'Summer House' Season 8 star West Wilson on Jesse Solomon opening up to him about cancer history
"I'm happy he trusted me," Wilson said
Romantic relationships are on shaky ground in Summer House Season 8 (Thursdays at 10:00 p.m. ET on Hayu in Canada), including tension between Kyle Cooke and Amanda Batula related to Loverboy, and watching the moments before Lindsay Hubbard and Carl Radke broke up. Additionally, a big question for the show's fans is what happens with the budding romance between Ciara Miller and West Wilson.
Recently on Summer House, there were some concerns around Wilson not entirely closing the door to other girls while he's spending time with Miller. But we'll have to wait and see how things turn out for the couple.
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Dating amid significant turmoil in the house is an interesting aspect of Summer House Season 8, which included Radke sharing that his family, particularly his mom, wasn't very supportive of his plan to marry Hubbard, before they called things off last year.
Reflecting on what happened with his friends, Wilson admitted that it would be difficult to completely ignore any concerns his mom voiced about his relationship.
"It's hard to know exactly what I'd do," Wilson told Yahoo Canada in Toronto. "You would like to say that you wouldn't listen to them, but I think we'd all be lying if we said that wouldn't loom over us for maybe ever."
"Even if you didn't make a decision based on what your mom said, it would f**king weigh you down for as long as you thought she thought that. And he's super close with his mom and so I'm sure her opinion carries more weight."
'We had each other'
One relationship that has been sweet to see evolve is the friendship between Wilson and Jesse Solomon, the two newbies to the show. As we saw on the Summer House, Solomon opened up to Wilson about his initial testicular cancer diagnosis at age 24, and experiencing another cancer scare while filming the show.
"The health stuff was just crazy," Wilson said. "The most guy thing ever, he never talked about it all summer and then drinking just makes people emotional, and I could just see it in his eyes, ... and then he just broke down. ... I'm happy he trusted me."
Wilson also highlighted that he felt particularly close to Solomon from the beginning, because they got to go through the experience of being on Summer House for the first time together. He added that they're also closer in age than Cooke and Radke. Wilson is currently 29 and Solomon is 30. Cooke is 41 and Radke is 39.
"They could have their relationship and talk about their 40-year-old things and we could talk about our 30-year-old things, and it didn't feel like one of us needed Kyle or Carl to like big brother us, because we had each other," Wilson said.
West Wilson's initial apprehensions about reality TV
Wilson joined Summer House after being laid off from his job as a sports journalist, initially introduced as Hubbard's friend. But before he started filming, Wilson knew what he didn't want out of his reality TV experience.
"I was very clear about not wanting to sell out or not wanting to be cast as the hick f**king white guy from Missouri," Wilson said. "All the things that reality TV would scare you of. Also, I told them I'm not that confrontational in person, to be honest, which I feel like is maybe not great for reality TV."
"I was reassured throughout the whole thing that we're so happy that you're going to be yourself, and we trust that you're not going to come in and try to be anything other than yourself. ... I felt good that I could just do me."
