‘Southern Hospitality’s Lake Rucker Reveals the ‘Deep-Rooted’ Issues at the Heart of Her Feud With Mia Alario and Molly Moore (Exclusive)

There’s more to Southern Hospitality star Lake Rucker’s feud with Mia Alario and Molly Moore than meets the eye.

Lake opened up to PopCulture.com about what caused the divide in the friend group — and how she regrets some of the drama — ahead of Wednesday’s all-new episode of the Bravo show, revealing there were “deep-rooted” issues that came to a head with Mia and Molly.

Lake told PopCulture that she considered herself “good friends” with Molly until about two weeks before Season 4 filming started, when she started to feel like she wasn’t being “acknowledged” by her.

“When I’m friends with somebody, I acknowledge them when they walk by, even if it’s a ‘hello,’” she said, admitting that while that “sounds a little bit childish” to take issue with, “I say hey to my friends.”

Lake also “really looked up to” Mia, but felt she was being put down by her co-star, whom she claimed branded her as “emotional” and “immature” in a way that was less “loving” and more “mean girl.”

Lake also took issue with how Molly and Mia handled their mutual friend Jordyn Smith’s situationship with Jusin Assad. As viewers saw on Southern Hospitality, Lake criticized Mia for briefly pursuing her own romantic relationship with Justin, claiming to PopCulture that Mia’s assertion that she wasn’t friends with Jordyn didn’t feel authentic to her.

“Molly knew the relationship that Jordyn and Justin had, and Mia knew it too,” Lake said. “We all went to Vegas together. We all — Jordyn, Mia, [and] Molly — hung out all the time. … I wouldn’t have reacted in the ways that I reacted if I believed that Mia and Jordyn were not friends.”

As a “very loyal friend” herself, Lake said her strong reactions came out of wanting to “defend” Jordyn, “because she doesn’t have confessionals like us [and] she doesn’t have that voice like us to express our opinions and stuff.”

“I felt like I needed to be there for her in that moment,” she explained.

As a “very emotional person,” Lake said she knows her actions “can be perceived as immaturity,” and she regrets taking aim at Mia’s breast implants with snarky confessional comments.

“I never meant to [mention] the fake boobs as an insult thing,” she told PopCulture. “I think it was more of a joke to me because, I mean, I want fake boobs myself. I’m flat-chested.”

She quipped, “I love boobs. I’m gay!” insisting that she never meant for her comments to be taken as “body shaming.”

“I love bodies. I love women’s bodies in all shapes and forms,” Lake said. “And so I apologize for that.”

Watching this season back has been “a little bit tough,” Lake acknowledged, but at age 23, she says she’s still “learning and growing” from her mistakes. “Me being able to see my mistakes is helping me grow from them and adapt certain things about myself that I’m not necessarily proud of,” she said.

Lake said she also wants to help her friends grow from their mistakes, which is why she’s stuck by Emmy Sharrett, despite her microaggressive comments and tension with co-star Bradley Carter.

“Watching the season back and even during the season, I did not condone any of what Emmy said or how she said it,” Lake said. “I think that any form of racism, [or] microaggression is unacceptable. I do not condone it at all. I made that clear to her [and] I made that clear to Brad, too.”

“I cared about [Emmy], and I care about her to this day,” Lake said. “I just want to be that person to teach somebody their mistakes rather than let them keep repeating this mistake. So I’m there to be an educator. … I do believe that she’s learning from her mistakes.”

Southern Hospitality airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo. Episodes are available to stream the next day on Peacock.