Bless her heart.
Southern Charm’s season five "villain," Ashley Jacobs, returns to the show sometime in season six, a return which, it seems safe to say, was much to the cast’s dismay. While viewers will likely have to wait a while to see Ashley interact with Kathryn Dennis and co., ET did get some info out of the "Charmers" -- Kathryn, Patricia Altschul, Cameran Eubanks, Shep Rose, Austen Kroll, Eliza Limehouse and Naomie Olindo -- about her much-anticipated season six appearances while visiting the group in Charleston, South Carolina.
"I was shocked when I saw Ashley," Cameran Eubanks admits. "But then, I wasn’t. I was hoping that if she had any sense, she would go back to California, which is her home, which is where she’s from, where all her family and friends are. I cannot believe she stuck around."
"I think Ashley got a lot of negative feedback after she was so awful, especially on social media," Cameran adds. "I think Ashley wanted to come back this year and try to make amends because she felt bad. But the question is, did she really feel bad? Was it genuine from the heart, or did she want to make herself look good?"
The last time viewers saw Ashley was at the tense season five reunion, where she faced off with the entire cast, who called her out for her treatment of Kathryn. During season five, Ashley called Kathryn "nothing but a baby mama" and an "egg donor," among other things. Kathryn, of course, shares two children with Ashley’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Thomas Ravenel. Thomas is no longer a cast member on the show for a multitude of reasons.
"I think that nature takes its course with humans like her," Kathryn teases. "I mean, she self-destructs and that’s what nature does. It’s hard to come up with words to talk about her because she doesn’t make sense herself."
Ashley appears twice in the season six trailer, the first time popping up at a gathering at new cast member Eliza Limehouse’s family’s estate.
"I have a feeling that when she befriends Ashley and brings her to an event, that the rest of the cast… it’s not going to endear her to the rest of the cast," Patricia Altschul says of Eliza, "to spring Ashley on them."
"[Eliza] was doing it behind everyone’s back," Kathryn alleges. "She told all of us she wasn’t friends with Ashley. She is, she’s still friends with Thomas, as well."
"First off, I'm the only person, who [Ashley] hadn’t ticked off," Eliza shares, in her defense. "She came to me and said, 'I want a second chance, I want to gain Kathryn’s forgiveness, trust back,' or whatever, 'and I want to apologize.' And you know what, the Bible says you gotta forgive in order to be forgiven, so I’m gonna give you that. So, I’m the vessel of forgiveness. So I tried... it didn’t go as planned.”
Eliza says she was unaware of the larger drama surrounding Ashley, claiming she didn't keep up with the show and only knew of her issues with Kathryn. And, for what it's worth, Ashley did previously apologize to Kathryn via social media, though Kathryn wasn't accepting of it. Ashley has maintained that she is, simply, misunderstood by the group and misrepresented on the show.
"Without giving away too much, she kinda just acts the same way she did at the reunion, where her apologies all have a 'but' at the end of them," Austen Kroll offers. "So, she’s not really giving you an apology, and her reason for being there was, 'Hey guys, I just wanted you to know, I’m a changed person…' but then, you see this fire in her eyes! And you’re like, you are the same friggin' person! You don’t know how to apologize without doubling down."
According to Shep Rose, Ashley tells Austen that he’s her "least favorite person" when the two come face to face, which Austen attributes to him having called her a prostitute on season five, an allegation which Ashley denies. From the sound of it, pretty much every cast member had a terrible experience with Ashley this time around, including Cameran, who took a bullet for the team and had a one-on-one with the nurse.
"It was kind of difficult, because I felt like some of my advice would register, but then she would kind of revert back to her old ways," Cameran admits. "So, she’s a little bit Dr. Jekyll, Mrs. Hyde."
Naomie Olindo says she, too, had a face-to-face chat with Ashley, which she describes as "super stressful," joking that she downed a whole bottle of wine over the course of their conversation.
"She’s just a scary lady," Naomie says. "I’m interested to see what she said when [the group] wasn’t around her and she was just with Kathryn."
Yes, according to Naomie, Southern Charm fans will get to see Kathryn and Ashley speak for the first time since the reunion! It seems safe to say viewers will get more than just Ashley's two pop-up appearances teased in the trailer.
"She tried to get back in the good graces, but you’ll see kind of how it plays off," she adds.
"Let’s just say, I am happy with the end result of Ashley Jacobs," Patricia remarks. "I think people that have problems with her, it’s going to be cathartic. The show is going to be cathartic, they’re going to like it."
That "end result" will seemingly come at the big finale party at the end of the season. In the trailer, Ashley appears to crash the event to confront Patricia, ominously telling her that "the truth will come out" before being escorted out by security and calling the police, while most of the cast watches her exit from a balcony. Kathryn calls Ashley "obsessed" with Patricia.
"She made no bones about the fact that she was coming for me," Patricia shares. "In fact, I think the words were 'gunning,' she was gunning for me. So, as we know, I don’t put up with any drama or misbehavior if I can help it."
"I was so mad when [Ashley] crashed Patricia’s party," Eliza admits. "She asked me about it and I said, no! You’re going to make me look like an idiot for welcoming you back into this group. You didn’t apologize, and then you’re crashing a party I’m going to? That just makes me look worse because I’m the one that has vouched for you."
"Shame on me for letting her apologize," Eliza adds. "She didn’t do the apology I was looking for."
According to Cameran, there have been "sightings" of Ashley in Charleston since she was thrown out of that party, but it’s unclear if she still lives there. On the day of the season premiere, Ashley did reactivate her Instagram account and post about moving back to California, her home state. She also shared a photo of her hanging out with former Southern Charm star Landon Clements, who also relocated to California, praising her for being "such a great support system and true friend," even though they never appeared on the show at the same time.
Patricia and Kathryn aren’t totally convinced she’s gone for good. The pair say they’ve heard rumors that Ashley plans to come back to Charleston, fueled by a sighting of Thomas looking at apartments in the building Ashley used to live in. In a recent motion in her custody battle with Thomas, Kathryn requested a restraint against Ashley being around her children.
"Who knows if they are together or not together," Kathryn says of Ashley and Thomas. "They probably don’t know either, and that’s probably how it always will be."
"Let me tell you what somebody told me, they ran into Thomas," Patricia jumps in. "They said, 'Are you still with that woman?' And he said, 'Well, yeah. Who else am I going to get?'"
Watch all the drama unfold on season six of Southern Charm, airing Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo.
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