Southern Charm's Naomie Olindo Wants to Clear Some Things Up About Her Breakup with Craig Conover
The Southern Charm ex shares her "biggest regret" about her split.
Naomie Olindo has a voice, and she's not afraid to use it this season of Southern Charm. Of course, the southern belle has never been afraid to share her true opinion, but this season, she's really not holding anything back, whether it's trying to get to the bottom of her issues with ex-boyfriend Craig Conover or calling out J.D. Madison.
But now as Naomie relives the months following her breakup with Craig as this season of Southern Charm airs, she recently told The Daily Dish that she now wishes she hadn't been "so mean to Craig." "Oh my gosh, I think that's probably my biggest regret. It's funny because now I'm in such a different headspace than I was eight or nine months ago, and so watching back how angry I was all the time, and I'm like, 'Why did you let this drag out so long? Why didn't you just get over it and act like a nice human being?'" Naomie said during an interview over the phone. "It's very weird just to watch back, just the anger, really. I wish I had been nicer to him because Craig is such a nice person. He's like a puppy. I wish I hadn't been such a bitch, but oh well. It is what it is now."
After working on their relationship last season of Southern Charm, including going to see a counselor, Naomie and Craig ultimately decided to end their relationship prior to the start of Season 5. Naomie attributed the breakup to "a million little things that added up" that eventually "just kind of blew up." "I think it was just a culmination of things that at the end of it, we were just two very different people that couldn't get along," she explained. "It was sad because we did care about each other. You saw, we just could not get along. I was 22 when we started dating [she's 25 now]. When I was younger, you just start dating someone because you have a couple things in common, and you're attracted to each other and you have fun together. You don't think about the attributes that would make you get along with someone, their work ethic, and all the different adult things that matter that don't matter when you're a 22-year-old kid."
Those "adult things," as Naomie put it, continued to be a topic of conversation between her and Craig, as we saw when she questioned his lifestyle choices at Cameran Eubanks' baby shower at Patricia Altschul's house earlier this season (clip above). "People think, 'Oh, why can't you support his sewing?' It had nothing to do with me not wanting a boyfriend who sews. I don't care at all about that. Hobbies are important, and I thought it was great," Naomie said. "The reason I had a problem with it was Craig is a procrastinator, and he was using sewing as a way to procrastinate doing things that he actually needed to do, you know, important things. ... Instead of doing something that he had a deadline on or whatever, he'd just sit and sew all night, not the actual fact that he sewed."
Naomie clarified that she does see that Craig has made accomplishments during the time that she's known him, such as the two investment properties he owns mentioned during the episode, which she called "an impressive feat." "But that's not what I cared about. What I cared about was the day-to-day," she explained. "But if you sleep all day now to the point where I don't even want to see you anymore because you go to bed when I get up in the morning and then sleep until I go to bed at night, it doesn't work. So that was the issue. I'm very proud of everything he's accomplished, and I think it's amazing. My problem was with the daily stuff, the small things."
How loved ones are going to take a breakup after getting to know a significant other is always a concern, but Naomie said that her parents, who have gotten to know Craig as we've seen on Southern Charm in the past, took the news of the split well. "My family's very supportive, and they love Craig. They would never say anything bad about him," Naomie said. "They want both of us to be happy, and I think they understood that we were unhappy together and that breaking up was probably the best option. So they were supportive."
Naomie has also been able to lean on the so-called "Breakup Bunch," including Kathryn C. Dennis, Chelsea Meissner, and Danni Baird, during her split, as well as all of the Charmers, really. "Even the guys were incredibly supportive, like Shep [Rose] and Austen [Kroll] and Whitney [Sudler-Smith], they were lovely through the whole thing. No one chose sides, no one did anything like that. It was actually a very good reaction," Naomie shared. "I'll go to lunch with Austen one day, then he'll go to lunch with Craig the next day, and it's not a thing. So that's been nice."
We'll see more of Craig and Naomie's post-breakup life this season of Southern Charm. Check out a preview of next Thursday's all-new episode airing at 9/8c, below.
