Southern Charm star Venita Aspen thought Jarrett “JT” Thomas was her forever person.
Venita, 32, told costar Leva Bonaparte that she imagined marriage was in the cards for her and JT, 39, during last week’s Southern Charm aftershow. Venita has since offered insight into her feelings during an exclusive interview with Us Weekly.
“Isn’t that crazy? You know what, time is really something. It’s so crazy,” Venita told Us earlier this week when asked about the marriage comment. “Leva and I would talk about JT a lot. … She was like, ‘I can really see you guys getting along, dating, making something of this.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, me too.’ Then, here we are.”
Venita confirmed to Us that she and JT briefly dated last year before he went Instagram official with another girl. Despite wanting a future with JT, she told Us that there weren’t really any conversations about next steps in their past relationship.
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“We just were trying to figure out, ‘Hey, OK, are we doing the dating thing or are we not?’” she recalled. “‘Let’s go out and see if we really do have this chemistry that everyone else is saying that we have.’”

As Venita explained it, JT told her that he was seeing someone — which Southern Charm fans saw this season — in spring of last year. She doesn’t know what went down in the interim, but Venita and JT started dating in September 2024. (Venita has since confirmed that she’s currently single.)
“They weren’t a thing at the time that I know of,” Venita told Us. “That’s what he was telling me, and I was believing him and trusting him in that.”
JT went Instagram official with girlfriend Ali Pereless — the same girl he was seeing while Southern Charm season 10 was filming — in November 2024.
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The Southern Charm reunion trailer, which dropped earlier this week, showed Venita claiming that JT’s girlfriend was in her DMs. She told Us that there’s been “no communication” since.
“It’s too messy. I just wish that he could just come out and be like, ‘Hey, listen, I caused all this. I made things messy. Don’t be mad at either [of] these women. I should have done a better job at communicating with both of them what was going on and what I was doing,’” Venita continued. “I wish I knew what I know now. Then I might’ve responded and acted a little different. I did come at him, but I could have done a little more.”
Southern Charm season 10 is now streaming on Peacock.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi