‘Southern Charm’ Star Taylor Ann Green Opens Up On Surviving A “Very, Very Tough” Season 9: “I Cried More Than I’ve Cried in the Past Four Years of My Life” [EXCLUSIVE]

After a rocky eighth season of Southern Charm wrapped filming in the latter months of 2021, the trajectory of the series changed dramatically with the summer 2022 breakup of power couple Shep Rose and Taylor Ann Green after two and a half years of dating. Unlike the Scandoval at the center of this most recent season of Vanderpump Rules, the disintegration of this rocky relationship occurred off camera — but resulted in one of the most epic (and messy) reunion episodes in Bravo history, one in which Taylor came out of the gate swinging haymakers at her former paramour that didn’t let up until the cameras shut down. To say there was bad blood between the two would be one of the more dramatic understatements in reality TV history, and it set the stage for the highly anticipated return of Southern Charm Season 9, which premieres on Bravo this Thursday night, September 14.

In advance of this season, Decider spoke exclusively with Taylor Ann Green this morning just moments after she wrapped a combination HIIT/yoga class — on a Monday morning, no less! — about a wide range of topics, including:

• How she processed last season’s wildly emotional reunion episodes (“I bawled my eyes out”)
• Where she and Shep stand today (“He’s a complete enigma … and he gets away with murder”)
• The rumors of her hooking up with co-star Austen Kroll (“Maybe I have feelings, maybe there is something here with Austen?”)
• The disintegration of her friendship with Craig Conover (“He could give a rat’s ass about how I’m feeling and how the breakup has affected me”)

DECIDER: Let’s start here. I went back and rewatched the last episode of Southern Charm Season 8 over the weekend. After the taping had ended but before the reunion had aired, there was a little button at the end of the episode that informed viewers that you had quit your job and traded it in for “two tickets to paradise” for you and Shep to travel the world in early 2022 as a happy couple. What, from your vantage point, went awry after that?

TAYLOR ANN GREEN: We had the best time traveling. We went in early 2022 and were gone about a month. We did call it quits (on the vacation) a little bit early, but not because of anything going wrong between the two of us. I just had this moment of like, “What am I doing with my life? I can’t just be traveling around on somebody else’s dime, I need stability in my life.” I knew that I needed to get into something else, even if it was working part time, where I could grow more and be challenged. I had this freakout moment, thinking “I’m still in my 20s, I don’t need to be uprooting my life and banking on somebody else to take care of me.” Especially with someone who is a liability, like Shep can be. So we kind of called it quits, came home, and tried to figure things out from there. I was still working at the orthodontic office part time and then eventually got introduced to new gig and, and started with them summer of last year. 

I think that’s really admirable. It’s so important to have something in your life where you can feel like you’re learning, and growing, and contributing. So would you say it was you who initiated the conversations that ultimately led to you two breaking up? 

No, not at all. 

Oh, ok! 

The straw that broke the camel’s back was that I caught him, for the fourth time, attempting to cheat. This one was an attempted cheat — he wasn’t really successful — but that’s what started the whole breakup. That was with Mia Alario, who’s one of Leva’s employees [Ed. Note: And one of the stars on Bravo’s Southern Hospitality].

When I talked to Shep last week, he described you as still being a “naïve girl from Asheville, North Carolina.”  What would you say the state of your relationship is with with Shep today? 

I definitely don’t agree with that assessment. Thing is, though, if it comes to anything with Shep — because he gets away with murder — you can be seen as somebody like him as being naïve. I find myself to be wise beyond my years. 

I think the breakup was really tough because I have such a forgiving spirit. I wanted to work through things, and I wanted to give the relationship an 18th chance. And he, I guess, views that as being naïve, because he was the one let me go. I’m very thankful for having him be the one to say, “I can’t do this. I know I’m gonna fail again, I know I’m gonna let you down. I know that I’m not gonna stay faithful to you, I have to let you go.” So, sure, if he wants to say that I’m naïve because I wanted to work on things and actually try at something, then that’s his prerogative. I guess my forgiving spirit can be seen as naïve.

Did you go back and watch the reunion after it aired last season? Or are you the kind of person who just lives in the moment and doesn’t watch back?

I did. I sat down and watched it by myself … and I bawled my eyes out. It was really, really tough. Watching it back, living it all over again. And then just sitting there and being in shock, like “What did I say? I really said that?” So a lot of a lot of that still aches. 

To be honest, I probably should have started seeing a therapist after Shep and I broke up … and I didn’t. So then I kind of unleashed, and that was not a pretty sight. I think every girl has been in a position where like they feel like they’re not feeling heard. So then they start to just say a lot of things because no one’s hearing them, or the person that they want to hear them is not hearing them. Shep’s a complete enigma; he’s very hard to understand. But in our relationship, it was just very tough to see him not react to anything I was saying (during the reunion). It just felt like what was our entire relationship was like … did it mean anything to you, hello?!? So that’s when I kind of lost it. 

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Thank you for being so candid with that. What steps are you currently taking to make your mental health and overall well-being a priority in your life?

I think therapy is super important for everybody. I even think that therapists need a therapist. [Laughs] I always thought “I don’t need somebody else to fix me, I know what I need to work on, and I can do it myself.” But it’s always good to be able to talk through things with somebody who has an outside perspective. I wish that I had maybe gone to get to see somebody after we broke up, just because I found myself having a built up anger towards Shep that was leaking into other areas of my life. I lashed out at my friends and my family, who are the ones that love and care about me the most. 

There’s that saying that “Hurt people hurt people.” And as you’ll see in this new season coming out, I really start to spiral. And it’s devastating watching back the reunion from last year … I just sat there, bawling my eyes out, like “What happened?” I felt like I just blacked out [during the reunion], and things just started coming out of my mouth. And I had no idea what I was even doing or saying in that moment. You know, you see somebody who you loved and cared about for the past two and a half years of your life not showing any kind of remorse or emotion. And that was devastating to me. So I definitely lashed out in ways that I wish that I could take back, but I’ve since apologized to him and his family. 

Being able to recognize what you’re doing is that first step towards saying, “Hey, I know that I need some help.” So I have been talking to some people. I wouldn’t say I have a regular therapist — it takes some time to kind of shop around a little bit, see who works for you. So that’s gonna be really, really important as this new season starts to premiere. It’s gonna be a tough one. So I’m prepared.

One of the big moments in the season’s first episode happens at Madison’s wedding party. Viewers will see this on Thursday night in the premiere, but at that party, you confront Craig for ghosting you, or at least not really supporting you in the wake of the breakup between you and Shep. Was that something that you had planned, or did it just sort of happen in the moment? 

Everything this season was unplanned. [Laughs] Like, I went exactly opposite of what I had planned. I planned to go into that party as a strong headed woman that doesn’t need no man. Thinking, “I’m doing well in life, and I feel sorry for [Shep]. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but I’ve been hearing you’ve been going on benders, traveling around and hooking up with women. But me, I’ve got a good head on my shoulders.” And then, lo and behold, I lose my cool. And with Craig specifically, it was just very hurtful, because we used to be friends. Like, I wouldn’t say that we’re best friends — texting all the time, hanging out — but we were friends. He had always given me really good sound advice, especially when it came to relationships, or Shep. 

And so when Shep and I first broke up, I was getting texts left and right from friends, family —  and even people like Madison — reaching out and saying, “I’m so sorry, I hope you’re doing okay.” But Craig had the audacity to text in a group message and say, “Can we not talk about the breakup until the reunion?” That was really hurtful to me because I’m a human being, I have feelings, and you don’t care. You could give a rat’s ass about how I’m feeling and how the breakup has affected me. And then to also go and find out that he knew about times that Shep had cheated on me? I guess he saw me as the naïve girl as well. He knew everything that was going on, and just decided to sit quiet. But I lost my cool in that first episode.

Last fall, right after the reunion and right before BravoCon, I sat down with Craig and Austen. That day, Austen told me, and I quote, “Taylor and I are very close. I love her like a sister, but I’m not too sure that you’re gonna see like a love connection happening between us.” Well, from the teaser that we saw for this season, it looks like things might have gone in that love connection direction. Can you talk a little bit about how your relationship with Austen ended up blossoming into something more than friendship?

I met Austen probably like two days after I had met Shep, so I’ve known Austen just as long as I’ve known Shep. We really did hit it off like with this really fun friendship connection. I would talk to him about Shep, and I felt like I was able to talk to him as I would talk to a brother. We get along really well. He annoys the shit out of me, and vice versa [laughs], but even when Shep was out of town, we would go to breakfast together. We would hang out together and crash at his place since he lives downtown. So nothing out of the ordinary.

But when you’re in the most vulnerable state of your life, in that moment you can feel mixed emotions. And that’s exactly what happened. I felt as though “Maybe I have feelings, maybe there is something here with Austen?” And you’ll obviously see how that plays out. But there was this moment in time that I felt like maybe there’ll be something more than just a friendship, but it never equated to that. And we genuinely, truly, still to this day are each like “I love and care about you, as a brother and sister would.” But never this love connection. 

We’ll end it here on hopefully a great note. What do you feel like is your one shining moment of this season? You know, the one that you sort of look back upon and say, “This is why it was worth putting myself out there in front of the camera with millions of people dissecting me, this moment made it all worth it”… 

[Laughs] I’m still asking myself that same question. I mean, I’m not gonna lie, Mark, it was a really, really tough season. Like, very, very tough. I cried more than I’ve cried in the past four years of my life. It was just a constant battle. Again, “hurt people hurt people.” I was really just in a bad, bad place in my life, and especially trying to navigate this new relationship with Shep. Like, how do I go about this when there’s still feelings there, but he doesn’t seem to care at all? So I think that maybe my one shining moment would just be that hopefully the viewers can relate to me. In this life, we all make mistakes, and hopefully we can bounce back and come through in a better light, with a little bit of grace, and mercy.

This interview has been condensed for clarity.

Southern Charm Season 9 premieres on Bravo on September 14, with episodes airing on Peacock the next day.