Kyle Cooke is sharing his side of the story — and breaking down the timeline — of what really happened between him, Craig Conover and his company Loverboy.
Cooke launched his alcohol brand, Loverboy, in 2018, with his now-wife, Amanda Batula, and friend Carl Radke by his side. Five years later, the canned cocktails landscape has grown even bigger and pal Conover has jumped on the bandwagon.
When Conover announced in April that he was an investor in Spritz Society, Cooke claimed there was “no bad blood” between them. However, Cooke confessed during a May appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen appearance that it “rubbed me the wrong way” how Conover told him he was working with a competitor. (Conover, meanwhile, hasn’t publicly commented on the controversy.)
“First and foremost, all my friends that I’ve filmed with know that I’ve raised money,” Cooke claimed on the Monday, June 3, episode of the “Trading Secrets” podcast. “The only person that ever expressed interest was Carl.”
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Cooke, who has known Conover since 2018, alleged, “Craig never expressed interest. He never once asked to invest in Loverboy.”
Throughout the podcast, Cooke broke down the exact timeline of when Conover told him about his new investment — and what happened prior to his WWHL comments. Scroll down for all the details:
The Investor Issue
After Spritz Society founder Ben Soffer’s wife, Claudia Oshry, claimed during the May 24, episode of “The Toast” podcast that Cooke denied Conover the ability to invest in Loverboy — and alleged that Loverboy has no investors — Cooke addressed the drama.
“I don’t know what got lost in translation. Loverboy has investors, we’ve had investors since 2019,” Cooke said on Jason Tartick’s “Trading Secrets” podcast in June. “I value them immensely. I’ve had lots of them texting me saying, ‘What in the heck is going on?’ I could not have done it without them.”
Cooke claimed that Conover was well aware that he was looking for investors and fundraising opportunities when they were in Vermont for Winter House in March 2022.
“I am not a sole owner. I wanna make that very clear,” Cooke said on the podcast. “We were actually fundraising — I was very vocal about this with my close friends, Craig included, during Winter House [season 2]. I was busy raising a round of financing. It’s like, this is not a secret.”
Kyle’s Spritz Society Conversation
Nearly two years after Cooke was fundraising in early 2022, he crossed paths with Soffer, Spritz Society’s founder, in New York City. “He had DMed me when we were both at an industry conference in January. And per the timeline his wife laid out, he was already in talks with Craig,” Cooke explained as to how he first connected with Soffer, noting the pair agreed to go to dinner the following month.
“This dinner ended up taking place about two weeks before Craig and I got drinks. We’re talking like receipts and timelines these days [so] dinner was February 7th,” Cooke confirmed. “I really enjoyed the conversation.”
The Summer House star recalled Soffer eventually saying, “‘Hey, maybe we could collab and like throw a party, kind of cross pollinate our audiences.’” While Cooke was entertaining the idea, he learned that Soffer was with Conover the following day and Soffer “never mentioned” it.
“I didn’t know at this time that him and Craig were talking about a collab,” Cooke said, noting, “He knows Craig and I are friends. … I just wish he was a little more transparent with his intentions.”
Cooke confessed that found it “extremely odd” that Soffer didn’t tell him or Conover that he’d been spending time with the other person all while working on an investment deal with Conover.
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Shortly after Cooke met with Soffer in NYC, Conover reached out to go to get drinks in the Big Apple. “It all kind of unfolded in early February, Craig and I got drinks,” Cooke said. “I thought it was just to catch up.”
Cooke claimed that “10 minutes before” their friend Tom Schwartz showed up at the bar, Conover “sprung” his Spritz Society deal on him.
“It sounded very much like the offer on the table was [that] he was being given equity and then boom, he actually left [the bar] early and that was it,” Cooke recalled. “The next day I texted him like, ‘Hey man, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what you said about this opportunity you have, and please, like, hold off from signing anything. I’d love to put an offer on the table to kind of counter it.’”
Cooke alleged that after some “back and forth” Conover told him it was “too late” for Cooke to counter with a Loverboy offer.
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“I just figured he’d at least give me an opportunity to [be] like, ‘Hear me out,’” Cooke continued. “To be honest, I kind of feared that this would impact our friendship because this has been my blood sweat and tears for the last five years.”
Cooke admitted he is “sensitive” about his company, revealing that while he doesn’t need Conover involved in Loverboy he was surprised by the move to go with Spritz Society.
“I just didn’t think one of my good friends would go hop in bed with a competitor,” he said. “You know, that’s it. That was the extent of our conversation.”
‘Watch What Happens Live’ Debacle
Cooke revealed that after his chat with Conover in February, he chose to keep it to himself and not bring up the news publicly. However, that changed when Andy Cohen asked him about their Loverboy quarrel on WWHL in May.
“You’re in the hot seat. … I’ll be honest, like, he caught me off guard, Andy Cohen,” Cooke recalled of the talk show appearance. “I was ready to talk about Summer House, and I hadn’t thought about this in a while. And I let my emotions get the best of me.”
The reality star continued, “Up until then, I had very consciously decided not to comment via the various press requests about Craig’s involvement in this competitor. I was very much focused on keeping this a private matter.”
Cooke said that it was not his intention to bring it up when he did. He noted that he is not only friends with Conover but he’s close with the Southern Charm star’s girlfriend, Paige DeSorbo, as well.
“The last thing I’m trying to do is make it awkward for any of us,” Cooke shared, adding that he wishes he “wasn’t so reactionary” on WWHL. (Cooke claimed at the time that Conover “has a reputation of lying and he lied to me.”)
Cooke stands by what he said to Cohen about Conover but confessed he “could have handled it better.” He added: “Sometimes I’m right, but it’s my delivery and it’s my tone and my temper [that] make me dead wrong.”
What’s Next?
“I’m pretty bummed with how everything went down,” Cooke told Tartick, explaining that the “only choice” now is to “hopefully” not let the career decision “interfere with our friendship.”
Cooked continued: “In all seriousness, I hope to have a chance to talk with Craig. I wanna squash the beef. Like, what’s done is done. I tell ’em straight up like, ‘I’m sorry for being reactionary and Watch What Happens.’”
He concluded, “The irony here is it’s really not about two startups competing against one another. It’s trying to stay relevant in an industry that is really good at keeping the startups small.”
