'Southern Charm's Madison LeCroy Reacts to How Austen Kroll Handled Her Engagement, 'Summer House' (Exclusive)
Madison LeCroy is in pre-bridal bliss. The Southern Charm star and her fiancè, Brett Randle, are approaching the one-year anniversary of their engagement this October, with a small, intimate (and reality TV camera-free!) wedding set for November.
"My wedding is going to be 35 people and just family," Madison shares with ET, alongside her co-star, Venita Aspen. "So it's just going to be an intimate moment and I want to keep it that way. ... It was just kind of one of those things that if Brett didn't know this person, as much as I did, like, we just needed to make sure that the people that were there that knew us as a couple."
"You protect your diamonds, you don't share them," Venita declares. "That's what she's doing."
Brett has yet to appear on Southern Charm, and there's a chance he never will. He did not film at all for season 8, which is currently airing.
"I know this relationships going to work, and I want it to work so bad that when we bring in everyone else [i.e. cast members, crew], you see how this goes all the time," Madison explains. "I think it takes a special kind of person to do reality TV, to be honest. But it's just not his forte. It's not his style, but I think he's warming up. So we're not going to say never, I'm trying to let him know that it is not as bad as it was."
Madison's no doubt referring to season 7, which saw the implosion of her on-again, off-again relationship with Austen Kroll.
"I was depressed, emotionally and mentally drained by that previous relationship," she says. "Austen's not husband material, and I have quickly realized what that is, and I've been put on a pedestal in the relationship that I am in. And I think that every woman deserves that kind of love. And as you can see, it definitely has changed my outlook on everything really. I mean, just overall being happy and not in a toxic situation."
"Out of the three years of the gray area, we had never talked about marriage or anything like that," she goes on to reveal of her time with Austen. "So it was definitely refreshing to be with someone that knew exactly what they wanted and wanted the same things."
"It was a college kind of relationship," Madison continues. "It was just fun and you know, everybody likes some drama sometimes, but it's... I am so blessed to be out of that."
Still, Austen very much remains in Madison's orbit. In the timeline of the show, viewers just watched the day Madison revealed her engagement last fall. For the first time, she got to see how the group -- namely Austen and his friends -- reacted to the news. She was disappointed most in Shep Rose, who proclaimed Austen didn't "[dodge] a bullet, maybe a cannonball."
"I think we know that I'm the one that dodged the bullet or cannon," Madison fires back, pointing to Austen's behavior on the most recent season of Summer House. He joined the cast of that show for one weekend of chaos, as he oscillated between make-out sessions with one-time best friend Lindsay Hubbard and Ciara Miller, with whom he hooked up while filming Winter House months earlier. It's behavior he, in hindsight, deeply regrets.
"I feel very validated in that and I am just happy that everyone was able to see how he really is and what he, I don't know... I don't want to cuss on here, but F-boy ways," she says. "He's not a one-woman kind of man."
With that said, Madison is giving credit where credit is due when it comes to her ex. She was pleasantly surprised to see his relatively low-key response to her engagement news; outside of calling her "Medusa," Austen kept quiet and did not try to ruin Madison's moment.
"I thank him for that, because I think that I was expecting some kind of maturity out of him to, even congratulate me," she reflects. "I was more shocked by the guys having more to say, betting [on if my relationship would last] and all, but I think they're all jealous. Like I said, they've all tried to hook up with me and that just didn't work."
As much as she says she attempted to stay out of it this time around, there's still drama to come for Madison as season 8 plays out. The trailer teases a tense moment between Madison and Austen's new girlfriend, Olivia Flowers, with Olivia storming off from their interaction by flipping Madison the bird.
"Honestly, I was shocked to get a double bird flipping at me," she confesses. "If I were to do that, could you imagine the names I would be called? So whether that's trash or trust-fund trash, does it really matter? It's just kind of like, wow, you just flicked me off? She had to leave the table. But I think that was smart for her. But actually I was giving her a compliment. I guess it then later didn't turn out that way. I think everybody knows it's better to be on my good side, because I can either be your best friend or your worst enemy."
And that was on full display at the off-the-rails reunion the cast filmed for season 7, which Venita dubs a "dumpster fire." Madison faced off with Austen and Craig Conover over her alleged relationship with Alex Rodriguez, who was then engaged to Jennifer Lopez. Madison and A-Rod have both denied anything happened between them (beyond Madison claiming to have received direct messages from the former MLB star).
"Listen, I was in a different spot," she says of her behavior at that reunion taping, though it comes with the silver lining of potentially being at least partially responsible for J.Lo getting back together with Ben Affleck.
"My lips are sealed," a smiling Madison replies when thanked for Bennifer, version 2.0.
Southern Charm airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.
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