***UPDATE, 4/3/13***: The show has been confirmed by Bravo.
Rumors are starting to swirl about a new reality television show that will be filmed in Charleston.
The rumor started this past fall when Ned Brown wrote a piece on the New York Social Diary that included the following:
…the Charleston Mercury newspaper and its editor Charles Waring III, were atwitter about a potential Bravo television pilot being filmed here on the lifestyle of affluent Southern gentlemen.
I searched through the newspaper’s website for any mention of this show, but could find nothing. To be fair, Brown never said the paper posted a story about the possible filming, instead saying they were “atwitter” about it. He may have just gotten that information directly from Waring. That explanation isn’t far-fetched because Brown described Waring as being his “buddy” in a previous entry.
Brown went on to say that he had heard of the pilot before talking with Waring:
Actually, I had gotten wind of this show when I dropped-in for a visit with Dick Jenrette…
The piece is unclear but it appears Jenrette gave Brown the following information:
The director/producer is Whitney Sudler-Smith…(who) is trying to profile a handful of modern day southern gentlemen and their lifestyles.
When I spoke with Sudler-Smith from his home in L.A., he said, “All the shows about the South are either about hillbilly hand-fishing or Honey Boo Boo (the TLC show). I want to show another side of the South, one that's a celebration of Charleston lifestyle and puts it in a positive light.”
From there it was mostly a dead-end.
I did “speak” with a local Twitter user who said they heard from very reliable sources that the reality show was a sure thing. They also mentioned the Charleston Mercury posted a “blind item” about the filming a few months ago. That would explain why I couldn’t find any trace of it on the internet.
Stay tuned…
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Thanks to Twitter user @absalom for much of this information