Southern Charm’s Racial Reckoning: Why Black Women Are Always the Ones to Pay the Price – Essence

2025 was the year of Southern Charm.

The Charleston, South Carolina based reality television series inspired the latest season of The White Lotus, Southern Charm cast member Craig Conover’s breakup from Summer House cast member Paige DeSorbo has been covered heavily in the press, and the series spin-off, Southern Hospitality, has been heralded as the second coming of Vanderpump Rules.

Needless to say, everything is looking good down south, with the exception of this season’s treatment of Black women. Venita Aspen and Sienna Evans have been on the receiving end of inflammatory criticism and backlash, because of this season’s portrayal of them. Unfortunately, this behavior is fairly common for Black women on reality tv. Bravo is not an exception. 

Unlike the younger slate of non-Housewives shows, Southern Charm stands out. 

The show, conceived by cast member Whitney Sudler-Smith, was initially titled Southern Gentlemen. The original show’s focus was Thomas Ravenel and Shep Rose, two male members of the aristocratic class in South Carolina. Several episodes of the show were filmed on Ravenel’s plantation. In another episode, cast member Kathryn Dennis shows off her family plantation, which includes a slave cemetery. Dennis is a descendant of former Vice President John C. Calhoun, a prominent defender of slavery, who described the barbaric practice as a “positive good”. 

All of these distinctions, rooted in Southern heritage, have resulted in the culmination of a fairly conservative fanbase that often comes into conflict with the show’s non-white cast members. As the show continues to rise in popularity, fans of color have called into question the cast members’ politics. 

Internet personality and pop culture expert Blakely Thornton said the following on Instagram: “Craig’s pension for conspiracy theories and lying makes me feel like he went Trump. Shep, JT, and Austen are all white men from the American South, so I am certainly suspicious. Statistically, only an 8 percent chance that Venita voted the wrong way, so she gets to stay. He’s gay, but you never know. You never know. All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk. And the rest of them are blonde white women, so again, friend until proven otherwise…it’s a side eye.”

In the case of Sienna Evans, who came onto the show as Shep’s love interest, was met with accusations of using him for money, fame, and celebrity by his cast members. In other words, a gold digger. As a non cast member, Evans is unable to film confessionals, participate in the series’ after show, or attend the reunion. Instead, she was painted as a woman with a habit of dating well-off men. 

Cast members claimed she previously dated South African investors and an NFL player. Her sister, Anissa Evans, has a child with DeAndre Ayton of the Portland Trail Blazers. Another claim was that once she realized that Shep was unable to give her expensive gifts, such as a Hermés Birkin Bag, she grew disinterested in him. These claims proliferated online, until Evans addressed them on TikTok, followed by an exclusive interview with Brazo & Blaze. However, the sentiment remained the same. 

Articles, such as ‘Southern Charm’s Sienna Evans Just Told Her Side of the Story — and I’m Not Buying It, ‘solidified her position as the season’s villain, and allowed Rose to greatly benefit from his redemption arc season. In previous seasons, he was known to be a serial cheater and womanizer. At the season 9 reunion, he committed to a health change, after being blackout drunk at BravoCon 2023. Before the filming of the latest season, he attended an Ayahuasca retreat to address his alcohol problem. The relationship with Evans and his storyline as a recently heartbroken man came to an end when he kissed fellow cast member Molly O’Connell on the lips as the season finale. 

While Evans was on the receiving end of vitriol, Aspen was subjected to commentary about her relationship with fellow cast member Jarrett ‘JT’ Thomas. Throughout the season, viewers witnessed the pair’s friendship evolve into a blooming relationship. A lovely branzino dinner, cooked and prepared by Aspen in her apartment, quips and exchanges about fashion, a sadden Aspen when JT was grilled at a cast dinner in the Bahamas. There appeared to be a connection between the two, even though it was puzzling to a certain section of the show’s fanbase. However, the portrayal of Aspen began to sour, when it appeared that she was being flirtatious towards JT, who was seeing someone off camera.

During the cast trip to the Bahamas, Aspen visited JT in his hotel room. The moment was not recorded for the show. However, the pair alluded to an intimate moment between the two, where according to JT, he pushed Aspen off of him, because he was dating an unnamed woman off camera. This caused Aspen to fall out of favor with the Southern Charm audience. Shortly after the episode’s airing, Aspen was labeled as a “homewrecker”. In response to this, she addressed the claim on Instagram and alleged that production was portraying her out of character.

On a March 4 episode of The Ringer Reality TV Podcast, co-host Rachel Lindsay came to Aspen’s defense: “…You got to call out the production company, which is Haymaker East. Shame on you. As a broadcasting and media production company who also produces Hamptons and Southern Charm Savannah, you played into a very negative stereotype of Black women that we still in 2025 have to fight against. You subjected Venita to immense backlash, not just from fans, but from other black women who were disappointed in the representation of the show. That is disgusting.” In an earlier episode of the podcast, Lindsay vocalized her frustration with Aspen, but since she came forward, Lindsay has been a vocal advocate for Aspen in the latest season.

As the series progressed. Aspen and JT were caught in another storyline. JT was accused of making racially charged remarks about Aspen to his barber, by fellow cast member Ryan Albert. At the series reunion, Aspen and JT experienced several back and forth about their friendship. The two, shortly dated after filming, but he ended their relationship to date the woman he had been seeing off camera. At the reunion, the two seemed to have made amends. However, Aspen confirmed that was not the case to Deadline in an April 3 interview. 

Regardless of what transpired between the two cast members, on or off screen, Aspen was unfairly portrayed as an immoral character. Also, the words, “homewrecker” and “golddigger” on a Black woman’s body, in reference to a white man, taps into a deep seated part of American history that dehumanizes Black women and their sexual agency. And in a show that centers the experiences of white men in the South, Aspen and Evans were used as scapegoats, in order to serve a greater character arc for JT and Rose. There are no immediate plans to start filming season 11 of Southern Charm. Once can only hope production refrains from continued behavior that cheapens the experiences of the Black women who contribute to their show.