As a certain lover boy once said, summer should be fun. And, hey, maybe the upcoming ninth season of Bravo’s Summer House will be fun—it sure looks like it will be!—but all signs point to the discourse around it being quite the opposite.
Let’s rewind for a sec: Bravo fans around the world were stunned when, with just two days left in 2024, Summer House star Paige DeSorbo took to the mic of her Giggly Squad podcast to share the news that she and her boyfriend of three years, Southern Charm’s Craig Conover, had split up. While some say they saw it coming, others were shocked. Either way, it was sad!
Paige and Craig were Bravo’s No.1 “it” couple—a first of its kind, even. There had never been such a high-profile couple involving two beloved stars crossing over from two of the network’s major shows like this. They were fun together, looked good together and made a lot of sense together. Viewers were rooting for them and witnessed how much of a positive impact they were having on one another. We’d seen them first connect on Winter House and had built up investment in their love story over the course of several full seasons of their respective shows, with many waiting with baited breath for them to take the next big step in their relationship. But that next step never came.
You see, the thing is, when you’re a career reality star, there’s an unspoken expectation that your relationship will actually move at a brisker pace than that of a normie. You date for a season or two, you get engaged the next season and then we get to watch you get married and go on to start a family. New season, new storyline. But as the meme has taught us, expectation doesn’t always equal reality.
In hindsight, yes, it’s plain to see that Paige and Craig weren’t necessarily aligned on some very consequential things: when to get engaged and married, when to start a family and where to even live in the first place (she lives in New York City, he lives in Charleston). But, again, fans were invested, and we told ourselves that they’d figure it out: One of them (probably Craig) would move, and they’d meet in the middle on their conflicting timelines.
And, even though they didn’t figure it out, it appeared as though it was going to be a clean, drama-free breakup. Paige said it was mutual, and Craig posted a fairly respectful update a week later. Done. Right? Well, no.
Craig said he was shocked by the split, Deuxmoi started doing its thing, and Paige continued to dispel burgeoning rumors on Giggly Squad. Things were getting messier just as their co-stars started to weigh in. The whole thing felt familiar, but with a twist. This was actually something new for Bravo fans, because it turns out when a first-of-its-kind couple goes their separate ways, you get a new kind of breakup, too.
When a Real Housewife gets a divorce, we tend to side with her. She’s who we’ve been following over the years, and she’s whose perspective we primarily get. Her also-ran partner fades into obscurity. When two stars of the same show split, “teams” form, but they’re usually less clear cut and more malleable, with viewer opinion vacillating between episodes and seasons because we’re more or less equally as invested in their stories, and their castmates don’t all tend to get behind the same person at once (even Scandoval got complicated in that regard).
But when two Bravolebrities on separate series break up, there are teams already formed, ready to close rank around them: Their casts. Paige and Craig’s co-stars, who have spent years in the trenches with each of them while filming their respective shows and forming deep friendships in the process, have already started soldiering up to defend their own. These casts are families, and they’re acting like it as they embark on press tours in support of their shows and are inevitably asked about the breakup.
And, in turn, the Bravo fandom had started to divide, too. While there’s likely a lot of crossover in viewership between Summer House and Southern Charm, just like fans have their preferred Housewives franchises, many of us also have our preferred non-Housewives Bravo series, which perhaps informs where you’re siding in Paige and Craig’s breakup.
Oh yeah, and about the shows: They’re both about to currently be airing on Bravo on back-to-back nights, at the same time, for months. And just like Vanderpump Rules did with Scandoval and Summer House did with Lindsay Hubbard and Carl Radke’s broken engagement last season, the current seasons of Craig and Paige’s series will provide new insights into the last several months of their relationship. With the help of editing, surely, Summer House and Southern Charm are already fueling the narrative and fanning the flames of either “side.” After all, mess helps to make summer fun.
Gibson Johns is an award-nominated entertainment journalist, host, podcaster, and reality TV commentator known for his Bravo hot takes, celebrity interviews and prolific tweeting. His work has appeared in Esquire, Men’s Health, Betches, Yahoo! and more. He’s conducted hundreds of interviews with top celebrities like Khloe Kardashian, Matt Damon, Chrissy Teigen, Kate Hudson and Gabrielle Union, as well as interviews with over 80 “Real Housewives.” He’s appeared as a moderator at multiple BravoCons, hosted premiere panels for Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Potomac and Dancing Queens, and been a guest on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy.
The post Team Paige or Team Craig? The Casts Of ‘Summer House’ And ‘Southern Charm’ Are Fueling A Brand New Kind Of Bravo Breakup appeared first on Decider.
