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Credit: Instagram
Kathryn Dennis is speaking out about Thomas Ravenel‘s ongoing narrative about her not wanting to see their two kids.
After losing the custody of her daughter Kensington, 11, and son Saint Julien, 9, in 2021, the 34-year-old Southern Charm alum, who left the show after season eight, refuted Thomas’ claims against her as she admitted to having a midlife crisis of sorts, addressed her silence about her Bravo exit, and suggested she’d been banned from sharing her real life and heartache.
“That is not true. I can’t really comment, and I don’t want to comment on our [custody] case. It’s sealed for a reason. It’s very personal, and it’s been traumatic for all involved, but I will say I don’t have access to my children and I would give anything to be with them, see them, touch them, smell them, hold them, anything,” Kathryn revealed during an episode of Behind the Velvet Rope, which was recorded years ago and shared on August 11.
“I couldn’t explain myself in few enough words to get what I have to say across, but it will come one day,” she added.
While Kathryn is only in her mid-30s, she believes she suffered a “thirty-life crisis” years ago after losing her mom, Allison Calhoun, who was just 59 at the time.
“Mortality became so real to me … I started to realize life is so short, and then not having access to my children, I have had to think about life and death because sometimes things feel like a death before death or living death. Sometimes you feel like you’re living your own death before death … that is the realness and the rawness of loss and love and family and that bond that I want so badly with my children,” Kathryn shared.
“I don’t have access to them .. I’m sure if anyone can imagine what that’s like — every day waking up knowing that every five seconds, you’re reminded, your mind goes back to, ‘What are they doing right now?’” she continued.
After being asked if she wasn’t offered a contract to return to Southern Charm for season nine, or if she simply decided to quit, Kathryn said, “[I] don’t want to answer that question.”
“I’m going through my own life journey, and I needed to grow. I’m in my 30s. I just turned 34. I need to be able to form my own identity, and I think that where I’m at is where I’m supposed to be,” she reasoned. “I talk to the people I love. I didn’t lose anything … I guess I lost being on the season, but I also haven’t even watched it.”
According to Kathryn, she “totally” supports her friends who are still on the show, but she struggled during her final moments due to the edit she received.
“It was hard the last few years on the show with a certain side of me being presented because I understood why they had to do certain things,” she noted. “People sometimes have to remember that life and business sometimes get mixed up, and when you’re watching it on TV, oh lord, it’s crazy.”
“It’s like embarrassing to have gone through all of this publicly,” she went on.
Although Kathryn endured hard times on the show, she said that a lot of the trauma she went through wasn’t due to the show, but who she “met through the show.”
“I had a great experience [on Southern Charm],” she confirmed. “I felt like I was close with everyone I ever filmed with. I felt like I was friends with everyone. We knew each other. We were like family. So I have nothing bad to say, really.”
That said, Kathryn did admit that there were a lot of “trials and tribulations” that fans didn’t get to see on the series.
“No one knows, really, anything about my real life and what I’m really going through, which is the hardest part of all,” she revealed. “I’m not allowed to share it either, which has also been the catch-22 of my last 10 years — the real trauma of my reality.”
Following her departure from Southern Charm, Kathryn admitted to missing the support of her fans.
“[It’s] difficult to not be able to share and get that support because in real life, I don’t necessarily have all of that. My father’s amazing. He’s there for me, but my fans were like my family,” she shared. “So that’s been weird, and not knowing who to show on Instagram … it’s complicated.”
“It’s so complicated,” she added.
