Carl Radke, the star of Bravo’s Summer House, told Obsessed: the Podcast that his drug-fueled rock bottom coincided with the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“I just used it as an excuse,” Radke, 41, confessed to host Kevin Fallon on Monday. “So I drank and drank and was using cocaine. I stayed up all night and into the morning.”
On that day five years ago, the Summer House star embarked on a drug and alcohol bender that ended with him threatening suicide to his friends over the phone. It was just five months after his older brother, Curtis, 40, died from a heroin overdose.
Only after his Summer House co-star, Kyle Cooke, gave him some “tough love” did Radke seek help.
“He came over because he needed to talk to me. And it was like having a friend intervention,” Radke recalled. “The love he showed and the support he gave me were something I needed.”
As Radke remembers, Cooke, 43, told him, “You’re gonna die. You gotta stop. You’re gonna f---ing die.” It was a turning point for the reality star, who has worked to remain sober since.
Even so, it hasn’t been smooth sailing for the best friends. In the trailer for the show’s 10th season, the pair get into a fight that leaves one of their co-stars bloody.
“I think sometimes with men, they kind of need a butt heads, and then they’re best friends after,” Radke said of the exchange. “It was almost like this friction that kind of needed to happen.”
The friends are two of the three original cast members still on the show.
By now, Radke is used to bearing all publicly. His show, Summer House, is beginning its 10th season of 24/7 filming.
Across the Bravo show’s decade of streaming, Radke has had sex, abused alcohol, proposed and broken off an engagement, drunkenly sung “Twelve Days of Christmas,” and gotten into screaming fights on camera.
“Watching yourself act like that, it’s a really weird feeling. But over time, I’ve gotten more comfortable, because I’ve had to get comfortable,” he added. “That is me—it was me—but it’s not me anymore."
Even the moment Radke was given the news of his brother’s death was captured by the show.
“Ultimately, I hope it helps people. But that’s the only way I can make sense of it. Otherwise, that is the most tragic thing to ever have to go through and then know by the way that it’s being filmed.” Radke said.
For better or for worse, the show’s undercurrent is its nonstop filming. Radke says it adds to the authenticity.
“It’s driven by the surveillance in that environment,” he told Fallon. “You lose the opportunity to be a little more curated or prepared. You’re really in the moment in the house, and you’re really living in real time, going through real things.”
Season 10 of Summer House premieres on February 3 on Bravo.
If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing or texting 988.
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