Kyle Cooke pushed back on criticism over a photo with Amanda Batula at the In The City Season 1 premiere in New York City, saying he was simply glad his estranged wife showed up. The two, who announced in January that they were separating after four years of marriage, posed together at the premiere party and quickly became a talking point online.
Cooke addressed the moment on his Instagram Story after the event, saying, “Yes, Amanda and I took a picture together. I was just happy she showed up.” He added that Batula “almost didn’t come to a show that she participated in,” then dismissed the backlash over the image. “Don’t call my life, my relationship, my marriage, and the implosion of my marriage fake,” he said.
He also defended the scene as ordinary, given that the cast and friends had gathered for a public premiere. “Guys, with all due respect, we’re all adults here, and we all showed up to a premiere party,” he said. “And yes, Amanda did not want to come. And I convinced her to come. We took a photo together. Grow the f--k up.”
The photo had been amplified a day earlier when Danielle Olivera posted an image on her Instagram Story showing herself with Batula and Cooke. The moment landed in the middle of a promotional stretch for the Bravo series, which premieres Tuesday, May 19 at 9/8c and streams the next day on Peacock.
The appearance matters because Cooke has been describing the split in more measured terms in the days leading up to the premiere. On May 11, he said on the Trading Secrets podcast that he still had “so much love” for Batula and wanted an amicable break because the couple shares friends across several shows, and on May 7 he said on Access Hollywood’s Reality Nightcap that she had leaned on him through it all. The public photo at the New York event showed that, for now, they can still stand in the same room even if the marriage is over.
That is the friction inside the story. Cooke wants the separation treated as real, but he is also publicly trying to keep the peace around it. The picture with Batula was not a reconciliation, and he did not present it that way. It was a couple showing up to the same premiere, on the same night, for the same cast member, and Cooke was clear that he thought that was enough.
