‘Southern Hospitality’: Grace Lilly and Mikel Simmons Open up About Their ‘Haters’, That ‘Stripper’ Comment (Exclusive)

Southern Hospitality‘s Grace Lilly and Mikel Simmons are shrugging off the haters trying to keep them out of Republic Garden & Lounge. The VIP concierge and VIP host opened up to PopCulture.com ahead of Monday’s new episode of the Bravo series, revealing that watching back what their co-workers have had to say about them behind their backs has been “very emotional.”

“It’s kind of like you go through these emotions one time, and then you have to go through it all over again,” Simmons said of watching the show back. “So kind of like, ‘You said what about me again? You said what? Oh no, I thought we were friends,’ and stuff. So it’s interesting juggling, ‘Like are we still friends, are we still good?’” 

Lilly agreed, bringing up the comments that VIP server Emmy Sharrett’s mother said about Lilly’s Instagram. “I personally did not like – and my mom did not like – the comment where Emmy’s mom said I look like a stripper. I did not appreciate that,” she told PopCulture. “So I thought that was pretty messed up considering Emmy posts bikini photos all the time. But when I post a bikini photo, I’m a stripper.”

When it comes to the other Republic employees trying to keep Simmons out after he was disciplined for hosting a party for a competing club, the Charleston native isn’t taking it to heart. “They were just messy. They were haters. They were jealous,” he said. Watching what his co-workers had to say about him when he wasn’t around, Simmons admitted he thinks he “fought a little too hard” to get back in good with them at Republic. 

“It was kind of like where people already thought about … how they felt about me already. So now I’m like, ‘Why couldn’t I have just been relaxing?’” he wondered. “I didn’t have to sweat that hard or really have to fight these issues, because [they] really had [their] own thought about me already. So I’m kind of like, [they’re] confirming everything I’ve said on screen and off screen as well.”

Lilly agrees that while she’s “been reevaluating a little bit of how I come off” after hearing what people on Southern Hospitality have to say, she won’t let the haters dull her shine. “Some of those people just didn’t really know who I really was and what I was about, and they just want to down me over and over and over again for any damn little reason they could,” she said.

“I could post a photo and they hate on me. I can’t say one bad thing about someone [or] they blow up on me,” Lilly continued. “I can’t do anything wrong or right to please some of these people, so they want to pick on me. And you’ll see it all go down at some point.” Southern Hospitality airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.