More than a month after Nick Viall and wife Natalie Joy asked a series of questions to Southern Charm star Austen Kroll on The Viall Files podcast that many deemed insensitive, Austen’s co-star Salley Carson has revealed that the co-hosting couple contacted Austen to issue a private apology.
“They both called him and apologized,” Salley shared on Page Six Radio this week.
While Salley acknowledged that Nick and Natalie had admitted their misstep to Austen privately, she said she believes “there should be a public apology” made as well.
“I think that it needed to be a lot bigger,” she explained. “I’m kind of like, are y’all not wanting to apologize because you don’t really want to admit that it was wrong?”
For those who missed the series of cringey comments that were thrown at Austen on a podcast episode that aired last month, Natalie decided during the interview to bring up Austen’s older sister, Kyle, who tragically died on a family trip at the age of 9 after she fell off a cliff.
“Quickly jumping out of ‘Southern Charm,’ I’m sure we’re gonna jump right back into it, but going into your childhood, I didn’t know about your sister passing at 9,” Natalie said as reported by Page Six, to which Austen replied, “Okay, we are switching gears … .”
While Austen has shared the story about his sister’s death on ‘Southern Charm’ and has mentioned Kyle publicly over the years, Nick and Natalie continued to ask the Bravo star questions about the tragedy. In addition to Nick mentioning Austen’s younger sister, Katie– who was born after Kyle died– Natalie went on to ask specifics about Kyle’s accident, including the location of the cliff from which she fell.
While Austen chose not to reveal the name of the town in which the accident had occurred, he did note that much of it had been “wiped off the map by a hurricane” at some point.
“There was no love lost with my family on that one,” he admitted.
When asked about her reaction to Austen’s interview on ‘The Viall Files,’ Salley revealed this week that her heart “kind of broke” for her castmate in that moment, so much so that she reached out to him after seeing clips from the podcast.
“I called him to see if he was OK because I’m like, ‘I am so sorry, that must have been so hard,’” she said.
Salley said she also took issue with the fact that Nick and Natalie’s questions for Austen seemed to come out of “nowhere.”
“I could tell he was uncomfortable because his leg was shaking,” she said of watching Austen on the podcast. “I’ve been friends with him for a while and I haven’t asked [about Kyle]. That’s something that I feel like he should bring up when he feels comfortable.”
Salley also agreed with Page Six Radio hosts– and many fans who watched the interview themselves– that the segment about Austen’s late sister should have been edited out of the podcast.
Watch a clip from Austen’s interview on ‘The Viall Files’ below.
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