Leva Bonaparte puts co-stars on blast for 'coddling' Kathryn Dennis after racist emoji scandal

Southern Charm star Leva Bonaparte didn’t mince words when it came to calling out how her castmates about how they responded to Kathryn Dennis’ racist emoji scandal.

Craig Conover, Shep Rose and Austen Kroll got an ear full from Leva on Thursday night’s episode for ‘coddling’ Dennis in the wake of the incident.

In the spring, Kathryn had been put on blast for sending direct message to a black radio host of monkey emoji. 

‘I literally wanted to say to the guys, “Why are you guys coddling someone that said something so viciously racist to somebody? That makes me think you’re racist,”‘ Leva said in the most recent episode.  

Things got particularly tense during a verbal spat with Austen over how Kathryn was treated by her male co-stars at a beach event in the immediate aftermath of the scandal. 

‘The fact that you are coddling her right now, and yelling at me and calling me a bully, either you don’t know what happened, you’re uninformed,’ Leva told Austen. ‘I don’t know people who do that. 

Adding: ‘I won’t stand for it.’ 

During the beach trip around the time the incident happened, Kathryn had spent most of her time with Craig Conover who admitted last night that he wasn’t aware of the full story. 

‘I’m just blown away,’ he said, admitting that he could no longer justify Kathryn’s behavior. 

‘I’m glad Leva is telling me this, it makes a lot more sense,’ Craig reflected. ‘I really didn’t understand everything at the beach. But this is bad.’ 

The scandal erupted over the springtime, when Charleston radio host Tamika Gadsden tweeted her dismay over a Trump parade party hosted by a friend of Kathryn, prompting the reality star to bombard her with private messages including the monkey emoji. 

Meanwhile in Thursday’s episode, Leva, who became a full cast member this season, revealed she was most disappointed in Shep. 

She said: ‘Of all the boys, Shep, you are the one to not coddle people. It bothers me that Kathryn is not being held accountable.’

Unfortunately Leva wasn’t able to get Shep to see it her way and he explained that people should be given the opportunity to change. 

‘I’m not a judge, jury, or executioner, and I refuse to be one,’ the Southern Charm OG said.

Not pleased, Leva accused Shep of turning away from the real issue: ‘Burying his head in the sand is absolutely the definition of white privilege.’

In a season seven episode last month, Kathryn addressed the controversial monkey emoji and subsequent backlash.  

‘Honestly I’ve been super depressed the past few weeks with everything that happened with the Instagram emoji,’ Kathryn said in a phone conversation with costar Madison LeCroy.

‘It was genuinely a mistake and had nothing to do with race, politics, nothing,’ she added.

In a confessional, Kathryn appeared almost annoyed at how, in her eyes, the situation was blown out of proportion. 

‘My friend was having a Trump Parade Party and I’m not f**king political, I’m not into Trump, I’m not into anyone, but they were bullying her like, this woman was bashing my friend Katie,’ she recalled. ‘So I started responding. I don’t even remember what I said, but I do know the monkey emoji ended up coming up.’  

‘She kept hearting every message I sent, just being an a**hole. I was like, “That’s how serious I take this” with the monkey emoji, which I picture going like this,’ Kathryn explained, striking a pose similar to that of the monkey emoji.

‘Because it looks funny. It’s awkward, and that’s my sense of humor. And now I’m f**king apparently racist,’ she continued.

Kathryn later publicly apologized to Tamika over the exchange, however the radio host declined to accept. 

‘I received so much backlash, so much hate, messages online,’ she admitted. ‘So I just kind of shut down. I’ve been like bubble girl the last few weeks.’ 

Southern Charm airs Thursday nights on Bravo.