Amanda Batula was all-in on husband Kyle Cooke’s company, Loverboy, from the start, but after five years, she realized it was affecting their marriage.
“I’ve taken a slight step back for the sake of our relationship,” Batula, 32, exclusively told Us Weekly, referring to her role as Loverboy’s creative and branding director.
The Summer House star, who married Cooke, 42, in September 2021, began working part-time for Loverboy when it was founded in 2018. She later quit her job and went full time at the drink company in support of Cooke’s dream.
“I think that we were at a place where I would be frustrated about something happening on my end, and he would take it very personally,” Batula explained. “Or he’d complain about something that I approved, and I made a decision on, and I would take it personally. So it wasn’t great for our relationship.” 
Batula noted that she is “still very much involved” with Loverboy but not in the “everyday capacity” as she once was.
“I think we needed a little bit of that separation for now,” she said, adding that the choice has been positive for the couple. “If we had our relationship issues and we had our work issues, then it was a lot. So this seems to be working for us right now.”
During season 8 of Summer House, which filmed in summer 2023, the cracks began to appear in Batula and Cooke’s relationship. Much of their tension this season has been pegged to their work-life balance.
“In the beginning, I was very hesitant to quit my job and work full time for Loverboy. But that’s what Kyle wanted,” Batula said during a March episode of the Bravo series, telling the cameras, “Maybe we were wrong.”
Batula expressed her desires to break away from the company during a preview for the remainder of the season, which dropped earlier this week.
“I’ve been supporting you and your business for five years. It’s time that I find something that gives me drive,” she told Cooke in the Thursday, April 11, clip while sitting on a boat. Cooke, who is the founder of Loverboy, replied, “[But] I also need your help.”
Batula told Us she initiated her step back.
“Honestly, I kind of just did it after BravoCon [in November 2023]. I was like, ‘I need some downtime,’” she recalled. “And then [I] just never fully submerged myself back into work. I kind of did my meetings and did the jobs I was supposed to do, but sort of slowly step back and he’s like, ‘Are you not joining these meetings?’ I was like, ‘No.’”
Batula explained that her choice was two-fold: she wanted to start finding her own passion and she wanted to improve her relationship with Cooke.
“I don’t want us to end up resenting each other because of a job. You know what I mean?” she told Us. “I’m the type of person that works to live, not lives to work, so I would hate for this beautiful thing that we’re building to be the reason that we potentially separated or fell out.”
Ultimately, the limited role at Loverboy has improved the couple’s dynamic. “[Now] we can focus on our relationship and then hopefully maybe get back to a place where I’m more involved again,” Batula added.
Batula’s change within the company came around the same time that Cooke’s BFF Carl Radke rejoined the company in a limited capacity. Radke, 39, previously announced in February 2023 that he was an investor in the brand but had stopped working for Cooke.
At BravoCon in November 2023, Cooke announced Loverboy’s new nonalcoholic line and revealed that Radke, who is sober, was helping with its launch.
