‘Summer House’ EP “Gratified” With First Emmy Nomination, Importance Of Storytelling & Teases Season 11 Has “Some New People Joining The Cast”

After 10 seasons on Bravo, Summer House just earned its first Emmy nomination in the Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program category.

The nomination has Truly Original executive producer Steven Weinstock “excited” and “gratified” with the honor.

“We’re really excited that the audience really connected with [the show],” Weinstock told Deadline about the Summer House nomination. “We’re gratified that we were given this attention.”

Weinstock credits the team at Truly Original and Bravo as the “people who are responsible for the storytelling,” which he says is what’s “most important to us,” adding, “Telling the stories that resonate with the audience. We were very fortunate. We had a great cast and great stories that evolved over the course of this season, and we’re thrilled that it’s been acknowledged.”

As Season 10 of Summer House began airing on Bravo, the reality series was rocked by a real-time scandal that shook the Bravoverse to its core. Co-stars Amanda Batula and West Wilson confirmed that they were in a relationship after weeks of denying the rumors.

Weinstock acknowledged that the show eventually had to pivot to reflect the new reality of its stars, despite having wrapped filming the summer before.

“We’re obviously always looking for the most authentic characters and storytelling, and naturally, as this show pivoted given what was revealed in terms of relationships between people, we had to respond to it,” the EP said. “We had to capture the backstory and the context of why it happened. It wasn’t black and white. It was very nuanced, and it required a lot of sophisticated storyline on the part of folks at Truly Original as well as the support we got from Bravo in terms of being able to do that.”

The scandal broke before the Summer House Season 10 reunion was filmed, and there was a lot of tension in the air between some cast members, and Weinstock knew “it was going to be heated and explosive.”

“We were anticipating that that is what was going to happen, and sure enough, it did happen and we were thankful that we were able to capture it,” he said. “Andy Cohen was tremendous in terms of giving everybody an opportunity to speak their truth, and we were able to capture it and present it to [the viewers] who were clearly hungering to have some closure and have some questions and answers about motivations of characters.”

In addition, Summer House picked up cameras to film some of the key personalities involved in the scandal, giving them more closure following the reunion.

“We thought the audience would find it compelling and be interested in it,” Weinstock said of the Summer House: Aftermath bonus episode. “The network was behind it and suggested that we do it. It was a great deal of fun putting it together.”

Although some of the themes on the show are rough, ultimately the production team is focused on telling great stories.

“The Emmy nomination means a lot to Truly Original, to me… We look forward to [continue] presenting more compelling stories,” he said.

Summer House earned its first Emmy as filming for Season 11 prepares to start. Some cast members will not be moving forward, including Amanda Batula, Westling Wilson, and Ben Waddell, who have confirmed they will not be part of the cast next season.

Weinstock kept mum about who the cast for the new season will be but said, “We’re just starting. I think it’s going to be a terrific season. I think there’s some new people who are joining the cast. It’s going to be a really compelling story.”