- Naomie Olindo and Craig Conover hooked up after breaking up.
- Their hookup was featured on the most recent season of Southern Charm.
- The couple dated for almost three years.
Naomie Olindo and Craig Conover Southern Charm stars post-breakup hookup was more about closing doors than opening them.
After Olindo returned to Charleston following her breakup with Metul Shah, the former couple startled viewers by revealing that they just had a rendezvous. However, Olindo makes it abundantly plain in an interview before Thursday’s premiere that reinvigorating her relationship with Conover was never an option.
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“Neither one of us ever thought we would get back together,” says Olindo, 29. “This happened a year ago now and it was sort of a one or two-off situation where you just know each other and you’re comfortable around each other and you have some fun.”
“It was almost like, a bit of closure at the same time, because we had been together for so long and now we finally had a friendship again now that so much time had passed,” she says. “But really, it was nothing more than that.”
Before breaking up in September 2017, Olindo and Conover dated for almost three years. Olindo claims she never thought anyone would be interested in their unexpected connection, even though it became a huge topic on Southern Charm.
“I didn’t realize it was going to be such a big deal,” she explains. “I’d been gone for the show in a year and I kind of thought at first I was going to be able to come back and it would fly under the radar and nobody would know. But, it turns out with our group of friends, nothing really works like that. So yeah… what happens in Vegas was discussed a lot.”
Paige DeSorbo, a 29-year-old Bravo actress, and Conover, 33, are presently dating.
Conover was in a relationship that ended soon after production for the 2021 Summer House spin-off, but they became closer while filming Winter House. The Giggly Squad host’s uncertainty over her growing relationship with Conover was also featured on the most recent season of Summer House.
However, was it difficult when Conover and DeSorbo made their relationship public since they hadn’t established it at the time he hooked up with Olindo?
“Yeah!” Naomie Olindo says with a laugh. “You’ll see us navigate that a good bit because it was kind of hard to figure out, ‘Okay, what are the boundaries? How can I remain respectful to them, but still be in the same friend group?’ It was kind of hard to figure out what everyone’s comfortable with.”
That doesn’t mean Olindo isn’t all for Conover and DeSorbo’s pairing. “They’re great together,” Olindo says. “I’m super-supportive of him, super-supportive of her. They’re really happy and it’s nice to see.”
She rememberably criticised Conover’s sewing while they were dating, but now she supports the success he has had with it. (Since then, Conover has established Sewing Down South in Charleston, which sells several of his home furnishings ideas, and has achieved success both online and offline.)
“Anytime anyone finds something they’re truly passionate about and it can bring them success and a sense of purpose and a good sense of self, I think it’s wonderful,” says Olindo, who has her own clothing business L’ABEYE. “I’m really happy for him. I love to see. We’ve talked about our businesses together, which helped us bond in a new way. It’s great to see him thriving in that way.”
Olindo is currently dating, but she downplays any potential commitment. Although she admits that her breakup with Shah was difficult, she is happy that it brought her back to Charleston and to Southern Charm.
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“It’s really the best thing that could have happened, I just didn’t know it at the time,” Olindo says. “In hindsight I’m like, ‘Oh, thank goodness,’ because I didn’t realize that it wasn’t a good relationship. I just thought everything was fine. But I’m really thankful because it really was the best thing that could have happened.”
“I just learned so much from the experience, the biggest lesson being the importance of not losing myself by trying to please someone else,” she continues. “That’s definitely something in hindsight I think happened, but I wasn’t even aware of it. So it’s in the forefront of my mind now. It’s helped me figure out what I did want and what I didn’t want.”
