‘Southern Charm’: Craig Conover Reveals He Was Bullied in High School – and Paige DeSorbo’s Fiery Reaction [Exclusive]
Craig Conover gets extremely raw and real in his upcoming memoir Pillow Talk: What’s Wrong with My Sewing? as the Southern Charm star discusses everything from his Adderall addiction to being bullied in high school.
Conover’s life has been documented on Southern Charm since 2014. But only now will fans understand the depth of his dependency on Adderall and the psychological toll both the medication and his ADHD had on him. The memoir was written before Conover and girlfriend Paige DeSorbo from Summer House going public with their relationship. And he recently shared how DeSorbo reacted to some of the heartbreaking details in the book.
Paige DeSorbo cried when she read the bully stories
Conover said DeSorbo was almost finished reading the book but already had a pretty strong reaction to some of the stories. “We haven’t fully talked about it,” he told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “She texted me the first night, and she was like, ‘It’s so good, I cried reading some of the bully stories.’ But then she was like, ‘I need their name and their number!'”
He wrote about being targeted by some of the older players on the high school soccer team and wondered why he was being singled out. Conover was tormented almost daily. At one point, he found his favorite textbook destroyed when the kids bound it using an entire roll of athletic tape.
By the time he unrolled the tape, he had discovered the pages were unreadable. The kids smashed Doritos inside it, and the oil had smeared the words.
Craig Conover’s relationship with Naomie Olindo is well-documented in ‘Pillow Talk’
Beyond Craig Conover’s experiences with bullying, DeSorbo also had to read an in-depth description of Conover’s doomed romance with Naomie Olindo. “[Reading] the middle chapters, I’m sure were a little difficult at first,” he said, referring to the sections with Olindo.
Conover said Olindo agreed to be interviewed for the book. “She was interviewed for the book pretty extensively,” he remarked. “My writer talked to her a lot, and we were in a good place then. And we still are now. But it was just perfect timing with everything. And so he was even surprised where he was like, ‘Your stories are the exact same.’ And so if she wasn’t a part of the book, then yeah, I would be nervous. Because that wasn’t my story to tell without her permission. So she was a great sport about it.”
He also said that time has healed their relationship. “I think clarity comes with time and age,” he reflected. “And obviously, you don’t want to admit that in your 20’s because you’re like, ‘I know everything!’ You just always think that. And I think with the last four or five years of both of our lives, we have gotten a completely different and enhanced perspective on everything. And you can go back and understand what was happening, why it was happening a little better than before.”
Conover hopes his story helps others
Just like his experiences being bullied, Craig Conover also doesn’t sugarcoat any of the details of his Adderall addiction. He wanted to be as honest as possible because he hopes his story can help someone else. “It really does explain my story,” he said. “That’s what I told [DeSorbo]. I was like, ‘Babe, I truly think that this might help a lot of people or a decent amount because these struggles that I talk about are so normal, and they’re so regular and consistent in people’s lives. But they’re not talked about at all.'”
One of his biggest goals with the book is to hopefully offer a touchpoint of relatability. “When I finally came clean, it was like our season 6 reunion of Southern Charm,” he said, recalling the moment he shared he was abusing Adderall.
“I started to see people come out of the woodwork. People would pull me aside and be like, ‘Hey, man, I never told anyone that’s it’s affecting my marriage. It’s affecting my relationship with my kids. Some very professional people were just like, ‘Look, we’ve never thought to talk about it because we just didn’t know.’
“And so it encouraged me to be as open as possible and completely vulnerable and transparent in this book,” Conover said. “Because, you know, I’m lucky that I’ve been off [Adderall] for three years now, and I’m so much happier, so it was worth sharing those dark moments to hopefully help some people. Maybe they see the story and relate a little bit.”
Craig Conover’s memoir on being bullied, addiction, Southern Charm, and more, Pillow Talk: What’s Wrong with My Sewing?, will be widely available on March 29.
How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.
