Venita Aspen exists well outside the realm of One Chicago. She's risen to fame as a cast member on the reality series Southern Comfort, but she's a huge fan of the procedural franchise. Well, at least, a huge fan of one of the stars. Aspen recently went on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen and revealed she has a crush on one of Chicago PD's main actors.
"There is a man that is on NBC that I have my eye on," Aspen asserted. "He’s a Chicago PD star." This obviously drew the interest of the crowd, and the reality provided some additional information. “I just found him a couple of weeks ago and I think he’s handsome," she added. "I slid in his DMs and I said, 'It’s so funny we work for the same network but we never ran into each other.'"
Aspen follows LaRoyce Hawkins on Instagram
Evidently, Aspen's approach worked. She told the Watch What Happens Live audience that she got a response and an Instagram follow from the Chicago PD actor in question. Naturally, fans of both her and the procedural drama starting playing detective in an attempt to determine who she was talking about.
There are multiple candidates who qualify, including Benjamin Levy Aguilar, Jason Beghe, Patrick John Flueger and LaRoyce Hawkins. Aspen provided enough information, however, that we were able to do some research and see which PD star she was following on Instagram. Sure enough, there was only one result: Hawkins.
Hawkins has, fittingly, commented on how often women slide into his DMs given his notable role on television. "A lot of honeys bless my Instagram DMs just wanting to know what’s up," he told Chicago Mag in 2015. "There’s always that question of do they want to date you because you’re on TV, but the way I see it, if a woman wants to date me, let’s do it."
The actress recently broke up with co-star "JT"
The actor does appear to be single at the moment, and Aspen recently got out of a relationship with her Southern Charm co-star, Jarrett "JT" Thomas. A relationship she addressed after admitting to her PD crush. Evidently, Thomas was dating another woman at the same time, and when she found out, Aspen pulled the plug.
“I think it would’ve been nice to just have him be like, 'Hey by the way, I’m dating someone else, and I’ve decided to go with her versus you,'" she explained. "I would not have cared. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I appreciate you so much for saying something, being kind about it.’ But he didn’t do that." Well, we're curious to see where this potential Chicago PD and Southern Charm connection goes from here.