Paige DeSorbo admitted she was “blinded” by Craig Conover’s “embarrassing” behavior because of her love for him.
The “Summer House” star reflected on her three-year relationship with the “Southern Charm” star on Wednesday as their 2024 breakup plays out on TV, explaining that she has a different perspective now.
“I think I loved him so much that I tolerated too much, and now that I’m out of it and I look back at things, I’m like, ‘Oh, wait,'” she said on the “Summer House” aftershow.
DeSorbo, 32, claimed that “anytime” she had a personal or professional milestone, Conover, 37, would “find a way to make it about him.”
“It was just embarrassing,” she said. “So, that’s something that I look back on now, and I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, I really was very blinded.’ I had to do a lot of damage control.”
DeSorbo acknowledged that her national tour for her “Giggly Squad” podcast also affected her relationship with Conover, who thought she “worked too much.”
“When I started having panic attacks this fall while I was doing ‘Giggly Squad’ shows, he just thought it was because I worked too much,” she shared. “So, it played into his, ‘Well, you work too much, and you shouldn’t be doing all of this.'”
DeSorbo disclosed that Conover had once encouraged her to watch a documentary about Swedish pop group ABBA’s journey with touring and how it “ruined their marriages and their lives.”
“I was like, ‘I just got a beta blocker prescription, but thank you so much for the nightly TV watch,'” she quipped, referring to a medication she takes to decrease her anxiety before big events.
DeSorbo also confessed that, upon further reflection, she and Conover “probably” did not have great communication because she was too “straightforward and stern” for his liking.
“It was like, ‘You’re harsh.’ So, I would kinda have to stay more quiet when he would voice his opinions because he would always take it as, like, a personal attack,” she shared.
While DeSorbo maintained that she felt like she could “always say whatever [she] wanted” to Conover, she also shared that she would hide some of her career breakthroughs.
“There were times when things would happen in my career. Would I tell him? No, absolutely not,” she said. “Like, when I would get certain milestones, no, I wouldn’t tell him because I knew he would want to be happy for me, but deep down he would not be.”
DeSorbo announced in December that she and Conover had split after celebrating Thanksgiving together.
The “How to Giggle” co-author denied there was infidelity on either side and claimed they just wanted different things.
However, their split turned messy after DeSorbo faced cheating rumors, which Conover initially refused to dispel.
DeSorbo then turned the tables and accused her ex of texting “two bitches” during their relationship, which he has denied.
