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    Carl Radke of ‘Summer House’ on His Broken Engagement and Sobriety

    From getting sober, grieving the loss of his brother and calling off his engagement, Radke has let viewers in on the most intimate moments of his life.The first time Carl Radke appeared on television screens was during an episode of “Vanderpump Rules” that was actually a backdoor pilot for a new Bravo show, “Summer House.”In the episode, Radke is 29, working in New York City and drinking copiously on the weekends in a Hamptons share house with his friends Kyle Cooke, Lindsay Hubbard and a few others.The spinoff became a Bravo phenomenon all its own, one that has now spanned eight seasons, with Radke one of the few constants as the cast around him changed. Viewers have seen his tumultuous 30s play out onscreen: He has been in messy relationships, confronted his drinking and gotten sober, mourned the death of his brother and, in the Season 8 finale, called off his engagement.Over coffee in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where at 6 feet 5 inches tall Radke was certainly the tallest person in the room, he imagined his life if it hadn’t been spent in front of cameras for the past several years. “I feel like I would probably be married and have a family, but living a very, like, a lower key life,” he said, before going through some of the moments that have defined his time on “Summer House” so far.Radke and Cooke in the early days of “Summer House.” Eugene Gologursky/BravoThe early seasons: drinking, drinking, more drinkingThough many Bravo reality shows involved quite a bit of drinking (look no further than early seasons of “Vanderpump Rules”), Radke, Cooke and Hubbard were known to make others look like lightweights.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    West Wilson is the Breakout Star of “Summer House”

    West Wilson never thought he’d be spending the summer in a house in the Hamptons, let alone as part of a reality television show. The unemployed former football player from Missouri was about to run out of money following a three-week boys’ trip when he got a call that would change his life.“My severance ended that weekend,” Mr. Wilson, 27, recalled. “I came home and it was like the most depressing Monday of all time.”Mr. Wilson decided to check his voice mail to see if there was something — anything — in there to cheer him up. To his shock, a Bravo producer had left a message. She was interested in possibly casting him on Season 8 of “Summer House,” an unscripted show that follows the lives of a group of New York media workers, influencers and entrepreneurs who share a house in the Hamptons — the last few seasons have been filmed at a mansion in Water Mill — each summer.Though he had never seen “Summer House” and wasn’t a fan of reality TV (except for the occasional “Bachelor” binge), Mr. Wilson had an intuition that it might be right for him. “I just had something in me that was like, just see what this is and call back,” he said. He had recently met a “Summer House” cast member named Lindsay Hubbard at the bar of Lamia’s Fish Market in the East Village. Mr. Wilson was so unprepared to be cast that he didn’t initially make the connection between having met Ms. Hubbard and receiving the call from Bravo. “I was like, ‘Oh I actually know someone on that show’ and they were like, ‘That’s how we found you, you idiot,’” Mr. Wilson said.The son of an OB-GYN and a cattle rancher has been an unlikely hit with viewers. As Joel Kim Booster wrote: “Haven’t liked a straight white guy this much since friggin Bernie Sanders.”Marissa Alper for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More