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‘Southern Charm’: Craig Conover Sets The Record Straight About His Breakup With Naomie Olindo

By Lea Palmieri @littleleap
Published April 3, 2018, 12:30 p.m. ET

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Craig Conover knows what he’s in for this season on Southern Charm — which is actually a good thing, and has not always been the case for him. Because when the Bravo show kicks off its fifth season this Thursday at 9pm, one that he describes as “probably more fun for you guys to watch than us,” he also knows that’s not entirely true. He’s the one to quickly admit, and bring up the fact, that it’s “Actually the first season where I’m single in a while, so I think it will be easier for me to watch this go around now that I’m not protecting anyone else and being thrown under the bus by anyone.” What ever could he mean?

Conover and his girlfriend, Naomie Olindo, broke up last fall after bickering in their home, at couples therapy, and even all though a sip and see party. When Decider spoke to him ahead of the new season, he filled us in on his new sewing projects, his new life coach, and yes, even Naomie’s new nose.

You and Naomie broke up before the show started filming, but will we still see the aftershock of that decision? 

Yeah, we started the transition out of it. By the time we started filming, I had moved out but we were still kind of working on things. So by the time we make anything official, obviously in break ups after a few years [together] it takes a few conversations and a few weeks for anything to become final, so you’ll definitely see us go through the final stages of our relationship.

You seem to be doing well, but are you nervous about watching the show and seeing what she’s been up to since you broke up? 

I don’t know, it will definitely be weird. I bought a house probably like 8 minutes from where we were living and my best friend from growing up, Sean, had just gotten out of a 3-year relationship too, so he moved in with me. We’re having a great time and it’s definitely a closed chapter in my life. I guess that will be odd. You’ll see that I think the breakup’s a little forced on her part, as she says stuff [like] she’s thinking with her head and not her heart, but I’ve moved on and I’m happy now.

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Frickin bats 🦇 (hmua @madison.lecroy 👈🏼)

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Some people choose to get a haircut as a new start after a breakup, but she coped by getting a nose job. How did you cope with the breakup to help close that chapter? 

I think that her getting the nose job kind of closed it for both of us. It just seemed after a while that the person I used to be in love with wasn’t really there anymore. I put all my focus into basically selling and fixing up my house and I’m launching a pillow line and a lifestyle brand, Flawed Creation, and it’s about actually embracing your differences and uniqueness and that’s what gives you your proprietary value and what makes you great. It seems that Naomie’s happy and always wanted to do that so I wish her the best.

Tell us about this new pillow line!

I’m basically doing custom onesies and anything else you would want embroidered, like kitchen aprons, and basically making throw pillows and bedroom sets. I do them all by hand and that’s how I focused a lot of my energy after the breakup, was just doing that. I needed an outlet and I had lost my garden and my workshop after I moved out, so I had my sewing machine and I started to see there was an interest in these pillows I was making, so just seeing where it goes. I finally set up my grow shelves at my new house and my new plants are starting to sprout, so I’m going to have to build a new garden over here, but doing a little bit of everything.

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You had the line of the new trailer with, “What’s wrong with my sewing?” Is there a gift or something you’ve sewn that you’re really proud of? 

I started making these bow tie pillows, it’s a small couch pillow but it’s wrapped in a ribbon tie that I make and embroider with a date on the back [in] Roman numerals, and I’ve made it for 3 of my friends’ weddings. It’s a nice little keepsake that you can always have on your couch, it doesn’t get in the way. That’s definitely my favorite thing that I’ve made.

Most people, and girls, think that guys that don’t care what people think, and do what they want to do, is an attractive quality so I was always kind of thrown off by her reactions to my quirkiness. I still don’t understand. That was when we started falling to the side of caring way too much about what other people think and losing yourself, because I still have no idea why anyone would be mad at someone for sewing.

You’re a handy guy, so now that you’ve got the new house, what other home projects are you doing?

I think you’ll see this season we decide to start the home renovations ourselves, as absurd as that gets on the show. I got pretty lucky with the property I found and I’m actually putting a 3-hole mini golf course back there. I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to do that or not but I’m basically trying to save money by [renting] a little Bobcat to level my front yard. We have a lot of projects going on that I’m really trying to stay focused on a single one. But the garden’s going to be my favorite. When I was at Naomie’s parents house, because as much as she yells at me, she doesn’t actually have her own house or anything else, which finally I said this season coming up, it was only temporary because I had no security at that house. And so with this garden, I’m really taking my time with laying out a really neat pattern and it will be basically an entire area where you can walk through it and have fountains and benches and I’m really looking forward to that.

Has the new house been a total bachelor pad? Will we see a bit of Single Craig come out this season? 

It’s brought up on the show a lot with different guys, with the group of our friends, different forms of coping and whatnot, because a lot of people are newly single this season. Going out and hooking up with random people wasn’t really my way of coping, it was focusing on stuff around the house and getting set up, but it definitely became a bachelor pad. It became a very social house and there was always people over here, and always people over here at night, and that was fun for me because I have to be surrounded with people all the time, especially going through a breakup. Sean and I lived together in the fraternity house in college so a lot of our friends were laughing and saying, ‘As much as things change, they really don’t,’ because we both thought we were gonna get married, and now we’re living basically in a giant fraternity house.

You’re officially a lawyer now! Will we see anything going on with that this season? 

You won’t this season because it just happened a few weeks ago, which was awesome and a really, really, really happy occasion. With everything going on, hopefully I’ll be able to put in my 20-30 hours at the legal clinic here, at least for the first few months and then we’ll see what happens. I don’t know when down the road I’ll move into private practice but for now I just want to keep helping people and give back and get my feet wet again, and I think it will be a good way to reintroduce myself to that world.

We’re hearing you get a life coach this season?

Yeah, fortunately it’s been really nice. I still talk to her every Tuesday. I started to realize that I was in a certain form of self-sabotaging. I would find myself self-sabotaging myself in ways, where there was behaviors that I didn’t really like and I hated actually, and I wanted to change really bad but I continued to find myself repeating those behaviors. I can self-diagnose that easily and I could tell you everything that I wanted to change about myself, but I didn’t have the tools or exercises to change those things. So I found a life coach who I respected and was intelligent enough, I felt, that I could talk to. You can see my progress this year with talking to her, and then putting off talking to her, and it’s good. I’ve tried to talk to people before but everyone just wanted to get to root of the issue instead of telling you how to change it. I can tell someone what’s wrong with me pretty quickly. It’s good to just talk to someone every week, I needed someone else to hold me accountable and to teach me how to hold myself accountable.

And Craig and Shep are back at it again this season, starting with a bit of a grilling adventure in the first episode. How has your friendship evolved over the course of this show? 

It’s identical to that of a siblings’ relationship. He doesn’t fall in the standard big brother role, but he’s the older brother and I’m the younger brother. It’s really funny when we travel together and do certain appearances and events because we’re the exact same in real life and in our day-to-day lives that we are when you see us on the show. People always laugh and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, it’s just like on the show,’ because we just yell at each other. But now, no one takes it personally, which is good. It’s just our way of communicating, by yelling at each other and figuring it out. This year on the show, you’ll see we get along way better than any other season, and I think viewers will really enjoy watching that instead of seeing us at each other’s throats. Shep now trusts me to live my own life without his involvement and instead is there to help if I need anything and to make sure I’m alright during the breakup. I think with the stuff he went through before this season with his show [Relationshep], reawoke his sensitive side.

You’re a guy who’s quick to turn to Google when you have a question — what are some of your recent Google searches? 

I’m always worried I’m going to get flagged by the government, so half the time I don’t Google what I want to Google.  A lot were garden questions, a lot were sewing questions.

Oh, my recent one was, ‘Are you supposed to take down the [American] flag if it’s raining outside?’ I just hung a giant America flag on a tree in the front yard and I realized that it’s not easily taken down or put up, so I was Googling if you’re supposed to take it down in a rain storm. [Note: you are]

And then the other one is, I Google a lot of acoustic covers, so the “Closer” cover by The Chainsmokers. I listen to a lot of acoustic covers. [Note: and that’s what makes him Craig]

Southern Charm season 5 premieres this Thursday at 9pm ET/PT on Bravo.

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