Inside Southern Charm's Kathryn Dennis And Thomas Ravenel's Tumultuous Relationship

Kathryn Dennis and Thomas Ravenel from Southern Charm have had one of the reality show's rockiest romances. The pair met while filming the Bravo reality TV show when she was 21, and he was 50. The show followed them through their ups and downs as they struggled with the 30-year age gap. ScreenRant reported that the pair dated between 2013 and 2016, and have two children together.

Kathryn and Thomas' 29-year age gap has been a popular topic on Southern Charm. She admitted his age was part of her attraction to Thomas. “I saw Thomas as this stable older guy. I was in La-La-Land. I just did what he said and took on his opinions and feelings as my own,” she told PEOPLE 2019.

Kathyrn Dennis first appeared on Southern Charm in 2014 and announced her departure in January 2023. “What a wild ride it’s been! Can you believe I was 21 when I first started filming Southern Charm, back in its first season? That was in 2013, and in the decade that followed, it’s safe to say my life changed in ways I could never imagine,” she explained in a statement to PEOPLE.

“It hasn’t always been easy, but I’m so lucky to have had reality cameras there, capturing so many moments that I’ll never forget (and a few, even, that I’d like to).”

How Having Children Caused Relationship Issues With Kathryn Dennis And Thomas Ravenel

Kathryn Dennis and Thomas Ravenel faced a pregnancy scare in Season 1 of Southern Charm. The couple wasn't in the best place in their relationship and the pregnancy caused tension. She was just 22 years old when she fell pregnant with her daughter, Kensington “Kensie” Calhoun, who was born in March 2014.

She told PEOPLE in 2019 that Thomas moved her to a “different state” and “kept my pregnancy a secret until the day I gave birth.” She also explained that she and her daughter were relegated to the basement of his Charleston plantation.

I was sad, scared, lonely, confused, quarantined, and isolated.

The couple broke up acrimoniously shortly after their daughter was born but reunited in 2015. It was a short-lived reunion but was not enough to conceive their son, St. Julien Rembert Ravenel. “During my pregnancy with Saint, things started to really get volatile,” she recalled. “I’d cry a lot.”

After their split, the pair had a public war of words about child support. She accused him of not paying it, leaving her struggling to pay her bills. “Here are the facts: I don’t have the right to see the kids. She won’t let me see them,” Thomas explained in an interview with the Charleston City Paper, reported by The Daily Dish.

The father continued, "I’m paying child support, even though I don’t have to. I’m not using the power of the purse. She’s using the power of the kids by not letting me see them, ruthlessly and to their detriment."

Inside Kathryn Dennis And Thomas Ravenel's 2016 Split And Possible Reconciliation

The couple officially ended their relationship in 2016. She told The Daily Dish that the split "was a long time coming.”

I think what really motivated it was that I had Julien in November, and I had hoped that having two children, something would fall into place somehow, magically.

She told the outlet that the couple had been talking about marriage, but then he "flipped a switch, changed.” She called Thomas “troubled” and said that she felt like she was “constantly being his therapist.”

“In that same period, I forgot what I loved to do, what I think,” she recalled, admitting she confirmed to him to stop him having "an outburst." She explained how she changed herself to be with Thomas. "I stopped painting, I stopped modeling, I stopped caring. Now that I’m not with him, I’m realizing things I love again.”

Kathyrn and Thomas struggled to co-parent, taking to social media to criticize each other. "I feel like I've been so lied about publicly by him that I don't know, I just kind of caved, and I don't even remember what I tweeted, but I tweeted something finally. I felt really stupid afterward because I don't like to stoop to his level, but it's hard to be lied about, especially when it's parenting and children," she told The Daily Dish.

In 2020, PEOPLE reported they may have tried to reconcile. A source said they had been spending lots of time together, "It started with co-parenting, but it quickly grew into something more,” the source says. Kathryn denied in a now-deleted Tweet she was anything more than a co-parent.

Kathryn Dennis And Thomas Ravenel's Ongoing Custody Battle

Since their 2016 split, Kathyrn Dennis and Thomas Ravenel have been embroiled in a nasty custody battle over their two children.

• Kathyrn lost custody of her two children in 2016 after testing positive for marijuana.
• According to The Sun, she later entered a rehabilitation facility, and he was granted full custody of Kensie and St.
• The following year, she regained 50/50 custody of her children.

Things became complicated after Thomas was accused of sexual assault by two women in 2018, which led to him being fired from Southern Charm before the Season 5 reunion. According to Page Six, a woman who worked as his kids' nanny claimed he sexually assaulted her in 2015 but did not file the police report until May 2018.

• As reported by Page Six, Thomas was arrested and charged with assault and battery in the second degree in September 2018. He denied any of the allegations but did plead guilty to third-degree assault and battery in September 2019. While he did not serve jail time, he agreed to donate $80,000 to a charity for sexual assault survivors in her name.
• While this court case was going on, Kathyrn filed to obtain full custody. According to documents filed in October 2018, she accused Thomas of relying “upon the use of full-time nannies” and showing “periods of impulsive and uncontrollable bouts of anger” around their children. He hit back that she was trying to create headlines.

In February 2023, The Sun reported she lost custody of Kensie and St. as a result of multiple failed drug tests. Since then, Kathyrn has only been allowed supervised visitation every other weekend from 9 am to 4:30 pm.

The outlet has reported that Thomas was concerned about his children being around her drug usage, accused her of neglect, and paperwork alleges their son was found walking alone.

Season 10 of Southern Charm is now streaming on Peacock.