When a Scandal Saves Your Business: Kyle Cooke's Unlikely Lifeline

Timing is everything—and Kyle Cooke’s timing just happened to be catastrophic and salvational all at once.

On the same day that his estranged wife Amanda Batula and Summer House costar West Wilson announced their romance in a joint statement, an episode of Summer House aired showing the 43-year-old Cooke discussing the financial strain crushing his Loverboy business. The coincidence was brutal. But what happened next—an outpouring of fan support that essentially rescued the company from the brink—proved there’s a silver lining to even the messiest public breakdowns.

Speaking on the Monday, May 11 episode of the Trading Secrets podcast, Kyle laid bare just how dire things had gotten. He’d been staring down the same financial problem for a second straight year, facing a choice between pouring more of his own money into the business or filing for bankruptcy. That wasn’t hyperbole. That was his actual reality a month and a half before his podcast appearance. But fans who rushed to drinkloverboy.com and bought merchandise, presale items, and limited-edition products literally cash-flowed the company back to solvency. He wasn’t exaggerating when he said their support“saved Loverboy.”

The merchandising pivot was particularly clever. After Kyle made headlines by calling Summer House costar Carl Radke a“mess”during the drama, the phrase went viral—and Kyle capitalized on it. He sold thousands of pieces, but here’s the human part: he checked with Carl first. Not only did Carl give the green light, but he and Kyle landed on the same idea independently—donating proceeds to Release Recovery, Carl’s mental health organization. The presales for that merch, plus limited drops for Limoncello and Espresso Martini, kept the business afloat while Kyle juggled an SBA loan and mounting expenses.

None of this erases the genuinely difficult moment Kyle was living through. He spiraled. He felt misunderstood. But it does reveal something interesting about fandom and loyalty: when a public figure is transparent about struggle—even when that struggle is tangled up with very public personal drama—audiences often respond with real support, not just schadenfreude. Kyle needed multiple revenue streams to survive, from DJ work to the show itself to Loverboy. That’s not unusual for reality TV personalities, but it also speaks to how precarious these businesses can be.

Summer House season 10 has already shown the cracks forming between Kyle and Amanda. The toughest episode, by Kyle’s own account, is still to come. But for now, at least the business he poured everything into didn’t collapse under the weight of his marriage falling apart on camera.