‘Southern Charm’: Ashley Jacobs Is Getting Dating Advice From Ex Thomas Ravenel

When Southern Charm‘s Ashley Jacobs heard that Decider wanted to speak with her, she said, “My first thought was, blech!” That’s the first thing she told me when we spoke on the phone last week, and we both had to laugh about it. “You guys are so mean!” she claimed, and while I may not have agreed with many of her words or actions on the Bravo series for the past two seasons, not once have I called her “Trashley” or written some of the super bitter things other people have on this here internet.

While it did seem that Ashley got several chances on the show to apologize, to right any wrongs, and to share her side of the story, and often biffed it, I did ultimately feel that perhaps one-on-one she would offer some deeper insight into her actions, and just as I’ve already spoken to everyone else that appeared on the show, felt it was only fair to do the same with her.

So I told her this was her opportunity to speak her mind, as only she can do, and she replied, “Oh yeah, does a bear shit in the woods? That’s my problem, I’m an open book. I put my foot in my mouth too often. Every day I’m like, fuck I shouldn’t have said that.” Which is why I believe Ashley would be the first to tell you that she can ramble a bit (read: a lot), and so what follows below are excerpts from our conversation, edited for clarity.

Decider: Was the show an accurate portrayal of you as someone who speaks so freely and is as opinionated as you are?

Ashley Jacobs: Yes in terms of that, yes. But the reason I don’t feel it was as accurate is because nobody really got to see me in my safe environment or with my friends. I was always going into a place where I felt like I had to defend myself. I was always feeling like I was going to a place where I didn’t feel safe, I didn’t feel comfortable, I was ready for attack. And that’s not an accurate assessment of me. I’m actually really fun-loving, silly, I like to make people laugh, I have a lot of personality. The way I came off, a lot of the time believe it or not I’m nervous. I tried to put those nerves at bay but when I watch myself I’m like, that’s a really terrified person who is not in her comfort zone who feels misunderstood but doesn’t feel that I get the opportunity for people to really hear me and for them to really ask, how are you? When I do feel attacked, I’m defensive and I feel like I have to defend myself. Now mix that with somebody who just is very blunt very outspoken, that’s not gonna do well for me. It works well in relationships or fights behind closed doors, they’re like, I’m not gonna argue with this one. I always get my way. But I wish it would’ve shown a softer side of me.

One of the softer, more vulnerable moments we saw from you was when you admitted your family didn’t speak to you after watching you on the show. How are things now? 

It was sort of like the elephant in the room that I didn’t want to address. My mom just said, “Just promise me you’re not going back there.” We still didn’t talk about the show and what’s happened this past season. You could look at me, I had depression, anxiety, I lost weight. I think that they saw that and they felt like I learned my lesson in a way and I had to learn the hard way.

They had all told me, don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t move across country, don’t date this person, don’t get involved in his family drama. I [dated a guy] two boyfriends back, he had two daughters and [it was] nothing like the drama that I dealt with with this mother [Kathryn]. The other mother was really wonderful and really great but my mom was not supportive of it. She’s like, “Ashley, it’s a hard life to go into someone else’s life, it’s a hard path and I don’t wish that upon my child. It’s not gonna be easy when you’re with other people’s children and you’re living in their world and their lives. Start your own family.” She told me that in the first relationship, so then going in with Thomas, she was beside herself. She was like, “I don’t want to be a part of your life because I see where this is taking you and I’m sad for you and I want to disassociate myself with you.” Then everything I said [last season] comes out on TV and she was humiliated. She’s like, “I raised you better than that than to say those things to someone’s face.”

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I wish everyone got to meet the girl I know.

A post shared by Landon Clements (@alandonclements) on Jul 10, 2019 at 7:02pm PDT

Viewers definitely had a reaction to seeing that you and Landon Clements are friends. How did that friendship start and how is it now?

I just hung out with her Sunday night. The guy that I’m dating plays volleyball and she’s seeing someone who plays volleyball and we were like, we gotta get the guys together. We went out all of us went to this fun little party at a hotel. I’ve known her for as long as I’ve known Thomas. When I was flying to Los Angeles, instead of driving to Santa Barbara, she would text me and say, “If you need a place to stay you can stay with me in Malibu, don’t drive two hours to Santa Barbara.” I thought, what a sweet person. She didn’t know me that well, she knew I was dating Thomas. She’s just classy, she’s really sweet and she’s respectful. I would do that for someone else so I respected that in her, that she thought about other people. I thought, this is the type of people I want in my life. So that’s how we started our friendship and we stayed in touch, whenever she’d come to Charleston she’d reach out to Thomas and I and we’d grab lunch, all three of us. Whenever I flew back to CA, she was like, let’s hang out, she drove up to see me.

When I moved back to Santa Barbara, she text messaged me and she goes, “I’m leaving Malibu, I need an escape, I want to move to Santa Barbara.” And she lives a half a mile from me [now]. So we ride bikes together, we meet up. I have a ton of friends that I’ve known for 15, 20 years. What’s special about Landon is the fact that she’s the only friend that I have that understands what it’s like to go through that experience. She’s a good support system because she’s a person I can relate to. She’s been on the receiving end of so much hate or gone against Kathryn. So I can talk to her without having to explain anything to her, she just gets it. Having gone through this experience, it changed my life and it was such a transformative time in my life. I’ve learned so much. I’m just trying to apply in my everyday life what I’ve learned from it and it’s nice that she’s a part of that. I feel like I’ve grown up a lot from this experience and she’s in the new stages of my life and I’m just happy to have her. She’s just positive. She doesn’t like drama!

Speaking of drama, what would you had said to Patricia if you were given the chance to speak with her? 

Oh, you saw that? You saw me get thrown out? [Laughs] Well, had she given me the opportunity I would’ve had to rethink everything. I would’ve thought, oh my god, she’s giving me the opportunity, okay, this woman deserves a lot more of my respect than I’ve given to her recently. I would’ve pulled her aside and said, where did we go wrong? What happened that led us to this, and how unfortunate.

I don’t think we could ever get to that place again but I don’t want to be her enemy. I don’t want to be mean to anyone. I want to understand somebody. I want to say to Patricia, “Where were you coming from, why did you say those things, why did you feed me this information?” I just want to understand, did I misinterpret it, and why did you tell me things?

I felt hurt that she wasn’t sticking up for me, I felt so upset that I took matters into my own hands and I’m not saying that it was right but I went to a tabloid essentially and I spoke my truth. But I think once you go against her you’re done. I made a phone call to her and I said, “Listen, I’m telling you I’m not lying,” and she’d go, “Oh, it’s old news, who cares,” and I thought, maybe she is on my side. But I gave her an opportunity to hear me out and I made some mistakes by going to the press and speaking this story. I knew with what happened with Kathryn [in Season 5] it was gonna be pretty gnarly when it started airing and I knew I was gonna fall pretty hard. So I thought if I could give some backstory to what led to it maybe it would’ve helped pad my fall, because I was going to fall and it was going to be bad. But as soon as I put that story out there, I didn’t realize how vindictive she was. She was treating me how she treated Kathryn in the past. She doesn’t care, she was just trying to protect herself.

I really screwed myself because I think if I hadn’t gone against her and was pretty fake, and I could’ve been fake, I could’ve kissed her ass, but that’s not in my character either. Yes, I really dug myself into a deeper grave but at the same time, I would rather be hated for who I really am than to be loved for who I’m not.

How close were you to calling 911 that night?

So Thomas only heard what I said because I was walking downstairs and I couldn’t see because I had tears in my eyes and the guy was pushing me pretty hard. My friend was still in the building and I didn’t want to leave without her. [The security] was making sure I wasn’t gonna go back in but I wanted to leave with my friend so when he was pushing me I was really flustered and I was really numb. When I went outside I felt sort of violated in a way with this guy pushing me and I was like, thank god I didn’t fall. All I kept thinking in my head was, if I fall people are going to be laughing at me. They’re going to say good, she got what she finally deserved, and that’s what was going through my head instead of feeling, gosh, if I fall I could really hurt myself. So when I called him I had no one else to talk to and he’s my friend because he knew I was going into this party he knew what was happening, so I needed to talk to someone to vent. And [from what he heard of the story], he goes, “Call 911 if you felt you were harmed or could’ve been harmed.” I was hearing it from him, I didn’t call.

Have you spoken to Thomas lately? 

Oh yeah, I talk to Thomas. There’s some legal stuff going on and I’m sort of in the loop, but yeah he’s got a new girlfriend and he’s doing well. There’s no bad blood. And he gives me dating advice.

I would take that with a grain of salt. 

Yes exactly! I try to let him think that he’s involved in the process. So I let him feel like he’s still important and valuable.

And are you back to nursing now? 

Yes, I am. It’s going great, I’m independently contracted by people and referred so I’m doing private in-home nursing with patients that are recovering post-operatively, terminally, and hospice. So instead of making quick visits I stay in the homes for about four to five hours and help the family so they get some respite and then I go. I gotta keep myself busy and it’s humbling and it keeps me grounded and gives me some perspective. With the show airing and social media, the bullying is so hard. But you see these faces and you’re like, you know what? My problems aren’t that bad. It’s important to have that.

And before we ended our chat, each of us accepting the other a bit more after the conversation, Ashley offered, “If I blocked you on Instagram, I’ll unblock you,” a real modern apology if I’ve ever heard one.

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