Mother Hubbard Knows Best

Lindsay Hubbard has been waiting for this day for months. It’s Tuesday, June 30, and we’re sitting on couches at Blonde Studios in Chelsea, Manhattan, after her photo shoot — but it’s not this interview that has her bubbling with excitement. “My horoscope all year long has said June 30 is the day that changes the rest of the year for me,” Hubbard, a Leo, says with a grin. “Jupiter goes into Leo, and what I’ve struggled with in my love life over the last seven years changes today.”

She has a full day of work obligations — not ideal logistics for a meet-cute — but she’s not to be deterred. “Let’s go out!” she exclaims to her team and me, fluffing her signature blonde bob and kicking up a stilettoed heel. It’s a familiar refrain for the Summer House star, who has led her castmates on endless nights out dancing in the Hamptons since 2015, when she was first cast as an OG on the Bravo reality show. Now 39, Hubbard stars on the show’s spin-off In the City, which follows her as a mom to 1-year-old Gemma and her friend group as they navigate adulthood in New York City. She has less time to party than she used to, but Hubbard will still never miss out on a chance to have fun. She’s calling it her “hot MILF summer.”

“I don’t need a lot of sleep. I think it’s a Leo thing, or maybe it’s just a me thing, but I need four to five good hours, and then I’m good,” she says. That go-getter mentality has been a deal-breaker in past relationships. “If I’m dating a guy and he sleeps too much, it’s not going to work.”

It's so incredible that people say such nice things about me, because it hasn’t always been that way.

Hubbard has just returned from a quick jaunt to Cannes Lions on the French Riviera, where she was busy promoting Summer House and In the City alongside costar Kyle Cooke. The two have been hitting the press circuit together over the past few months, bestie-ing so hard that fans have started lobbying for them to date. “I love Kyle. I think we have very similar energies, but we know too much about each other,” Hubbard says. She gets the same reaction when she posts with castmate and ex-fiancé Carl Radke. “The comments will be like, ‘OK, they’re getting back together,’” she says. “I think it’s just the commitment that the fans have to wanting the best for us.”

In reality, Hubbard has no plans to date her costars — she’s more focused on keeping the friend group together during an offseason that hasn’t been so fun. “We just went through a lot. This has been a very consuming year so far,” she says. “So I think just being a little wild and free is where it’s at.”

By “a lot,” she means, of course, the biggest reality TV scandal in recent memory. Amanda Batula and West Wilson’s romance, revealed in a March 31 Instagram story statement, threw the Summer House cast into chaos, betraying the trust of Wilson’s ex Ciara Miller and Batula’s ex Cooke. Worse, it destroyed Batula and Miller’s close friendship, upending the show’s previous storylines and throwing its future into question. Hubbard has had a front-row seat to all of it, and she’s been keeping fans in the loop.

As the matriarch of the house, she was one of the first people to get confirmation of the relationship, hearing it directly from Miller before the statement was released. She’s been firmly riding for Miller and Cooke throughout the drama. “Ciara has really come into her own over the last few years. She’s a very strong, beautiful, intelligent woman,” she says. “I’m very proud of her and how she’s handled all of this.”

Hubbard has also not shied away from expressing her disdain for Wilson on podcasts, in interviews, and on social media. “I’m hot on Threads,” she jokes. “I have strong opinions, and I’m not necessarily going to do an entire Instagram post about them. I don’t like when people lie. It bugs me.”

Her role as a no-holds-barred truth teller had felt especially prescient in Season 10. In the surprise bonus episode “The Aftermath,” Hubbard sat down with Batula to urge her to leave Wilson, giving tough love rooted in her own history of dating the wrong guys. “I’ve always been the oldest female of the bunch, at least on Summer House. I have a couple more years of life experience that I think people need to hear in these situations,” Hubbard says. “They didn’t listen, but that’s fine. Can’t save them all.”

I think I somehow did this the way that people would dream of.

For all the “Mother Hubbard” comments proliferating on the internet today (and the oft-quoted Paige DeSorbo line “I was raised by Lindsay Hubbard”), she hasn’t always felt this much love from her costars and audience. “It's so incredible that people say such nice things about me, because it hasn’t always been that way,” Hubbard says.

The Florida native has been headstrong since she was a child. “I’ve always had very strong opinions and ideas and thoughts, whether my parents liked it or not, but I also have a good character. It’s because I was raised right.”

Weathering backlash is just something she’s gotten used to. “There’s a lot of patience that had to be had,” she says. “You have to experience life and go through different stages to understand why someone’s perspective was what it was during that time. I’ve had a lot of conversations with the girls where they’re like, ‘OK, now I understand.’”

Come on, girls. Help me build this roster by not tattletaling on me.

After a decade of navigating friendships, dating, heartbreak, and now motherhood in the public eye, Hubbard has come to know herself and her motivations better. “I still have the same fiery personality, but I think that we evolve as the years go on,” she says. “Season 1 Lindsay still had a lot to figure out.” Now, she’s better equipped to offer advice. “I got a DM the other night, and it was this girl being like, ‘Can you FaceTime us? My friend is in a really bad relationship, and she needs help out of it.’ People have seen me go through unfortunate relationships and then pick myself back up afterward.”

While Hubbard is “more hesitant” in her love life now, she’s become less rigid about timelines — and freer now that she’s achieved her dream of becoming a mom. “My ultimate goal in life was to have a family, and I’ve done that. So now I can be way more selective with any potential serious partners,” she says. “I think I somehow did this the way that people would dream of.”

Her biggest problem in the romance department is the risk of being posted on gossip sites like Deuxmoi. “It comes with a lot to always know that no matter where I go, it’s going to be documented,” Hubbard says. “Which sucks for my dating life because if I have a roster, they’re going to know they’re not the only ones.” She jokes that the fans need to let her date in peace. “Let a girl live! Come on, girls. Help me build this roster by not tattletaling on me.”

Still, ever the seasoned reality star, she’ll spill some tea. Hubbard tells me she’s still dating Frank the Milkman, whom she’s been casually seeing in Season 1 of In the City. “We talk all the time. He travels a lot, so we’ll see. It kind of works because we’re both so busy,” she says.

Amidst all the mayhem of this year, Hubbard, Cooke, and Radke have been rallying to give the fans something to be joyful about. In April, after nearly three years of tension following their 2023 split, Hubbard and Radke came together for an Uber Eats ad. Then, in June, she appeared on his podcast, More Life, and re-followed Radke on Instagram, prompting plenty of giddy fan comments along the lines of “nature is healing.”

“We have shared our traumas, our dramas, our minds, bodies, and souls, our entire journeys for 10 years,” Hubbard says of her friendship with her two fellow Summer House day-ones. “If someone is then threatening the group dynamic in a way that has the potential to take the show in a different course … no, you will not do that to me.”

The currently filming Season 11, sans Batula and Wilson, proves she got her wish. Hubbard is returning to the Emmy-nominated show. She’s hoping In the City gets a Season 2 — the first season wraps July 28, when the second part of the reunion airs. “It’s a really great age range, especially in New York City, to have on TV,” she says. Otherwise, she’s focused on raising Gemma and letting life play out as it’s meant to. “I’m not putting pressure on anything, in any direction,” she says.

As we wrap up our chat, I tell Hubbard to keep me posted on how her day of cosmically ordained romance plays out. She promises to message me, but as it turns out, she doesn’t have to. The next morning, I open Instagram to see a photo on Deuxmoi of her chatting with a handsome former reality star at a bar. Sorry to her roster, but Mother Hubbard’s hot MILF summer is in full swing.