'Southern Charm's 10 Baddest Villains, Ranked

Southern Charm is one of the wildest reality series on Bravo, a network known for producing divas. The series tends to focus on the bond between the male cast members, and their perspective often takes priority over the ladies in the group. Whether this reflects the casts' unique chemistry, or the old-school boys' club values that permeate the South, Shep Rose, Craig Conover, and Austen Kroll continue to be the center of the drama on the series as Season 10 comes to a close.While the cast has evolved over the decade Southern Charm has been on the air, their journey through Neverland into adulthood hasn't been without its fair share of problematic moments along the way. The gents have seen each other through relationship milestones, tumultuous break-ups, career highs, and devastating nights out. But just because the men tend to dominate the narrative, that doesn't mean the ladies aren't capable of delivering the drama as well. In a cast filled with dastardly divas, here are the top 10 villains in Southern Charm.

10Jarrett "JT" Thomas

(Season 9 – Season 10)

Jarret "JT" Thomas wanted to come across as a perfect Southern gentleman, but his time on Southern Charm built him into the villain of Season 10 instead. In Season 9, JT viewed Austen as the ultimate villain, and made it his agenda to take him to task. This dramatic bid to go against Austen was all an ill-informed ploy to win over Taylor Ann Green, who JT had been crushing on, Austen had been hooking-up with, and Shep had recently broken up with.

JT shot himself in the foot in Season 10 when he showed up with a limp after an ATV accident, distributing out a plethora of canes to the cast in a lame attempt to call attention to his injury. JT inadvertently upset series matron Patricia Altschul, who understandably felt being offered a cane at an outdoor social event was an uncouth reminder of her advanced years. It was only downhill from there, as JT managed to alienate himself from almost everyone in the cast during the season.

Everyone, that is, except for romantic interest Venita Aspen, who defended him up until the point he embarrassed her by sending her mixed romantic signals both on and off-camera. JT abruptly quit filming mid-season amid a swirl of rumors stirred up through the game of gossip that fuels the drama down south. Without intending to, JT set himself up to become the villain of Southern Charm Season 10.

9Madison LeCroy

(Season 6 – Present)

Madison LeCroy is the best kind of villain, because despite her devious nature, viewers can't help but root for the bratty Southern belle. In a world of Peter Pans benefiting from the patriarchy, Madison's refusal to cut the guys any slack automatically pits her as the villain in many Southern Charm scenarios. The charmer's quick-wit and vicious sense of humor make her a formidable opponent for even the most eloquent of enemies. It's little wonder the men of Southern Charm often seem stunned and tongue-tied when confronted with Madison's confident charisma.

The single mother entered the group in Season 6 as Austen's girlfriend and Patricia's hairstylist. Because she was leagues beyond her cast mates in life experience and responsibility, it quickly became clear that even though Southern Charm prioritizes the male perspective, when Madison is in the scene she is a one-woman show. Her continued presence in the friend group long after she abandoned the idea of dating any of her co-stars speaks to the strength of her position on the series.

Many other romantic interests have fallen to the wayside over the years, including the most recent loss of fan favorite Olivia Flowers once her romantic interest with Austen came to its disastrous end. Madison's villainous sense of humor and ability to torture the boys of Southern Charm has cemented her role in the cast. Madison is the best kind of villain, because at her core she is actually a sweet and caring person who viewers cannot help but root for.

8Kathryn Dennis

(Season 1– Season 8)

Kathryn Dennis is another Southern vixen who is a villain viewers root for. How can anyone forget Kathryn's entrance into the series, when the young and fiery reality star set her sights on Charleston's leading rapscallion, disgraced state treasurer Thomas Ravenel? The vast age difference between the pair never proved a hurdle for Kathryn, but instead, the level of drama each of them was capable of bringing to the relationship was their ultimate demise. Though the couple eventually came to share two children together, their separation and custody troubles were a constant presence in Kathryn's life as she navigated life on Southern Charm.

But Kathryn's tumultuous relationship with Thomas is only partially the reason she landed on the villains list of the reality series. Kathryn has one of the best qualities a villain can have, which is a complete lack of awareness that her behavior could be interpreted in a negative light. After facing backlash for an ignorant choice of emojis when messaging with a Black woman on social media, Kathryn was accused of racism as the entire Southern Charm production came under fire for not only the lack of representation in the cast, but also for seemingly upholding the old world conservative Southern values that thrived on racial disparity.

Then in Season 8, Kathryn's new relationship with Chleb Ravenell caused viewers and fellow cast members to question the optics, as she rushed to move-in with the young bachelor in a seeming demonstration of their commitment. Since she was facing accusations of racism at the time, many saw the relationship as a possible "showmance" that was meant to repair Kathryn's reputation. After causing drama every season she was featured in, Kathryn managed to retire as a beloved villain who many viewers and cast members would love to see return to the series.

7Landon Clements

(Season 2 – Season 4)

Now Landon Clements was a different kind of villain, one who presents herself as a doe-eyed victim. Landon's tenure on Southern Charm proved her to be one of the most devious and calculated villains to be featured on a series known for its dramatic cast. It was made clear that Landon was struggling to find a sense of purpose in her time filming with the gang down South, after she had the nepo-baby confidence to propose an "arts and travel" website to the head of Vox Media without having a clear pitch prepared. Landon's surprise at not receiving a warm reception demonstrated just how sheltered the Southern belle could be.

But Landon's true villainy became clear once she started to target Kathryn in a misguided bid to secure her financial future by pursuing Thomas romantically. Landon had ample encouragement from Ms. Patricia to pursue Thomas amid his fractious on-again-off-again relationship with Kathryn, which is unsurprising since her son is an executive producer on the series and both mother and son would have known that this was the most explosive plot point the series could hope for. The way that Landon went after Thomas by insulting Kathryn was quite ugly, and crossed the line when the failed travel writer continued to bring up the young mother's sobriety issues amid her custody struggles with Thomas. If the Southern Charm crew wasn't so filled with misbehaving villains, Landon's devious machinations would have landed her significantly higher on the list.

6Craig Conover

(Season 1 – Present)

Craig is a tricky case, because he has navigated his time on Bravo so effectively that he has often played the hero while secretly exhibiting villain tendencies. One of the most dastardly things a man can do is hide behind his relationship while acting shady on the side, and Craig's recent break-up with Summer House star Paige DeSorbo is gradually starting to make clear that though his sassy Italian-American New Yorker was happy to cover up for his misbehavior during their relationship, she is done playing Ms. Nice Girl now that the couple has called it quits. Craig's relationship with Paige coincided with his business success with his merchandise company, Sewing Down South, and the viewers saw his turn of good luck as a reflection of his character, and overlooked the many devious qualities Craig exhibited on Southern Charm, Summer House, and Winter House throughout the years.

Craig has repeatedly been accused of lying during his time on reality TV, not only by his now ex-girlfriend, but often most vociferously by his cast mates and closest friends, Shep and Austen. His co-stars have frequently accused Craig of acting more grandiose than his usual self in recent seasons, which Craig attempted to smooth over in Season 10 by claiming his recent change in behavior was the result of his cutting back on drinking. However, Craig's habit of lying has stayed with him since the very first season, when he was a half-hearted legal student who may-or-may-not have passed the bar. Due to his unconventional relationship with the truth, it has never been clear whether Craig was ever the lawyer he claimed to be this season on the beach in the Bahamas, although many viewers who have followed his journey certainly know him to be a "storyteller."

Craig's behavior when he travels is yet another tick in the column of reasons he lands on the villains list. The Southern Charm cast visit to the Bahamas offered a glimpse into Craig's bratty behavior on vacation, when he refused to share a room and threw a temper tantrum on camera. Viewers familiar with the Summer House spin-off series Winter House will know this outlandish side of Craig, who often refused to help clean up after rowdy evenings, and insisted instead that paying cleaners to come in would be a better course of action. Although his business success and his relationship with Paige allowed him to become a Bravo darling in recent years, his habit of lying, angry outbursts, and entitled travel antics, certainly earned Craig his placement on the list of Southern Charm villains.

5Austen Kroll

(Season 4 – Present)

Austen has worked overtime to dig himself out of the hole he made for himself after years of behaving like the worst kind of villain on Southern Charm. Not only is Austen tall and charming, he also has a tragic family backstory that makes it almost impossible not to root for him, despite his dastardly deeds. Austen has misled every woman he has entered into a relationship with while filming the series, and though he came into Season 10 with a low-key romance that was kept mostly off-camera, viewers should be cautious about investing too much interest in the couple, given Austen's track record. While it is possible for people to learn from their past and grow into better versions of themselves, the company Austen keeps doesn't bode well when it comes to growth in the "maturity" department.

Austen's cheating scandal in his relationship with Madison may have launched his diva girlfriend into reality stardom, but it left Austen with a villainous reputation that his behavior over the years has only continued to fuel. Despite knowing she was in a relationship with Summer House co-star Carl Radke at the time, Austen hooked up with his "friend" Lindsay Hubbard, a showmance that fizzled out after becoming a plot point in Season 6. By that time, Austen was already in the doghouse with model Ciara Miller, after wooing her on Winter House, only to pump the breaks once she fell for him. His appearance on Summer House canoodling with Lindsay while Ciara looked on solidified his reputation as a leading villain on whichever reality series he appeared in. And that doesn't even cover Austen's behavior with his best friend's ex-girlfriend, Taylor.

4Taylor Ann Green

(Season 7 – Present)

Taylor is another villain from the Southern Charm cast who comes disguised as a victim. Of all the ladies from the cast, no one has betrayed a friend quite as spectacularly as Taylor did during her break-up with Shep in Season 8. After an explosive Season 8 reunion, Taylor spiraled right into an ambiguously coded "hook up" with Southern Charm co-villain Austen. Not only was this a calculated move on Taylor's part, attempting to make her ex-boyfriend jealous by hooking up with his best friend, but it caused collateral damage Taylor seemingly never considered. Taylor hid the news from Olivia, whose ambiguous romance with Austen had only recently ended prior to Taylor hooking up with him.

To make matters even worse, Taylor refused to acknowledge the level of betrayal she had caused in her friendship with Olivia, and basically demanded to be forgiven by her friend. Her audacity reached an all-time high when she made a misguided comparison between her friendship with Austen and Olivia's relationship with her recently deceased brother. Olivia was understandably outraged, and was only further angered when she overheard Taylor admitting in a phone call that she did not feel bad about the way she had treated her friend, and that her apologies had been a calculated effort to patch-up the friendship. Many viewers were surprised that Olivia quit the series while Taylor stayed on, since many of the cast seemed to be keeping Taylor at arm's length after the incident.

Although she claimed to have returned to Season 10 to repair her relationships with the ladies in the group, the majority of the footage of Taylor this season showed her being catty to her current boyfriend's ex-girlfriend, Salley Carson. Taylor's unrelenting refusal to keep Salley's name out of her mouth became a sore spot for the series newbie in Season 10. Regardless of her personal feelings about Salley, Taylor's behavior this season doesn't exactly scream "girl's girl." Taylor's victim act hasn't aged well, and her efforts to restore her good-girl reputation this season have been undermined by her commitment to acting like a villain.

3Shep Rose

(Season 1 – Present)

Shep is one of those conservative men convinced that an ayahuasca retreat will cure his bad behavior, and that fact alone qualifies him to wear the villain label. But viewers who have witnessed Shep's worst anger issues have reason to doubt the efficacy of this course of treatment when it comes to long-term solutions. Although Season 10 of Southern Charm has shown Shep in a somewhat subdued light, pursuing an ill-conceived romance with a Bahamian beauty, the reverberations of his break-up with Taylor in Season 8 can still be felt.

Shep convinced Taylor to quit her career in order to travel the world with him on a trust-fund-fueled whim was dastardly enough behavior when he also refused to commit to her in a meaningful way. But the scene where he lashed out at her during a friendly game of egg-toss earlier that season showed just how much work Shep has to do when it comes to getting to the heart of his anger issues and the way they affect his treatment of women. Shep worked hard to come across as a wounded romantic this season, but viewers should keep in mind how easy it is for the men of Bravo to parade as reformed Peter Pans, only for their bad behavior to later be revealed. Shep may view himself as a romantic rake, but his entitlement, sense of superiority, and treatment of women have all shown him to be a villain hiding in plain sight.

2Thomas Ravenel

(Season 1 – Season 5)

If Shep is a villain hiding in plain sight, Thomas is a villain convinced he has nothing to hide. Thomas' boisterous personality and smooth South Carolina drawl were the inspiration for Jason Isaac's character in Mike White's HBO thriller series The White Lotus, and when it comes to Thomas' checkered past, the truth is more villainous than fiction. The unreformed rake's recent attempt to return to politics demonstrates he is unrepentant of the kind of outlandish behavior that saw him lose his job as state treasurer when he went to prison for cocaine possession. Thomas has an almost uncanny inability to grasp the idea that others aren't willing to dismiss his misbehavior as charming picadillos, but view them rather as gaping character flaws.

Thomas' villainy extends beyond the unbelievable privilege he is protected by through the omnipresent force of patriarchy in the South. The way he treated Kathryn throughout the course of their relationship lands him in a new category of villain, leveraging his wealth and power against the young mother in order to hold their custody agreement over her head. Thomas left the series amid a sexual assault investigation that came to light after Season 5. Thomas is a man from another era, and his refusal to read the room and update with the times almost landed him the number one spot on the villains list for Southern Charm.

1Whitney Sudler-Smith and Patricia Altschul

(Season 1 – Present)

There is no greater antagonist on a reality TV series than the producer/cast member, and so Whitney Sudler-Smith and his mother Ms. Patricia had to top the list of Southern Charm villains. Whitney seemed to have entered his lecherous era in Season 10, as he continued his late-night lifestyle mostly off-camera, and disgruntled ex-cast member Thomas recently compared him to Harvey Weinstein in a since-deleted post on social media. But Whitney's mother admitted to The Daily Dish that there might be a leading lady waiting in the wings to finally force her son into settling down, so perhaps Whitney is following the lead of the other Lost Boys of Southern Charm, in making a show of turning over a new leaf. Whitney mostly popped up this season to stir up the occasional gossip among the group, playing a significant part in restoring Shep's reputation as a charming leading man by encouraging a romantic relationship between series newcomer Molly O'Connell and the veteran lost boy.Ms. Patricia has led such an extraordinary life that Mike White should really consider making a docu-series about the storied American socialite. Although Patricia has become a fan favorite over the years, she is also one of the bastions of the old world conservative values that enables the bad behavior from all the men on the series. Just as Lisa Vanderpump has a reputation for forgiving the misbehavior of the young men in her cast of Vanderpump Rules, Ms. Patricia lands herself on the villains list for consistently making sure Southern Charm remains a haven for misbehaving Peter Pans.