Olivia Flowers revealed what viewers didn’t see of her relationship with Austen Kroll and explained the reason behind their split during a podcast appearance last week.
As she looked back at her short-lived romance with Austen, 36, the Southern Charm star, 31, reacted to Austen’s insinuation that she was the one who got away, slammed his behavior as disingenuous, and shared how they first met.
“It was just very shaky to start with. But we got really really close when cameras went away,” Olivia explained of her and Austen’s relationship on the December 19 episode of Not Skinny But Not Fat. “That’s like when we like dated dated.”
After starting off in a rocky place with one another, Olivia found herself disappointed with Austen’s behavior at the Southern Charm reunion special for season eight.
“I had his back a lot when we were together… And then we go to the reunion, and he just like didn’t have mine at all,” she recalled. “That was like the turning point for me. There’s so many different things that happened but I just remembered for me, that what changed is seeing him just sit there quietly at the reunion when [Madison LeCroy] was like going in and like making fun of the relationship and saying there wasn’t a relationship and he was just quiet.”
According to Olivia, her “heart sank” as she sat and watched Austen fail to defend their romance.
“That was the first time we were filming like, together because we don’t film together on the season. We’re kind of like, off having conversations about each other. So then to like spend eight months together and do reunion and see him out like that, I just felt like everything was not real,” she explained. “We were so back and forth. I think we had no business going into things romantically. We should have just stayed friends.”
As for Austen’s recent suggestion that she was the one who got away, Olivia signaled to suspicious behavior, hinting that Austen’s supposed interest in her may have been prompted by fan interest.
“Everything with him, the timing of it was what was so uncomfortable,” she noted. “Like, he would want to be in a relationship like, right before BravoCon or reunion or something and then it was like, right after reunion when like he was the one that was like, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’ … It started to feel very disingenuine there towards the end and… that’s how I was going off of that.”
After then sharing that it was Leva Bonaparte, 44, who introduced them, stating that Austen had reached out to her and asked, “Who is this?,” Olivia denied being brought to Southern Charm by Austen.
“The show just of course encourages whatever direction you’re going in. He and I were already kinda talking before … I didn’t get the show because of Austen. It’s such a big misconception… Leva is the reason I’m on,” she clarified.
