Kyle Cooke and Craig Conover have been friends for years — but that hasn’t stopped them from feuding over Loverboy and loyalty.
Cooke launched his alcohol brand, Loverboy, in 2018, with his now-wife, Amanda Batula, and friend Carl Radke by his side. Five years later, the canned cocktails landscape had grown even bigger and pal Conover jumped on the bandwagon.
When Conover announced in April 2024 that he was an investor in Spritz Society, Cooke claimed there was “no bad blood” between them. However, Cooke confessed during a May 2024 appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen that it “rubbed me the wrong way” how Conover told him he was working with a competitor.
"First and foremost, all my friends that I’ve filmed with know that I’ve raised money,” Cooke later claimed during a June 2024 episode of the “Trading Secrets” podcast. “The only person that ever expressed interest was Carl.”
Cooke, who has known Conover since 2018, alleged, “Craig never expressed interest. He never once asked to invest in Loverboy.”
Scroll down for a complete timeline of Cooke and Conover’s drama surrounding Loverboy — and see where they stand now:
The Initial Announcement
“I’m so excited to announce that I am now an investor in @spritz! I first found out about Spritz last summer when me and Paige [DeSorbo] were on our way to @taylorswift at Metlife and the party bus was stocked with these delicious wine spritzers,” Conover wrote in a lengthy Instagram post in April 2024. “One sip was all it took for me to realize they were onto something and I needed to learn more about the brand — I loved the concept of a refreshing wine based drink & how they brought everyone together.”
He gushed, “I’m so excited to be in the Spritz Society family and for y’all to see the amazing projects we’ve got in the works.”
Craig Breaks Down His Spritz Choice
"Obviously I’ve always had respect for Austen [Kroll] and Kyle and all of them but being in the liquor business or wine liquor business now, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh. This is a new territory,’” Conover told Page Six in May 2024, referring to Kroll’s Trop Hop beer and Cooke’s Loverboy alcohol brand.
Conover noted that he has “always respected Kyle’s hustle,” but he also “didn’t understand it at times” until he got involved in the industry. “I understand why he’s had to work so hard, because the grind in the alcohol business is extreme,” he added.
Conover alleged that prior to the Spritz Society investment, he “offered to buy into” Kroll’s beer company but Kroll declined his offer. Conover also claimed he “would have loved to invest” in Loverboy, but “that wasn’t an option.”
Kyle Goes on ‘Watch What Happens Live’
Cooke initially told Andy Cohen on a May 2024 episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen that there was “no bad blood” between him and Conover over Spritz Society. “I think this is being blown out of proportion,” he explained. “I don’t really think there was an investment, and it seems like all the press is referencing me.”
Cooke later said, “Look, I wish him the best, but the way he handled it, and we don’t have time to get into it, really rubbed me the wrong way, and I’m just trying to take the high road.” He alleged Conover “has a reputation of lying and he lied to me.”
The Investor Issue
After Spritz Society founder Ben Soffer’s wife, Claudia Oshry, claimed during a May 2024 episode of “The Toast” podcast that Cooke denied Conover the ability to invest in Loverboy — and alleged that Loverboy has no investors — Cooke addressed the drama.
“I don’t know what got lost in translation. Loverboy has investors, we’ve had investors since 2019,” Cooke said on Jason Tartick’s “Trading Secrets” podcast in June 2024. “I value them immensely. I’ve had lots of them texting me saying, ‘What in the heck is going on?’ I could not have done it without them.”
Cooke claimed that Conover was well aware that he was looking for investors and fundraising opportunities when they were in Vermont for Winter House in March 2022.
“I am not a sole owner. I wanna make that very clear,” Cooke said on the podcast. “We were actually fundraising — I was very vocal about this with my close friends, Craig included, during Winter House [season 2]. I was busy raising a round of financing. It’s like, this is not a secret.”
Kyle’s Spritz Society Conversation
Nearly two years after Cooke was fundraising in early 2022, he crossed paths with Soffer, Spritz Society’s founder, in New York City. “He had DMed me when we were both at an industry conference in January. And per the timeline his wife laid out, he was already in talks with Craig,” Cooke explained in June 2024 as to how he first connected with Soffer, noting the pair agreed to go to dinner the following month.
"This dinner ended up taking place about two weeks before Craig and I got drinks. We’re talking like receipts and timelines these days [so] dinner was February 7th,” Cooke confirmed. “I really enjoyed the conversation.”
The Summer House star recalled Soffer eventually saying, “‘Hey, maybe we could collab and like throw a party, kind of cross pollinate our audiences.’” While Cooke was entertaining the idea, he learned that Soffer was with Conover the following day and Soffer “never mentioned” it.
“I didn’t know at this time that him and Craig were talking about a collab,” Cooke said, noting, “He knows Craig and I are friends. … I just wish he was a little more transparent with his intentions.”
Cooke confessed that found it “extremely odd” that Soffer didn’t tell him or Conover that he’d been spending time with the other person all while working on an investment deal with Conover.
Carl Has Kyle’s Back
Dring the same March 2025 “Virtual Reali-Tea” event, Radke backed Cooke and poked fun at Conover’s investment history.
"We were at a bar last week that Craig is an investor in and the bartender was asked about that producer and he said it was the worst thing he’s ever had,” Radke claimed. “That’s what the guy told me. … Kyle was right there. We just asked, ‘How is this?’ And he said, ‘It’s so horrible.’ He actually gave it to someone for free because it was so bad.”
Cooke, meanwhile, reiterated that his biggest issue with Conover over the alcohol drink company was pegged to how Conover depicted the events publicly. “Maybe he forgets saying this [in] an interview, but he called himself an incredible liar. Rewind the tapes,” Cooke alleged at the event.
He teased, “There’s so much more to the story,” that Cooke said would “start coming out a lot more easily” now that Conover isn’t dating his friend DeSorbo. (DeSorbo found herself in the middle of Conover and Cooke’s Summer House blowout, which was filmed in July 2024, prior to their fall breakup.)
