The Southern Charm cast member broke down the timeline of his split from Paige DeSorbo.
By the time Craig Conover's friends found out that he and Paige DeSorbo had broken up shortly after Thanksgiving, more than a month had already passed. As Craig explained in the Southern Charm Season 10 finale, though, he had his reasons for keeping it quiet.
Cameras resumed filming in January 2025, five months after Madison LeCroy and Ryan Albert's summer soiree, as Craig sat down with castmates Shep Rose and Austen Kroll to discuss the painful split and clarify the timeline.
"Paige and I had a great Thanksgiving together," Craig shared. "Everything was normal at her parents', like our chemistry and everything. Then, a couple of weeks later she called me and was like, 'We gotta talk.'"
Though Craig "knew" at that moment that Paige was about to end their three-year relationship, he said that he still couldn't believe it was really happening.
"It was really calm," he recalled of the conversation. "She’s like, 'I need to like find myself' and she's like, 'I have to take control of my life again, and we need to break up.'"
Why Craig Conover waited to tell Austen and Shep that he and Paige split
Once he and the Summer House cast member were officially over, Craig said "the only people [he] wanted to tell" were Shep and "specifically" Austen, with whom he'd been "crossing paths."
So, why didn't he? "The truth is, I couldn't let it get out yet, and ... it was a bummer because I was like, 'I don't know if I can tell Austen and him not say something.'"
When Shep asked Craig if he was waiting for Paige to go public with the news — which she did on the December 30 episode of her Giggly Squad podcast — he replied in the affirmative. As Craig explained, "I wasn't gonna f–king say anything 'cause I didn't want it to be real."
Craig Conover revealed he bought Paige DeSorbo an engagement ring
The Sewing Down South founder also told Austen and Shep that Paige asked him to "buy her a ring," and so he flew to New York City prior to summer 2024 and designed one for her.
"Then she was like, 'Actually, hold off,'" Craig revealed. "Looking back, maybe that was her starting to panic or freak out."
He said he also offered to move from Charleston to New York "like she asked me" and agreed to start a family and raise their kids in Manhattan. "And she's like, 'You will resent me forever if you have to live this life in New York,'" Craig added.
Noting that a love like his and Paige's is "so rare," Craig was still struggling to make sense of the breakup — and the possibility of finding such a romance in the future.
"We were best friends, we loved each other, we had a great sex life, we just checked so many boxes that you're like . . . 'How are we giving this up?'" Craig continued. "It's weird to, like, mourn someone that's still alive."
How Shep and Austen reacted to Craig and Paige's breakup
Though Austen and Shep primarily listened to Craig's side of the story in the brief scene, they spoke a bit more candidly in the moments before he arrived.
Shep said he was vacationing in the Caribbean when he learned about the breakup in a message from Rodrigo Reyes, who had seen the news online, along with the rest of the world.
"I just feel bad for the guy," Shep told Austen, before accurately observing, "It doesn't sound like he was driving this bus."
Austen, for his part, added, "I think that there were cracks, but I think that Craig was like, not enough to terminate [the] relationship."
Don’t miss what else the guys had to say — including Craig making another jaw-dropping admission about Paige.
