The 'Southern Charm' star opens up to ET about finding his way back to his on-and-off girlfriend, Madison LeCroy.
Austen Kroll’s off the market.
At BravoCon -- Bravo's first-ever fan convention held over the weekend in New York City -- the Southern Charm star let it slip that he and on-again, off-again girlfriend Madison LeCroy were back together. This comes after the pair said they were done on the season six reunion, which aired in August.
"You know, she's just been a part of my life and, as I've kind of told everyone, it's like we've tried to do the adult and sensible thing like, let's just go our own ways and be happy with other people maybe, and we just went right back," Austen admits to ET. "I think that's called… what's that called? A soulmate? It might be."
"So, you know, we can't quit each other, is what it seems," he adds, getting a little red. "OK, now I'm in trouble. This is going to be terrible."
Austen says, no matter how much he and Madison tried, something kept bringing them back together. He admits they would threaten each other by saying they were going on dates with other people, to which they would each react with something along the lines of, "The hell you are!"
The pair first publicly sparked reconciliation rumors on Instagram on Halloween, when they posed together in a couples costume: JFK and Marilyn Monroe.
"Yeah, we sure did," Austen says, with a smile. "I mean, we had been planning that costume for like – we were like, even if we're not in a good place, we're freakin' wearing this thing, and she freakin' knocked it out of the park and I had an easy job."
Austen and Madison’s roller-coaster relationship was at the center of Southern Charm's sixth season, with accusations of cheating (including some "hidden camera" footage of Madison confronting an underwear-clad Austen about it, which Austen claims to have never watched) and pot-stirring within the friend group. During the cast's trip to Colorado, Madison alleged that Shep Rose gave Danni Baird an STD, an accusation both Shep and Danni vehemently denied. The three got into a tearful back-and-forth over the claims at the reunion, which led to no resolution for them.
"I'm staying out of it," Shep tells ET of Austen and Madison's rekindled romance. "I've learned my lesson, don't weigh in on matters of the heart, because you can't talk sense into anybody, you know? You're shouting into the wind. And I mean, I don't want an enemy in this world."
"It's water under the bridge, as far as I'm concerned," he adds. "I mean, I don't agree with some of the things -- I did some things that I probably wish I hadn't and I think she would probably admit that she did the same, so anyway, that's where we're at. I wouldn't call it a stalemate. I would call it a truce."
Austen says, right now, he and Madison are keeping their relationship away from the Southern Charm gang and cameras. Season seven reportedly won’t start shooting until sometime in 2020.
"I think it's good right now that we're not filming, so that we can figure out a couple things," Austen shares. "You know, we're trying to figure it out. We really are. And people love to be like, ‘Well, if you're not going to get married, then you shouldn't be wasting your time...' and I'm like, that is such a ridiculous thing to say. Like, do you meet a girl in a bar and be like, 'I'm going to marry this girl? Maybe I shouldn't mess around with her, because I'm not going to marry her.' I don’t think like that, and maybe that's an adult way of thinking, and I should think like that, but… you know?"
Austen says his and Madison’s goal right now is to simply "be good for, like, an extended period of time."
"My mom's like, do I love her this week? Are you not with her?" he confesses. "And my little sister is like, 'Hey, Madison is in town, can I call her?' And it's like, it's not fair to family, it's not fair to friends but it's, like, I can't help it. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?"
Southern Charm will return to Bravo for its seventh season in 2020.
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