Southern Hospitality is the most underrated series airing on Bravo at the moment, especially because it has so many gays! And they’re all such different flavors of gays! I already wrote about the introduction of newcomer Lake, who said she’s attracted to all genders in one of her first episodes of the series about a group of messy young people who work at Republic, a clubby bar on the King Street strip of downtown Charleston (think: early seasons Vanderpump Rules but in the South). I was hoping we’d get to hear more about Lake’s queer journey, and in this week’s episode, we sure did!
Michols, another new cast member who is also gay, has been casually dating Preston, someone who does not work with him at Republic, which seems like the much more mature choice than hooking up with coworker TJ, who he has had a bit of a situation with but who he considers more of a friend. In the episode, Michols and Preston go on a date at a pottery painting place (gay!). But it isn’t just a cute solo date. Another pair joins them, and thankfully it’s none of the feuding heterosexual couples on the show. It’s Lake and another woman! Specifically, it’s Lake and her best friend Shelby, who is more like a “best friend with benefits,” as Lake literally puts it. “She’s one of the closest people I have in my life, and we have been intimate with each other,” she explains to Michols in a flashback.
Lake has been on-and-off making out and going on dates with fellow cast member Brad, but as she explains in her talking head here, part of the reason she lost interest in him is because she’s “not really feeling dudes right now.” “There’s times where I like girls more, and there’s times where I like guys more, and right now I’m in my for the girls season,” she explains further. This is great news for me, a self-identified Bravo Dyke who is always on the prowl for Bravolebrities to be in their “for the girls” seasons.
As the date progresses, we learn more about Lake and Shelby’s complex history. Shelby doesn’t live in Charleston, but Lake says that whenever they do see each other, they “are still intimate.” The two met in high school and became fast friends, spending every day together. “It was pretty organic, and it just kind of like blossomed,” Shelby says. “You can say our friendship went into more as we felt necessary.”
“We started off as friends, and then we just kinda started making out one day, and it felt so comfortable around her; she was a lot of my sexual awakening,” Lake adds in her talking head as a bunch of absurdly adorable photos of the two of them as teenagers pop up on the screen. She had hooked up with girls before Shelby, but she was in love with Shelby, describing their early connection as a “soul bond.” At the pottery place, Lake tells Michols and Preston that Shelby has met her entire family.
It’s clear their relationship is deeply meaningful to her and has been for a long time. Sometimes those early queer experiences can lead to really dramatic or even toxic situations, and I know we are only getting a partial glimpse of their lives because of the limits of reality television, but they really do seem to have found a really lovely safety and feeling of comfort and love with each other that doesn’t fit into traditional definitions or structures of relationships. Indeed, Lake’s clarification in a talking head that Shelby is more like a “best friend with benefits” makes it seem like a producer perhaps asked a leading question about whether Shelby is a friend with benefits, which is probably how a lot of people would describe their dynamic, but it’s clearly so much more than that! They loved each other as teens and still love each other. They still hook up. But they aren’t girlfriends, partners, or “just friends.” They exist in a space between all of these. It’s a really cool thing to see, something I haven’t seen on reality television perhaps ever and rarely in other forms of media. There isn’t animosity or tension between them due to their history; Lake in fact seems the most at ease as she ever has been on camera. And she and Shelby talk so openly and candidly with Michols and Preston about their situation.
Michols asks if Lake’s father knows the truth of her relationship with Shelby, and Lake sort of dodges the question at first. Shelby says she was at their house all the time, and Lake says it was pretty obvious. “But you never like told him?” Preston asks. Lake says she and her dad “try to avoid those conversations.” She says she’s very close with her dad and doesn’t want to lose that relationship and knows there’s a possibility it could be lost, implying he might not take well to her sexuality. She says her family, who owns a lot of successful businesses, care about what the public has to say and that pressures to fit a certain mold are especially large in a small Southern town. “Growing up in a very Southern, religious family, it’s hard, especially in a Black Christian family, there’s certain things you can’t do, there’s certain things you can’t say, they think you have a disease if you’re gay,” Lake says in an especially vulnerable confessional.
At the pottery place, Shelby tells Lake that as much as she’s “daddy’s little girl,” she also has the same power and influence over him as he has over her, suggesting she might be able to get him to meet her where she’s at. My guess is they have had iterations of this conversation before. Shelby is not pushy about anything though, and there are definitely parts of Lake’s experience that she wouldn’t be able to directly relate to since she’s white and Lake is Black.
Lake says she wants to respect her elders, and Michols — who is also queer, Black, and from the South — chimes in to say she’s disrespecting herself by not making herself happy. Michols has gone on his own difficult journey with his mother when it comes to his sexuality. Lake says she fears not being accepted and not being loved. Michols is super young and still early in his journey of being out, but he gives really clear-headed and open advice here. It’s really fucking sweet! It’s also sad to see Lake struggle with this, especially since pretty much every queer person on this series has mentioned losing a relationship with a family member due to their sexuality. Preston isn’t a full-time member of the cast, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he, too, can relate to these feelings of familial loss due to coming out, based on some of the things he says to Lake in this episode. He points out that, yes, she isn’t disappointing them, but that’s because they aren’t seeing the full her.
On Southern Hospitality, we get a wholistic look of what it can mean to be queer in the South. We see queer people thriving — at work and in their personal lives, dating and hooking up and making mistakes just like their heterosexual counterparts on the show. But we also see them struggle with their queerness in relation to other parts of their lives, some of them out in some contexts and not in others. Lake and Shelby’s relationship is so beautiful to witness, even if it comes with the heartache of Lake’s frustration with not being able to be fully out to her family.
I often do wonder if part of the incentive of coming onto a reality television shows for people like this is the opportunity to come out in a controlled environment. Because let’s be real: Her parents are going to see this! I’m sure to some the idea of coming out on national television is wild and scary, but I fully get it. I came out to most of my friends as part of a standup comedy show, because that felt easier than telling them in a normal way. I can see how letting your family find out from watching you on reality television would in many ways feel easier. It creates distance; it allows you to have full agency without having to take on their immediate reactions.
In addition to the really beautiful relationship between Lake and Shelby, this scene also stands out because of the close kinship between two gay men and two queer women. I have written about this many times before, but I wish more art and media portrayed these kinds of intracommunity friendships, which are so reflective of my own experiences. I gravitate toward depictions of gay guy x lesbian best friendship, which is why I love the slasher-comedy series Wreck so much. And in my personal experience, I’ve found that intracommunity friendship is especially abundant and rewarding in the South, where a lot of queer people do indeed lose family members and seek out chosen family in a deeply meaningful way. I have more gay guy friends in Orlando than I have lesbian friends, just because we’re the ones who happened to find each other. Even nights and spaces that are designated for the boys or for the dykes usually have mixed crowds. I’ve always found it odd and off-putting when people try to self-segregate within the LGBTQ umbrella. Obviously, politically it’s dangerous. But even socially, it’s so limiting! Anyway, this is just one scene in a reality television show, but I’ll take any media that depicts close friendships between queer people of different identities and backgrounds.
If I’ve convinced you to start watching, be warned: There’s a ton of straight drama. But it’s the kind that’s interesting to watch as a gay. I always feel like I’m doing an anthropological study on heterosexuals when watching Bravo.
