Season 4 of Outer Banks may be over, but drama among the cast is far from finished. With the end of the show’s fourth season came plenty of new storylines, including Rudy Pankow’s JJ and Madison Bailey’s Kiara finally exploring their romance on-screen. While their fictional characters share a relationship on OBX, fans have speculated the opposite about Pankow and Bailey IRL, and Pankow’s ex has now entered the chat, stirring up even more drama and speculation about the cast’s behind-the-scenes drama.
Hints of a potential feud between Pankow and Bailey came when fans noticed the show was using body doubles to make it appear like JJ and Kiara were embracing each other in various OBX scenes. But, why wouldn’t they want to film these scenes with one another? Well, fans have rooted for their characters to be together since the first season of OBX, and there have been rumors that Pankow’s partner, Elaine Siemek, and Bailey’s partner, Mariah Linney, were strongly against JJ and Kiara’s romance on the show. Her Campus reached out to Pankow and Bailey’s teams for comment on these drama rumors, but did not hear back by the time of publication.
An incident at a cast dinner in 2023 supposedly left Siemek at odds with Bailey and Linney. Fans noticed that Pankow and Bailey were rather close and often posted each other online during Seasons 1 and 2 of the Netflix series. However, this stopped when Season 3 arrived in February 2023. It’s truly unclear if there is real beef between Pankow, Bailey, Siemek, and Linney, though Pankow’s ex, Teo Marcella, is throwing in her two cents on the situation.
Siemek first met Pankow while she was working on the set of OBX. At the time, her was supposedly in a relationship with Marcella. Some fans have theorized that Siemek was jealous of Marcella due to her past with Pankow and her friendship with Bailey because they, too, met on the show’s set. What’s more, an old picture of the cast hanging out seemingly around Season 1 has now resurfaced on TikTok, which included both Siemek and Marcella.
After the picture went viral, Marcella lightly addressed the drama by posting a TikTok video on Nov. 16 with the audio, “I’m not just a b*tch, I’m a b*tch with a backstory.” Marcella directly referenced the resurfaced photo in the caption of her post, writing, “watching everyone guess what happened based of[f] one photo from 6 years ago.” Her Campus reached out to Pankow and Bailey’s teams about Marcella’s video, but did not hear back by the time of publication. The tea (or should I say Teo) is hot, y’all!
Neither Pankow, Siemek, nor Marcella have spoken publicly about this alleged drama, but I’ll be waiting with bated breath to see if they do.
Rudy Pankow and Teo Marcella’s Relationship
Teo dated Outer Banks star Rudy Pankow while he was filming season 1 of the show. Although it’s unclear exactly when they broke up, the actor said he was single while promoting the series in 2020. He also went public with now-girlfriend Elaine Siemek in November 2020, so fans speculated that he and Teo split at some point before the show’s season 1 premiere in April 2020.
In addition to dating the actor, she is also close friends with several cast members, including Madison Bailey and Madelyn Cline. Although Teo no longer follows Rudy on social media, she still follows Madison and Madelyn.
In November 2024, fans began speculating that Rudy and Madison had a falling out behind-the-scenes of Outer Banks and theorized that their respective relationships with Elaine and Mariah Linney were to blame. Amid the buzz, a throwback photo of the cast from season 1 began circulating online. The photo was reportedly taken at a party for Rudy and featured Elaine – who was working as a director’s assistant at the time – kneeling next to him with her arm resting on his shoulder amid his relationship with Teo, who was standing in a different row.
On November 16, 2024, Teo seemingly referenced the photo on TikTok when she captioned a video, “Watching everyone guess what happened based of [sic] one photo from 6 years ago.” The footage featured her doing her makeup with a voiceover saying, “I’m not just a bitch, I’m a bitch with a backstory.”
Fans flooded the comments with messages that begged Teo to elaborate. One of the content creator’s friends noted, “I know the tea heheheheheeeeeee and you look stun,” to which Teo responded, “hehehehehe,” along with three tea emojis.
She also cheekily replied to someone who asked, “ru rudy’s ex,” with, “never heard of him.”
Who Is Teo Marcella Dating Now?
Teo is dating a tattoo artist named Sam Stoddart. They have been together since October 2022 and she celebrated their two-year anniversary on Instagram in October 2024 by gushing, “through every season and city. happy two years my little goobie.”
Teo and Sam seemingly live together in Los Angeles, as she captioned a July 2024 photo of them, “Our house,” and tagged L.A. as the location.
