Southern Charm’s Ashley Jacobs Had to Recover After 2019 Exit

Recovering reality star. Ashley Jacobs admitted that it took a while to adjust to life after leaving Bravo’s Southern Charm.

“It’s probably taken about three years to finally feel in a good place, you know, mentally,” she exclusively told Us Weekly on Wednesday, July 20. “Everyone says you kind of have to be removed from the situation to kind of have that clarity. … Each year that goes by, I have more and more clarity … I’m more mad at myself, you know, for putting myself in that position.”

The 37-year-old California native left the show after season 6 in 2019 following her split with her costar Thomas Ravenel. With many of her ups and downs with Ravenel, 59, documented on Southern Charm, the media personality is not eager for her husband, Mike Appel, to watch the series.

“There have been times he’s turned on the TV and [Southern Charm is] on and I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, please, please,’ she told Us, adding that Appel, 41, seeing her onscreen with an ex-boyfriend would be “awkward in and of itself.”

Despite feeling uncomfortable with her hubby watching her with Ravenel, Jacobs is on good terms with the politician. “Because of social media, you see what’s going on in each other’s lives and I see what’s going on with his children and new house,” she said. “He’ll say, ‘Congrats,’ and he reaches out every now and again, and he’ll laugh, and he’ll go like, ‘You did it, you did the married life.’ He kind of laughs at me. He plays with me.”

The influencer and her husband began dating in 2019 and tied the knot in March 2021. They welcomed their son, Grayson, later that year. When Jacobs’ maternity leave ended, she decided to stay home with her baby longer than originally planned.

“As a registered nurse, my job is always gonna be there. They’re always gonna need me, but these little moments with my baby aren’t [always going to be there],” she told Us, adding that her husband would “snap” at her when she tried to overexert herself during the recovery period after her C-section. “My husband was so amazing.”

Becoming a mother shifted the former reality star’s perspective and made her wonder why she hadn’t settled down earlier in her life.

“I love my baby so much,” she told Us. “Seeing my husband as a father is so incredible and to think where my life has been, what I’ve done, and to think that now this is it. And maybe I should have done this a lot sooner.”

Jacobs added that she doesn’t have any regrets about Southern Charm, stating, “It’s gotten me to where I’m at today.”