Paige DeSorbo is weighing in on ex Craig Conover’s new girlfriend.
“I love it, I’m so happy for him,” the Summer House star, 32, said during the Wednesday, April 23, episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen when asked how she feels about Conover’s new romance with Natalie Buffett.
DeSorbo and Conover began dating in summer 2021 after growing close during season 1 of Winter House. The pair went on to have a long distance relationship — Conover in South Carolina and DeSorbo in New York City — for three years until calling it quits for good in November 2024.
Since their split, the exes have publicly traded jabs and been accused of infidelity, which they have both denied. In March, Us Weekly exclusively revealed that Conover had moved on with Buffett.
While speaking to host Andy Cohen on Wednesday, DeSorbo addressed Conover’s February appearance on WWHL where he was asked if he “cosigned” her claims she “never cheated physically or emotionally” during their romance. Conover pivoted away from the question claiming he did “not want to be involved” in the rumors after DeSorbo was the one who initiated the breakup.
“I’m the ex-boyfriend, 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, getting on there and defending her,” he said. “Like, I never said you cheated, so I’m not a part of this.”
DeSorbo, for her part, told Cohen that she “didn’t need” Conover to defend her in that moment, however, “I did need him not to lean into it.”
When asked how she felt about Summer House costar Kyle Cooke calling her ex a “liar,” DeSorbo replied, “I think Kyle nailed it.” (Cooke, 42, claimed Conover has “a reputation of lying and he lied to me” during a May 2024 episode of WWHL. The twosome were at odds over Conover’s decision to invest in sparkling cocktail company Sparkling Spritz without allegedly telling Cooke, who owns rival brand Loverboy.)
Despite DeSorbo and Conover being at odds post-split, the reality star made sure to clarify that the love between the pair was real.
“I don’t ever want people to think I was leading Craig on. I loved him, I wanted to marry him,” she told Cohen on Wednesday. “That was real. … [You could see me] over the summer working through all of those emotions in real time. I could see my brain working.”
Tying the knot at BravoCon, however — something Conover claimed was discussed during the Southern Charm season 10 finale — was never in the cards, according to DeSorbo. “Do I look like the kind of person who has convention center in my wedding invitation?” she quipped to Cohen.
Much of season 10 of Southern Charm and season 9 of Summer House revolved around DeSorbo and Conover’s declining relationship, with multiple discussions around the idea of marriage. While Conover told his costars multiple times he had plans to propose, DeSorbo stressed that her budding career was keeping her too busy to settle down and move to South Carolina full time.
Southern Charm picked its cameras back up in January after initially wrapping filming on season 10 to catch up with Conover after the split took place, where he claimed DeSorbo ended things during Thanksgiving 2024 so she could “find” herself.
He noted that before DeSorbo officially called it quits, he believed everything was good between them. “Paige and I had a great Thanksgiving together,” he told his costars during the finale. “Everything was normal at her parents. Our chemistry, like, everything. Then a couple weeks later she called me and was like, ‘We gotta talk.’”
DeSorbo, meanwhile, revealed during a Summer House episode that she “caught” Conover “texting two bitches in the course of our relationship.”
She doubled down on the claims during an interview with Vulture this month, telling the outlet, “Honestly, I don’t know if it was platonic or anything more. But there were multiple times in our relationship where I gave him so much grace.” (Conover denied the accusations during a February appearance on the Tamron Hall show, claiming the Summer House footage was “part of our breakup” and instead “filmed later on” and a “retaliatory scene.”)
