Watching Ariana Biermann deal with love on camera makes me feel like I can relate to her so much. She is young, getting used to living in a new city, and the person she built something with for years is now her ex and, it seems, her present. Most people quietly go through something similar in their twenties. The only difference is that Ariana is doing it on Bravo in front of cameras, with castmates who are both supportive and looking for ways to make money.
For people who have watched Next Gen NYC from the start, Ariana and Hudson McLeroy were the show’s emotional center. You cheered for them—a longtime couple getting used to life in New York while dealing with the attention of the public and the stress of having a famous last name. It hurt a lot when they said they were splitting up in October of last year. Not in a dramatic way, but in the quiet way that real breakups do when you really care about both people.
The timing was made even more difficult by the addition of Liam Obergfoll to Season 2. He showed his interest in Ariana right away, which changed everything. Most people who saw them say that they hit it off right away after Gia Giudice introduced them at Emira D’Spain’s birthday party. Liam told her he liked her in a way that was both honest and a little cheeky. He just said “cute.” He later smiled when Ariana told him that she was on probation and said that it made him feel “pretty hot.” You probably didn’t need to know anything else about where his head was to understand that line.
Hudson, on the other hand, did not take things quietly. He took Liam aside and, in his own words, set some “boundaries.” From where you’re sitting, that might sound either protective or controlling. When Ariana heard about it through the group, she didn’t change how she felt. She said that the fact that Hudson had talked to Liam made her want to spend more time with him, not less. That kind of answer says something about how independent she is and maybe how things were between her and Hudson before the cameras came out.
The really interesting thing about this situation is that Ariana seems smarter than the drama around her makes her seem. “Where do she and Hudson stand now?” Andy Cohen asked her on Watch What Happens Live. She didn’t give a quick answer. She said, “We are together,” but then she quickly added that they were still figuring things out and that she didn’t want them to go back and forth again. She wanted them to be able to grow on their own. That’s not the way someone who is really into a relationship would talk. Someone is being careful.
Something might have changed because of the public split and the fact that Liam’s presence made Hudson deal with losing her in public. From what Ariana said, Hudson was more chill in Season 1. When a castmate showed interest in Ariana, he’d say something confident but low-key. He came in a different way this season. From the outside, it’s hard to tell if that’s growth, fear, or just what happens when the stakes are high. Ariana seemed shocked by it herself.
Also, the Liam story might not be over yet, at least not on screen. They became closer outside of parties; she invited him to meet her family, he helped her put together furniture at her apartment, and they went on group outings. That’s not nothing. They seem to have found their way back to each other, though it was more slowly and carefully than before.
When you watch this, you get the feeling that Ariana wants something more stable and private than reality TV can offer. To become the person she will be in her twenties, she is learning how to be in a relationship in public. That’s tough. A lot of people can do it without cameras. She doesn’t, and she seems to be handling it better than the storylines make it sound that she is.
