Amanda Batula’s future on Summer House seems pretty up in the air at this point, especially considering that most of the cast isn’t on speaking terms with her. But—especially amid West Wilson being fired from the show—fans are speculating that Bravo is “protecting” Amanda as a victim narrative is soft launched.
However, Bravo/Peacock SVP of production Noah Samton tells Variety that simply isn’t the case.
“I don’t know how you could watch that reunion and feel like anybody protected her from anything,” he said. “This is what we do on reality TV—we tell everybody’s story, and we try to tell it as best we can from a very fair point of view. We are cutting down 10 hours of a reunion into three hours total or something. So sure, stuff hits the cutting room floor. But there’s never any intention of protecting somebody, or spinning it in a certain way. It’s about representing what actually happened in the most fair—but also entertaining—way we can.”
That said, “I would want to protect anybody on any one of our shows, to the extent of it’s a cruel world out there. People are vicious on social media. I don’t want anybody to get death threats. I don’t want anything bad to happen. People have opened up their lives for the viewers’ entertainment, and they deserve to be treated with respect and kindness. But that’s different than protecting somebody.”
As for Amanda’s future on In the City, Noah said, “I do think if you’re doing a show about a friend group, they do still need to be friends to an extent. So if there’s a world in which Amanda made sense with that cast—sure, that’s a possibility.”
