Since the start of their relationship, former “Southern Charm” co-stars Thomas Ravenel and Kathryn Dennis have faced several ups and downs, including custody battles, assault accusations and on-camera screaming matches.
Ravenel and Dennis met in 2013 when she was a just college student at the University of South Carolina and he was running for the United States Senate.
The two dated on and off for two years and went on to welcome two children together.
They ultimately broke up for good in 2016, but their relationship continued to get messy with the occasional hookups, custody battles and social media feuds.
Keep scrolling to read about all their ups and downs over the years.
The early days
“Southern Charm” viewers watched Ravenel and Dennis’ relationship begin when Season 1 of the popular Bravo show premiered in 2014.
The two, who have a 29-year age difference, had met when she was a 21-year-old college student. Immediately after, the duo began dating.
However, even in the beginning, their relationship included several blowout fights caught on camera.
“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 in 2019.
After one particularly nasty fight in Season 2, Ravenel walked away while Dennis sprinted behind him screaming, “Thomas, stop! I’m not letting you leave me!”
Expanding their family
As some Bravo fans may recall, Dennis and Ravenel faced a pregnancy scare in Season 1.
However, shortly after, the couple found out that they were expecting their first child together. Dennis, who was just 22 years old, went on to welcome daughter Kensington “Kensie” Calhoun, in March 2014.
She claimed to People in 2019 that Ravenel moved her to a “different state” and “kept my pregnancy a secret until the day I gave birth.”
They initially tried to live as a family, but their disagreements got the best of them.
With no place to live, Dennis and their daughter were banished to the basement of Ravenel’s Charleston plantation, which she recalled to People made her feel “sad, scary, lonely, confused, quarantined and isolated.”
The couple called it quits, but they briefly got back together in 2015, which is when they conceived their second child. Dennis welcomed a boy, named Saint Julien Rembert Ravenel, in November 2015.
Done for good — almost
By early 2016, Dennis and Ravenel confirmed their romantic relationship had ended, with the former telling the Daily Dish at the time that “it 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 at the time.
“[Ravenel] was talking about marriage in the hospital. He really wanted to make it work. And then he just flipped a switch, changed.”
Dennis went on to call her ex “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. “I had to kind of always conform just so he wouldn’t have an outburst. I lost myself. I stopped painting, I stopped modeling, I stopped caring. Now that I’m not with him, I’m realizing things I love again.”
Custody battle
From nearly the moment they decided to end their romantic relationship, Dennis and Ravenel have found themselves in the midst of a nasty custody battle.
Dennis lost custody of her two children in 2016 after she tested positive for marijuana and subsequently entered a rehabilitation facility. As a result, Ravenel was granted full custody, but she regained 50/50 custody a year later.
Their custody agreement became more complicated in 2018 after two women accused Ravenel of sexual assault that May and he was fired from “Southern Charm.”
One of the women who accused Ravenel was Dawn Ledwell, who worked as the kids’ nanny. She claimed that he sexually assaulted her in 2015 after a night out and filed the police report in May 2018.
Ravenel was arrested and charged with assault and battery in the second degree in September 2018.
Ravenel denied the allegations but pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and battery in Ledwell’s case in September 2019. He did not have to serve time in jail but instead agreed to donate $80,000 to a charity for sexual assault survivors in her name.
One month after Ravenel was arrested, Dennis filed to obtain full custody.
According to documents filed in October 2018, she accused Ravenel of relying “upon the use of full-time nannies” while parenting their children and showing “periods of impulsive and uncontrollable bouts of anger.”
Ravenel denied her claims and fired back in a filing that Dennis only filed for full custody to create “material for her storyline on ‘Southern Charm’ and ensuring her marketability as a ‘reality TV star.’”
After a year of back and forth in court, in November 2019, the duo agreed to have joint legal and physical custody. However, Ravenel would still have “primary legal custody.”
“The parties currently share physical custody of the children on a 36%/64% split, with Ms. Dennis having the children five out of fourteen overnights and Mr. Ravenel having the children nine out of fourteen overnights,” Ravenel’s attorney told People at the time.
Dennis also told the outlet that she felt “good” about the decision and that they “actually are moving forward.”
“I feel good that we actually are moving forward,” she said then. “I feel like we had been at a standstill and my whole life has been stunted from that. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted.”
However, by March 2021, Dennis temporarily lost custody and was only permitted supervised visitation with her two kids. It’s unknown why the change occurred since the documents have been sealed.
As of November 2023, Ravenel claimed via Twitter that Dennis still “can’t see them without a paid supervisor.”
Dennis told Pvnew in July 2023 that she and Ravenel have continued to focus on “doing what works” for them and that their kids are “happy.”
“I’m just gonna keep pushing forward and setting the best example I can for my kids and inspiring them as they slowly learn more and more about me,” she told us.
A brief rekindling
In January 2020, Ravenel and Dennis sparked reconciliation rumors after she shared a photo of the two of them. One month before, the family of four celebrated Christmas together.
“Thomas and Kathryn have been spending a lot of time together. They’re on really good terms. It started with co-parenting, but it quickly grew into something more,” a source told People at the time.
“She feels comfortable with him again, and they’ve both kind of tossed aside any other relationships they had for each other. There’s that spark, and they’re letting themselves explore it right now.”
As the COVID-19 pandemic took Charleston, Dennis revealed that Ravenel was letting her stay in his master bedroom while she renovated her townhouse.
During the Season 7 reunion, Dennis admitted she and Ravenel hooked up once in January 2020.
“But never again. That door is closed,” she added.
A new woman in their dynamic
Two years after Dennis and Ravenel broke up, he began dating Ashley Jacobs, who also starred in Season 5 of the show.
Just like with the father of her children, Dennis and Jacobs got into several screaming matches, including one moment when the latter slammed her as an “egg donor.”
The feuding caused a rift between Ravenel and Dennis, which ultimately led to the former Senate aspirant dumping Jacobs in August 2018 and accusing her of cheating. Jacobs denied the infidelity allegations at the time.
Years after her split from Ravenel, she continued to slam Dennis on social media. She has since gotten married and welcomed a baby boy.
Dad to three
In June 2020, Ravenel revealed he had welcomed a third child named Jonathon Jackson with ex-fiancée Heather Mascoe.
At the time of the birth, Ravenel claimed he and Mascoe had previously dated but they were just “really good friends.” However, six months later, Ravenel confirmed that he was “happily engaged” to Mascoe.
The happy new chapter seemingly didn’t last long because, by December 2020, they wiped their Instagram feeds off each other and no longer follow each other.
Dennis spoke about the new family member on the Season 7 reunion and said she had not met the baby nor Mascoe, but “apparently” her two children met both of them.
Social media feuds
Dennis confirmed that she would not be returning to “Southern Charm” prior to Season 9 in January 2023. Since then, she’s kept fairly quiet on social media except for sharing photos with her children and current cast members.
Ravenel, on the other hand, has used Twitter to slam several of his co-stars, Bravo and Dennis. In August 2022, Ravenel ripped into Bravo for being “corrupt” and, one year later, he said Leva Bonaparte was the “most boring person.”
In November 2023, he went after Dennis and called her the “worst person in the world I know.” He added that Craig Conover and Austen Kroll — who said they keep in touch with Dennis – are both “total losers” and accused them of “doing drugs.”
Dennis, Conover and Kroll have yet to address the comments.
