The other shoe has dropped in the aftermath of “Summer House” scandal: Amanda Batula will not be returning for Season 11 of the Bravo show, Variety has learned. Though this development may be obvious — in that Batula up-ended her life and career by beginning a romantic relationship with castmate West Wilson, who’s also been ousted from the show — there were still those in the Bravosphere who thought that perhaps she might still be able to come back.
Yet the presence of Batula, the estranged wife of “Summer House” founding cast member Kyle Cooke and her former best friend, rising star Ciara Miller, was never going to be possible, after she shocked both of them in March when she and Wilson began dating. As Bravo executive Noah Samton put it in a June 16 interview with Variety, the cast of “Summer House” has to live with one another as friends. “‘Summer House’ is unique in the Bravoverse,” Samton said. “If you have two Housewives who hate each other, and can’t get along, they can shoot a scene, and at the end of the day go home to their own house. On ‘Summer House,’ they actually live together. So if people have a real issue with each other, you can’t live together in a house. And we wouldn’t do that to the cast.”
The controversial romance between Wilson and Batula, half-heartedly dubbed #Scamanda — though that nickname never took off the way #Scandoval did in spring 2023 — was confirmed by them on March 31 in a joint post on Instagram. The new couple then faced the music at the “Summer House” reunion taped three weeks later, and it did not go well. During the three reunion episodes, which began rolling out on May 26, they appeared to be drugged, and vacillated between a largely defensive posture along with some petulant lashing out (mostly from Batula).
They were so unforthcoming, in fact, that Bravo scheduled an extra episode, “Summer House: The Aftermath,” in an attempt to get more answers from them. “When you watch the reunion — as incredible as it is, and as great television as it is — you walk away feeling a little unsatisfied because of the way that West and Amanda handle themselves,” Samton said. “They didn’t explain themselves in a satisfying way.”
“Summer House” Season 10 was already stellar, but the scandal then led to record ratings for the show. Other than Batula and Wilson, the majority of the Season 10 cast is expected to return when the 11th season begins filming in the Hamptons in July, including Miller, Carl Radke, Kyle Cooke and Lindsay Hubbard. Also expected to return are Wilson’s ex-BFF Jesse Solomon, along with freshman cast member Mia Calabrese and other newbies added in Season 10. As always, brand new cast will also join.
Cooke’s and Hubbard’s “Summer House” returns might be a surprise to some pundits and fans in the Bravoverse, who’d presumed that “In the City” — a spinoff led by the two of them and Batula — had been designed for the veteran members of the cast to graduate into, leaving “Summer House” to revolve around its newer (and younger) cast members.
That assumption was never correct, since “In the City,” which premiered on May 19 after the “Summer House” finale, was by no means a sure bet, and “Summer House” has revolved around Cooke and Hubbard since its 2017 premiere. In a recent interview with Gibson Johns on his podcast “Gabbing With Gib,” Hubbard said: “Let me just say it this way. The plan was for last year to be the transitional year. And the new plan is for this year to be the transitional year.”
Bravo hasn’t yet renewed “In the City,” of course, but presumably it will. Which then raises the question of whether Batula, who is at the moment deeply unpopular among Bravo fans, will return for that show. Were there to be a second season of “In the City,” filming would begin after “Summer House” production concludes after Labor Day — so perhaps there’s time for Batula’s fortunes to change. When asked to speculate about Batula’s “In the City” prospects, Samton said: “I do think if you’re doing a show about a friend group, they do still need to be friends to an extent. So if there’s a world in which Amanda made sense with that cast — sure, that’s a possibility.”
Amanda Batula first appeared on the first season of “Summer House” in 2016, as Cooke’s Season 1 hookup, later becoming his girlfriend. (Though Cooke’s famous mantra “Summer should be fun!” ends with him concluding, “Amanda? Not fun.”) They became engaged in 2018, and, after a COVID-delayed wedding, married on camera in September 2021. Their fighting, mostly instigated by a Cooke, reached an apex during summer 2025, and they announced their split in January of this year. During Season 10, a newly confident Batula — who seemed to despise Cooke from the first minute of the premiere episode — appeared to be poised to launch a triumphant post-divorce arc, free at last from Cooke’s belittlement and verbal abuse.
Instead, she’s been evicted from “Summer House,” has continued to align herself with the despised Wilson — and her future television prospects are uncertain.
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