Southern Charm Season 6 has been hitting us with plenty of relationship drama so far — Craig Conover can’t seem to get over Naomie Olindo, Austen Kroll and Madison LeCroy called it splits amid cheating accusations, and yes, that’s right, Thomas Ravenel and Kathryn Dennis continue to battle it out in court.

Bravo fired Thomas Ravenel from the show after sexual assault accusations came to light, but the disgraced politician has been casting a long and dark shadow over the show despite that. His bitter fight with Kathryn Dennis for custody of their children has taken a mental and financial toll on Dennis, and it’s far from over. Now, Ravenel is claiming Dennis failed a recent drug test, and is maneuvering for sole custody.

The first drug test failure

The Southern Charm couple split in 2016, and immediately began their bitter fight over their children, Kensie and Saint. As part of the custody proceedings, Kathryn Dennis was required to take a court-ordered drug test. Dennis failed the test, lost custody of her children, and shipped out to California for rehabilitation.

Dennis returned to California claiming to be sober and clean. Dennis and Ravenel received a 50/50 custody split as a result. It wasn’t long, however, until Ravenel was accused of sexual assault by his children’s former nanny, Dawn Ledwell.

Once those accusations came to light, Kathryn Dennis decided it was time to seek out sole custody of her children. Bravo also fired Ravenel from Southern Charm as a result of the accusations. Ravenel has since been charged with second-degree battery and assault and is still awaiting a final verdict.

Ravenel has substance abuse issues of his own

While Thomas Ravenel is eager to turn the focus of the courtroom on Kathryn Dennis and her history of substance abuse, he has a history of his own. In fact, Thomas Ravenel has spent time in federal prison as a result of his issues with cocaine.

Thomas Ravenel was arrested for buying under 500 grams with intent to distribute while serving as the state treasurer for South Carolina and the state chairman for Rudolph Giuliani’s presidential bid. As a result, Ravenel spent 10 months in jail.

The former Southern Charm star was also accused of using cocaine heavily the night of his son’s birth. Dawn Ledwell, the nanny accusing him of assault, also claims that her friend drove Ravenel’s Uber the night of his son’s birth.

“They wanted to party. They were all intoxicated … they were doing cocaine in her car,” said Ledwell to People.

“Thomas was the last person to be dropped off and he wanted to give her a tour of his house. … She’s trying to convince him to go to the hospital. Like, ‘Dude, if you’re celebrating the birth of your baby, you need to go to the hospital and spend time with the baby. Wasn’t the baby born early?’” Ledwell added, “And so he’s like ”Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, will you do me a favor? I’ll pay you $500 to clean the cocaine off my face and wipe it off my clothes.”

Dennis told People, that Ravenel “came to the hospital after I gave birth coked out and drunk at 3 a.m.”

Ravenel claims Dennis failed again

Now, Thomas Ravenel is filing for sole custody of his children while claiming that Kathryn Dennis has failed a drug test yet again. According to documents obtained by The Blast, Ravenel and Dennis were both required to submit to court drug testing on June 13th. They provided, blood, alcohol, urine, and hair drug tests.

Ravenel claims that, “while in the possession of the children, Kathryn produced a urine test positive for marijuana, benzodiazepines and amphetamines.”



Dennis argues that these claims are false, “because her hair test was negative.” Ravenel asserts that Dennis wears wigs, extensions, and frequently dyes her hair, which would make the hair test unreliable.

He goes on to admit that Dennis did produce a negative urine test after first testing positive, but adds that “the marijuana detected in the June 14, 2019 test could have been flushed out of her urine by that time.”

