Southern Hospitality star Joe Bradley is no stranger to a crossover romance, but he didn’t know what he was getting into when he started seeing Bachelor alum Salley Carson.
“That should have been the first red flag. … No, I’m kidding,” the 28-year-old VIP Host at Republic Garden & Lounge told Us Weekly when asked whether he knew Salley, 29, was part of Bachelor Nation. “I don’t watch The Bachelor, so I heard that she was on it, but I also know 30 other girls have been on The Bachelor. So I was like, ‘OK, cool. You are one of the Bachelor [contestants], but you’re a beautiful girl. It makes sense.’ I don’t know if I can give you a rose. I can give you a chicken parm.” (Bravo viewers recently watched Joe cook an Italian dinner for Salley at his apartment. “A lot of people on the internet didn’t think [it looked good], but it tasted amazing,” he told Us.)
Bachelor Nation may remember Salley as the girl who quit Clayton Echard‘s season before it officially began. During the January 2022 premiere of the ABC show, she opted not to do a limo entrance as she was still reeling over her broken engagement. (She called off her wedding to then-boyfriend Avery Buchholz weeks before production began and her wedding was set for the day the cameras started rolling.) Clayton attempted to get her to stay by offering her a rose on the spot, but she declined.
“She spills the beans and says, ‘I was supposed to get married today, I was previously engaged,’ I didn’t see that as a red flag,” Clayton told Us at the time. “People saw two minutes [of] a conversation or whatever on TV, but we talked for over an hour. And you gotta remember — or keep this in mind — she came to me instead of just going home. She showed up to my hotel room and it’s like, ‘Why would she do that?’ … I thought, ‘Hey, if I give her a rose, then she can go into night one [with] a relaxed mindset, not as fearful, not as nervous. And maybe after a few days, she’ll be able to kind of move beyond that state of mind that she was in.’”
Salley went on to appear on Bachelor in Paradise season 8 … before quitting that show too. She subsequently moved to Charleston, got a job at Republic and met Joe. Their relationship was off to a good start before she was caught making out with his friend Gaston before the aforementioned chicken parmesan date.
“As soon as I think that I had this awesome girl …. she’s from the south, and she is talking about her family. I’m like, ‘Oh, I found a good one with this one,’” Joe told Us. “And then she makes out with [Gaston]. … I consider Gaston a close friend, now especially.”
Joe confronted Salley on the most recent episode of Southern Hospitality.
“I kind of, maybe, overreacted at the club a little bit, but there’s a lot of things out of context. She was telling me how much she wanted to be exclusive and date me hours before. If I made out with a girl hours before going on a date, I wouldn’t go on that date. I don’t have that in me,” he told Us. “I was frustrated, but I didn’t call him up and be like, ‘Hey man, I’m cooking for Salley tonight, don’t make out with her.’ So I can be mad at him.’”
Gaston has since started dating Southern Charm star Taylor Ann Green.
“I just like seeing my friends happy,” Joe told Us of Gaston and Taylor before hinting that it’s unlikely that fans will see Gaston on either show. “I don’t know if he is fully invested in this whole universe we have, which you got to respect that, but I think that he can definitely hold his own with the Southern Charm boys. Who knows what will happen.”
Joe, for his part, is currently dating Summer House star Danielle Olivera, but the twosome aren’t official.
“I just want to make sure we’re in the right place before I’m officially like, ‘I’m your boyfriend, you’re my girlfriend.’ I don’t want to get hurt,” he told Us about “pressing the breaks” on their romance, which began at BravoCon in November 2023. “But more importantly, I don’t want to see her get hurt, and I just want to be in the best place possible before we make a hard launch.”
Southern Hospitality airs on Bravo Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.
