as it gets. I think it’s finally paid off.
RADKE Summer House is a real group of friends, and there’s a lot of authenticity that comes with a real group of friends. I think there’s a huge appetite for storytelling on TV that’s real, it’s authentic, it’s personal. Summer House, over the course of the last several years, has really built a very loyal fan base, but I think this past season it picked up a lot more interest in people that hadn’t seen it before because of some of the news that had come out, so it’s been a combination of factors. We’ve been doing really cool stuff for many years, but to be recognized after 10 is a cool thing. I’ve always joked with Kyle and Lindsay and others on the cast, we were always a little show that could, that just kept chugging along.
(L-R) Carl Radke, Lindsay Hubbard and Kyle Cooke in season seven of Summer House.
Eugene Gologursky/Bravo/Getty Images
What plans do you have to celebrate Summer House‘s first Emmy nomination?
HUBBARD I assume I’ll probably wind up at a fun dinner later on, and I think we’ll be doing a lot of celebrating this weekend.
RADKE It’s the first time being nominated for something like this, so I might call some friends and ask them what I should do, but I’m sure we’ll be celebrating this weekend together.
Now that Summer Househas received an Emmy nomination and sparked a newfound excitement within the show, do you hope that excitement will continue on with the future of Summer Houseand season 11?
COOKE There’s still some unknowns with season 11. We haven’t picked up cameras, despite being in the Hamptons last weekend. I said it in a post, and I kind of said it accidentally and it set off a bit of an avalanche; I said it was the end of an era. I think for people that use that term, I think they probably would’ve preferred I say “chapter.” (Laughs.) But to me it feels like the end of 10 chapters. I call it an era, but I think what’s exciting is that season 11 has the potential to have a completely different look and feel. I feel like a lot of shows that reach a pinnacle, sometimes it’s a little unclear where to go from there. The beauty of Summer House is, you [can] throw whatever cast is on season 11 into a house in the Hamptons, and you kind of let it do its thing. I think [Summer House is] going to have, like I said, the potential for a whole new chapter, a whole new look and feel and can avoid getting stuck in certain storylines.
