When Scandoval happened in 2023, I reacted the way most Bravo fans did: I was shocked, entertained, and fully invested in the chaos. It was messy and dramatic — and, most importantly, easy to watch from a distance. But the recent Summer House scandal hits different.
It’s not just that Ciara Miller’s ex, West Wilson, hooked up and seemingly started a relationship with one of her supposed best friends, Amanda Batula (all while Amanda is separated from, but still married to, Kyle Cooke, BTW). It was everything around it. It was the way West seemingly disregarded Ciara’s feelings from the start of their situationship, yet acted like he still wanted something more than friendly with Ciara… only to turn around and commit to a joint Instagram statement announcing a “connection” with Amanda — leaving Ciara not just hurt, but publicly humiliated.
But as a Black woman, what made it especially hard to watch was the misogynoir of it all. There was something painfully familiar about watching Ciara’s feelings be treated as negotiable, inconvenient, or too easy to dismiss while everyone else seemed to move forward as if she should just absorb it quietly. Because it didn’t just feel upsetting. It felt familiar. It brought to light something I’ve been trying to understand for a long time: the complicated, often painful difference between being desired and being genuinely valued while dating as a Black woman.
Growing up in predominantly white spaces, being “liked” by boys often didn’t feel flattering. It felt humiliating. I learned early that attraction toward me could come with an undercurrent of unseriousness — like I was being teased, tested, or turned into a punchline before I even had time to process what was happening. I remember learning to read tone before I trusted attention, because not all of it felt safe to believe.
What I recognize in Ciara’s experience isn’t just disappointment. It’s the emotional confusion that comes from trying to figure out whether someone’s attraction to you is rooted in care or in projection.
Onyi Nwosisi
Growing up like that taught me early that being wanted and being respected are not the same, and as I got older, that dynamic shifted from feeling humiliating to feeling hypersexualized. Instead of being treated like a joke, I started feeling reduced to something visual — something to comment on, something to react to, something to project onto. What makes it even more exhausting is how closely it sits next to one of the oldest and most persistent stereotypes about Black women: that we are inherently more sexual, more available, or more promiscuous. (Let’s not forget when another of Ciara’s love interests, Austen Kroll from Southern Charm, called her a “jezebel,” a racially charged stereotype that portrays Black women as temptresses.) What makes that stereotype so dangerous is that it doesn’t have to reflect your real life in order to shape how people treat you, regardless of who you actually are or how you move through the world. Ciara summed that feeling up perfectly earlier this season when she said it felt like people just wanted to “experience” her, not actually know her.
I’ve often felt like a late bloomer when it comes to dating and intimacy, partly because so much of my early experience with attraction was tangled up in fear — fear of rejection, fear of being made into a joke, and fear of being wanted for only one thing. That kind of emotional history has a way of following you. It can make even sincere attention feel harder to trust, because part of you is always bracing for the moment it turns unserious, objectifying, or unsafe. And it’s part of why the treatment of Ciara by cast members like West and Amanda (and Jesse Solomon, TBH) is hitting me so hard.
What I recognize in Ciara’s experience isn’t just disappointment. It’s the emotional confusion that comes from trying to figure out whether someone’s attraction to you is rooted in care or in projection. Whether they actually see you, or whether they just like the idea of you. Whether what feels vulnerable and real to you is being held with the same seriousness on the other side.
That kind of uncertainty can follow you for a long time. It can make you more guarded. More observant. It can make dating feel heavier than it looks from the outside, because sometimes what you’re really trying to figure out isn’t just “Do they like me?” but “Do they actually see me as a full person?” West and Ciara shared some of the most intimate moments a person can share with someone and yet, that still wasn’t enough for him to give her the respect of not hooking up with her friend — and then going public with her.
And for me, that is what made this drama hit harder than anything like Scandoval ever could.
What has made it easier, though, is the overwhelming positivity and support coming Ciara’s way. There is something deeply affirming about seeing so many people rally around her, validate her, and make it clear that what happened to her was not small, petty, or easy to dismiss. And despite the hurt, Ciara has continued to move with grace through it all. But if she wanted to channel some of Ariana Madix’s post-Scandoval rage, she’d be well within her right to do so, and would still be deserving of all the love, understanding, and protection — even if Black women aren’t always given it.