Paige DeSorbo did not expect for more Summer House drama to emerge after filming wrapped on season 8 — until Carl Radke and Lindsay Hubbard called it quits.
“It is so interesting because this summer definitely was very different from any other summer we’ve had,” Paige, 30, said on the Thursday, September 28, episode of “The Toast” podcast. “We had a great time this summer to the point where we actually said — during the last day of filming — like, ‘What is our reunion going to be like?’ Because it was copacetic.”
Paige said the recent season largely ended on a high note, adding, “Obviously, there was some drama, but it wasn’t so deep and so dark that we were like, ‘I will never speak to that person again.’ It was chill drama that normal people have and we thought there was going to be nothing [else].”
Two days after cameras stopped rolling, news broke that Carl, 38, and Lindsay, 37, ended their engagement.
“Then literally 48 hours later we were like, ‘Pardon?’ [I found out] on the internet like everyone else,” Paige shared. “No one was there. I don’t even really know the details. I just know I found out through the internet and texted Amanda [Batula] and she was like, ‘Call me.’”
Us Weekly confirmed on August 31 that the couple, who were set to tie the knot in November, had split. “Lindsay was 100 percent blindsided by the engagement being called off, but it was a long time coming for Carl,” a source exclusively told Us at the time. “He wasn’t in this relationship emotionally for a while.”
Meanwhile, a second insider teased that the aftermath of the breakup would play out on Summer House season 8, saying, “Only producers knew this [breakup] was coming.”
Fans quickly questioned whether the split was a ploy for promotion, but Bravo executive producer Andy Cohen swiftly shut down the speculation.
“[Their split] wasn’t planned. … I don’t like to see couples breaking up,” he said on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy show. “I get the sense that there was a lot happening between them as the season was progressing — from what I have been told from production. And you will see it all playing out on the show. I love when people come together and fall in love. So I root for all these couples.”
Carl subsequently broke his silence in a message to his and Lindsay’s wedding guests.
“Words cannot possibly express how difficult the last two weeks have been for Lindsay and I,” he wrote earlier this month. “We are so incredibly sorry to all of our guests for the confusion and lack of communication. We were left trying to figure out how this all exactly happened before we could even have the opportunity to determine the path forward amongst ourselves.”
Carl added: “There have been a lot of false narratives and misunderstandings that have made this all the more painful but sadly at this time we are not moving forward with the wedding. The fact of the matter is Lindsay is devastated and I’m crushed with how all this transpired. I graciously ask for some patience and grace to heal and recover while we navigate this extremely difficult time.”
In a statement of her own, Lindsay made it clear that she wasn’t the one to end their engagement.
“The last 2 weeks have been the most heartbreaking and emotional weeks of my life. My entire life and future was ripped out from underneath me and I’ve had a hard time making sense of it all – with no answers or closure on why. I feel humiliated by how it went down, and simultaneously heartbroken that it happened in the first place. My trust has been betrayed, and coming to terms with that has been difficult for me,” she wrote via Instagram on September 14. “I do not agree with quitting a relationship (at this level) without trying everything possible first.”
Breakup aside, Lindsay still went on her bachelorette trip to the Bahamas with her inner circle, later thanking her loved ones for remaining her by side.
“I didn’t know this amount of love could exist in one photo. I feel completely overwhelmed by my best friends, and their friendship, love, and strength,” she wrote via Instagram on Monday, September 25. “The way these girls have rallied around me the last 3 weeks, held my hand, sat in showers and cried with me, picked me up, never left my side, never let me feel alone, and then took me on a trip — that was originally planned for completely different reasons — and yet still carried on with this trip because it became more important. I’m beyond blessed and thankful for every single one of these girls. This is a story about sisterhood, and I could not do life without them.
”
