The New Charmers: Meet ‘Southern Charm’ Season 10 Stars Molly O’Connell, Ryan Albert & Salley Carson

The Holy City sinners are welcoming a new trinity to Southern Charm. Molly O’Connell, Ryan Albert, and Salley Carson have joined the returning castmates in Season 10. So what do they bring to the party? Here, TV Guide Magazine visits the Lowcountry to find out exactly that.

It’s a cloudy and cool day on the rooftop Citrus Club at Dewberry, and the three arrive in sync and in style to introduce themselves. O’Connell drapes a chunky sweater over her silky gold dress, Carson has a denim tube maxi, and Albert pairs a fitted black tee with sharp khakis. Gussying up for any occasion is a must for Charleston’s upper crust, especially in a place like this, noshing on calamari and fries with the entire city’s church steeple-filled skyline in full view.

Fashion is a major part of life for O’Connell, a Charleston native who competed on America’s Next Top Model and has a history with the old guard of the show. “I know everybody on the show, and I have been friends with them forever. So I think just the timing in my life, everything just worked out,” she says. She is currently in a new era of her runway career due to thyroid condition-related weight fluctuations and wants to share her journey to self-acceptance with the world. 

“I can’t expect myself to be the weight rank and size that I was when I was 21 years old, so I think it’s a lot of me having to accept it,” she says of the journey audiences will see on-screen. “It’s embarrassing for me to talk about, but that’s life… It’s important to talk about and just let everybody know they are not alone in those feelings.” She also hopes fans will embrace her “authentic weirdness” and tendency to go “unfiltered.”

Amanda Bell/TV Guide Magazine

Carson, too, is a Palmetto State original with a history on the small screen as a recent contestant on The Bachelor. “I’ve been running away from reality TV for a while,” she admits. “I finally felt like I was in a very confident, independent place in my life, where I finally planted roots here in Charleston, got my own house, my career was taking off, and I just felt really good about myself. And I thought, ‘Why not? Why not show the world the real Salley Carson, one they haven’t seen yet?'”

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Her journey throughout the season will have some ups and downs, she admits. “You’ll hear a bit about my past relationship and my ex-fiancé.” (That’d be Andrew Dietz, who competed on a very different dating show in FBoy Island and is a mutual former flame of Taylor Ann Green’s, along with Shepard Rose.) “There’s some things that me and Taylor don’t see eye to eye on, and that’ll definitely be shown throughout the season. You’ll see me in a little bit of drama.” 

Albert, meanwhile, fancies himself as a seminal pot-stirrer who “love[s] some small-town gossip.” He is a stay-at-home husband of Dr. Eddie Irions and is close with series creator Whitney Sudler-Smith and the show’s den mom Patricia Altschul. 

“I was ready to mix it up a little bit,” he says. “We were three years into our marriage, getting more settled… and I wanted to try something new.” Albert admits there were “some very late-night conversations” about his decision to jump into the TV realm, but adds, “I definitely have the mentality of, ‘Life is short, and opportunities like this? Not everyone gets them.'”

A secondary benefit, of course, is that he is representing the local LGBTQ+ community in the show. “It’s a privilege,” says of showcasing his happy interracial gay relationship to the watching world. “The more we give exposure to viewers and the more we put ourselves out there, it makes others comfortable to come out and feel comfortable living their authentic lives.”

Southern Charm, Season 10 Premiere, Thursday, December 5, 9/8c, Bravo