Is Anyone at Fault for the Paige DeSorbo/Craig Conover Split?
Let’s look at the dates to figure it out.
admin
Another year, another Bravosphere breakup. Ever since Scandoval, the network has seen all sorts of divorces and breakups take center stage. Carl and Lindsay on Summer House, Kyle and Mauricio on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and now Summer House’s Paige DeSorbo and Southern Charm Craig Conover. The couple first got close on Winter House, guested on each other’s franchises, and seemed to be going the distance over long-distance. But then at the end of 2024, DeSorbo said the two had mutually decided to end things. Then at the start of 2025, Conover went on WWHL essentially said the fuck we did! This was a you choice. Here’s the he said/she said about how it all went down.
A meet cute on Winter House?
2018: At some point this year, Paige DeSorbo and Craig Conover meet, according to DeSorbo. “I met Craig, actually, three years ago and he was single. I had a boyfriend and I absolutely respected that I was in a relationship,” she told Us Weekly when confirming the relationship/promoting Winter House in 2021. At the time, she was dating Perry Rabhar.
October 2020: DeSorbo announces her breakup with Rabhar. She says that she couldn’t see a future with Rabhar, though he was thinking about engagement rings. “Honestly, he said [in] 2020, always have my nails painted,” she said on Summer House while showing off the Cartier love ring he’d gotten her. “He was like, ‘This is the first ring of three rings with your engagement ring and your wedding ring.”
February 2021: Winter House season 1 films, during which DeSorbo is single, but Conover is dating Natalie Hegnauer. “When we got to Vermont, I didn’t know he had a girlfriend,” DeSorbo told Us Weekly. “So, I was a little bummed when I first got there. But, of course, he was absolutely respectful to his girlfriend. And I’m so happy now looking back that he had a girlfriend because we built just a very platonic friendship, which is, like, the base of our relationship now. Everything really does happen for a reason.”
In the first episode of Winter House, DeSorbo makes out with Andrea Denver in the hot tub. But she and Conover get closer as filming progresses. Still, they insist they didn’t couple up until after filming ended and Conover broke things off with Hegnauer.
Spring 2021: Conover breaks up with Hegnauer. “We started to argue a lot more, especially after we had been drinking,” Conover wrote in his memoir. The final straw came when he found out Hegnauer had gone to dinner with his co-star Madison LeCroy while he was filming Winter House. “Natalie knew full well how I felt about Austen’s ex. So when I returned, we both agreed that the relationship wasn’t working anymore,” he wrote. Around this same time, DeSorbo flies out to Charleston, but denies a relationship between her and Conover.
July 2021: Conover films on Summer House, as does DeSorbo’s other Winter House fling, Denver. “I was no one’s girlfriend, so I was very much in the mentality of, I don’t really owe any of these guys any explanation on my decisions because I’m not their girlfriend,” she tells ET of the love triangle. “So I definitely was playing the field all spring and certainly all summer.”
October 18, 2021: DeSorbo officially confirms the relationship between her and Conover, after soft launching in an Instagram story ““We did get a little drunk at the wedding and threw a Story up there from the photo booth,” she says, referring to the wedding of Summer House’s Kyle Cooke and Amanda Batula. “I’m just waiting till the right scenery to happen to snap [an official] pic.”
December 2021: Paige finds the right scenery, and the pair go grid official. “Sew in love,” she captions the post, referring to Conover’s sewing and how there’s nothing wrong with it.
Weathering the Bravo storms together
March 2022: Craig Conover shades the villain edit his relationship with Paige DeSorbo got on Summer House season 6. “The fact that they made our relationship anything [negative] — it was pretty disappointing. I [had] just gotten out of a long-time relationship. She was doing her own thing and we lived in different cities and for three months we just, you know, we did our own thing and honestly it worked,” he tells Us Weekly. Conover also says they had a cute date while filming season 6 that was cut for being too positive: “They cut our date because it was so positive and so happy that it wouldn’t have made sense to show it. Those were the things that I was really upset about because Paige and I, we are a good example of a non-traditional relationship ending up in a really great place.”
June 5, 2022: The pair attend the MTV Movie & TV Awards Unscripted together, which happens to also be one of the last public appearances for Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval before #Scandoval breaks.
August 2022: DeSorbo’s Summer House co-stars Carl Radke and Lindsay Hubbard get engaged. “Honestly, Carl and Lindsay getting engaged made everyone start asking me [about my own possible engagement], so I’m livid,” De Sorbo says at BravoCon that year. Later on the BravoCon red carpet, DeSorbo says giving Conover some closet room in her NYC apartment was her version of being engaged.
October 2022: The couple monetizes their love in spon for Ticket to Paradise.
December 2022: The couple films season 2 of Winter House together.
Spring 2023: Rumors spread that the two are on the rocks. Conover posts an IG story of DeSorbo which reads “We don’t post a lot together but she’s always by my side. It was really awesome having her with me on set. If anyone needs someone to run lines with, she’s your girl.”
March 2023: #Scandoval breaks, rocking the Bravo world and launching the entire channel into a new level of celebrity consciousness. Everyone from J.Lo to Chris Pratt weigh in on the scandal, and later that year Vanderpump Rules sees its best ratings ever, as well as the best ratings on Bravo in nine years.
August 14, 2023: Paige DeSorbo does not attend Lindsay Hubbard’s bridal shower. This won’t matter in a few weeks because…
August 31, 2023: Summer House’s Carl and Lindsay end their engagement. The event is filmed for season 8 of the show. Of the season, Vulture recapper Brian Moylan says Paige’s only storyline is “Will Craig move to New York or not?”
November 2023: At BravoCon, DeSorbo and Conover flirt with the idea of a quickie Vegas wedding. “I said, ‘Let’s go do it in a chapel,’” she tells Elite Daily. “Craig chickened out, though.”
The breakup timeline gets messy
March 2024: Once again, Paige and Craig monetize their love. This time it’s for Panera.
Paige DeSorbo and Craig Conover try some of Panera's new menu items at a launch event in New York City.
More ???? #Panera ???? https://t.co/4cgRJPvOfF pic.twitter.com/JojivUKWh6— Getty Images Entertainment (@GettyVIP) March 28, 2024
Summer 2024: Conover feuds with DeSorbo’s Summer House (and his Winter House) co-star Kyle Cooke over who’s allowed to promote/partner with/create canned cocktails and seltzers.
September 2024: In an episode of Giggly Squad, DeSorbo reveals that she had her first panic attack in her life right before doing a live show.
December 2024: It’s seemingly smooth sailing for most of 2024 for DeSorbo and Conover…until it’s not. Once again going to Giggly Squad to break news, DeSorbo says “Craig and I have decided to no longer be together.” She makes it sound mutual, adding “I have so much love and respect for Craig. I think he is one of the best people I’ve met in my entire life. I will remain the biggest fan for him and want the best for him, and he truly will get the best, because he is the best. But, with that said, I think it is the right decision for both of us.” DeSorbo says that she and Conover broke up on Thanksgiving weekend. “Christmas came and went. Then, I saw that my ex-boyfriend was on a trip presenting himself as single, and I said ‘Here we go, we’re ready to announce,’” she explained. “I then texted him and said whilst he was on his trip that ‘I’m going to say something on Giggly Squad and we can both start moving forward, it’s been a month now.’ My text went unanswered, fine.”
January 13, 2025: DeSorbo attends a Philadelphia Eagles game (go birds) with Joe D’Amelio. Immediately, rumors begin to swirl that Paige was cheating on Craig with Joe in 2024.
February 4, 2025: DeSorbo addresses rumors that she cheated on Conover in the paper of record on Giggly Squad: “I’m saying this here and now, and then I’m never saying it again. OK? I never in the three years that I dated my ex-boyfriend, ever physically cheated on him, emotionally cheated on him — can you mentally cheat on him? I don’t know, but I didn’t,” Paige says.
February 6, 2025: Conover complicates the narrative on WWHL, denying the timeline DeSorbo gave on the pod. When asked to deny cheating, he says “I don’t want to be involved. I got broken up with. I’m the ex-boyfriend, now moving on with my life. I’m not going to get sucked into the mud with them. Her cast, like, commenting on how I am grieving and that I’m sorry that I’m not reading Reddit everyday, and getting on there and defending her. Like, I never said you cheated, so I’m not a part of this.”
He also denies that the breakup was mutual. “Paige lied on her podcast and said the breakup was mutual,” he tells Andy Cohen. “I didn’t tell her what to say. I got a text and she said, ‘I’m announcing it on my podcast.’ And then she said it was mutual, which it wasn’t, I didn’t know about it, she called me and told me.” Conover says he didn’t really even think the breakup DeSorbo initiated over Thanksgiving was real. “I thought she was having kinda a bad night or a breakdown,” he says. “I didn’t think it was real. We had been together for three weeks, Andy. A week prior, two weeks prior, she asked me to plan us a trip to Europe for New Years. She also talked about our wedding in her mom’s kitchen.”
February 12, 2025: In a new interview with Elle, DeSorbo refuses to directly address the breakup. She does, however, allude to how her panic attacks in 2024 were a “very big wake-up call” for her generally. “I feel like if you make a hard decision for yourself, the universe really does reward you,” she says. “As long as I keep making decisions that are good for me…and are good for my career and good for my relationships, the universe will put it on a silver platter and give it to me.”
Related
