The Juicy Bravo Breakup That Is Upending This Hit Reality TV Show

Heartbreak feels good in a place like Bravo. Except Bravo isn’t an AMC movie theater and a bucket of popcorn; Bravo is your couch, covered in Cheetos dust. And that voice you hear? It isn’t Nicole Kidman, it’s Musclemania’s 2016 Orange County Show winner, Tamra Judge.

From Kyle and Mauricio’s ongoing breakup on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to the seismic cultural moment of Scandoval, we’ve had ringside seats to good couples (I’m sure I can think of a few!) and bad couples (literally almost everyone) unraveling before our eyes for the last two decades.

The latest to join the Shannon & David Beador couple graveyard is reigning Bravo Golden Couple, Southern Charm’s Craig Conover, and Summer House’s Paige DeSorbo, who called it quits after 3 years of long-distance dating.

With Summer House about to kick off its ninth season, this anatomy of a breakup will be the centerpiece of what was already sure to be appointment television. So whether you’ve been with the show since the Wirkus Twins terrorized the East End of Long Island or your curiosity has been piqued in recent days by a TikTok featuring a screenshot of a tweet that was posted on Instagram, it has never been more imperative that you tune into the shenanigans of the Summer House gang.

Summer House is coming off its best-ever season, and the gang is coming in hot in these new episodes.

Carl is still reeling from his breakup with Lindsay - last season’s drama centerpiece; he’s shaking like he’s going to tell Luann “it’s about Tom.” Lindsay is glowing post-breakup, thanks to her new mysterious man and her pregnancy. Amanda is finally pursuing career aspirations, much to the chagrin of her husband Kyle, who has decided 42 is the age when it would be best to pursue a DJ career. Ciara is still smarting from her summer fling gone wrong with West because he can’t stop mentioning her in the press. Last season’s stealth VIP Jesse Solomon will be flirting up a storm with Ciara but has his sights on newbie Lexi, who joins the cast alongside real estate playboy Imrul. Oh, also, Gabby is back.

But in the lead-up to the breakup, Paige, and by association, Craig will take center stage. Craig and Kyle’s battle for sparkling hard tea dominance will rear its head at some point. Paige will also get into it with Kyle over his treatment of Amanda, a summer pastime as American as fireworks on the 4th of July. We also know Paige and Craig hit tough times over the summer leading to their imminent breakup.

Paige and Craig became a power couple on Bravo after meeting in a crossover episode on Season 4 of Summer House. They made it official in fall of 2021, after Paige had the best summer of any human being on record by casually dating both Craig and Italian model Andrea Denver.

Craig had a burgeoning sewing empire down in Charleston, SC, ready to slow down after years of partying and lying about whether or not he passed the bar (He did! We think!). Paige was a lifelong New Yorker (well, Albany—I can say that; I’m from Long Island!) and the closest thing Bravo had to a Carrie Bradshaw type (complimentary). The pitfalls of their relationship were apparent—Paige’s obvious disdain at the idea of moving anywhere other than NYC, Craig’s insecurity about their relationship, Paige sharp tongue vs. Craig’s sensitivity—but they seemed to make it work.

As time passed, the cracks began to show. Craig was ready to propose, get Paige down to Charleston and start a family. When he shared that vision with Paige, she burst into tears. That’s not a red flag, it’s a red banner.

It started to feel as though the very opposites that attracted them were barreling them towards the end of their relationship. Craig’s misreading of who Paige was to her core, what she wanted out of life, and how she was able to express and show love spoke to a more significant issue of who they were as people. On last week’s Southern Charm, Craig suggested that they live on a farm and raise goats, a reading of who Paige was that was more based in fiction than in the woman standing in front of him having a panic attack in a beekeeper’s uniform.

On Dec. 30, on her wildly popular podcast The Giggly Squad, Paige announced their breakup, with kind words to say about her ex, but saying she needed and wanted different things for herself. And everyone’s been totally normal and chill ever since.

A week later, Craig, having the kind of hair day you pray for when addressing your 1 million Instagram followers after a headline-making breakup, made a statement of his own, saying he was blindsided. Still, he was hopeful and looking towards the future; he encouraged everyone to be kind to themselves and Paige. Not 100% aligned, but so far, so good— wait, no, just kidding; I forgot we hate women.

Cheating allegations against Paige began to surface, prompting her to go back on Giggly Squad to set the record straight about the timeline: They broke up at the end of November, just as press for the new season of Southern Charm was gearing up; Craig decided not to disclose their relationship status, an understandable move considering how fresh the wounds were. Paige saw Craig “acting single” on a ski trip in December, she felt it was time to announce their split.

On a Feb. 6 episode of Watch What Happens Live, Craig said “he doesn’t want to be involved” when pressed by Andy Cohen to address the Paige cheating rumors. This seems to be the central sticking point between Paige and Craig, as she hoped her partner of three years would defend this aspect of their relationship. Paige cleared up that she has never cheated—physically or emotionally—on Craig. Both the casts of Summer House and Southern Charm have weighed in on the topic, fanning the flames of this momentarily benign, now contentious breakup.

As of last week, Paige and Craig happily attended the Super Bowl, separately of course. Paige in a luxury suite with her possibly, probably, new boyfriend. Online discourse is determined to be outraged by this, but the headline should read: “Single Woman Goes on Date to Football Game.” As she has said, she is single and doing single things. Craig has been seen on Raya and, possibly, probably on a date with Southern Charm castmate Salley Carson. Everyone seems okay with this, however, because misogyny.

So, what happens when we have to watch a couple we like breakup for **checks notes** totally normal and understandable reasons? Do we even need to choose a villain? The internet seems to think so, but maybe we don’t.

Look, I am an avowed Paige DeSorbo fan— I don’t think there is a single person on all of Bravo who I would rather gossip in bed with while scrolling on my phone than Paige. And my memory is long for Craig’s bad behavior from early-to-mid Southern Charm to literally throwing money around demanding a cleaning person on Winter House. But Occam’s razor is sharp for a reason—the most straightforward answer is often correct. In this case, two people seem to have reached the logical end of their relationship.

We can pick a side, but maybe we don’t have to assign blame. I love Paige, but she probably did a dozen things wrong along the way here. I get that Craig is frustrated but that doesn’t automatically make him the bad guy; there’s likely another dozen things he did wrong.

Without clear-cut wrong or right, the internet seems to be losing its collective mind trying to assign blame. Because Paige is the one who ended things, who made the harder decision for both of them, and because Craig looks so sad, she carries too much of it. That feels unfair, imbalanced and the work of the patriarchy conditioning folks to value the wants and needs of a man over the ambitions of a woman. That might not specifically be Craig’s fault, but it sure as hell isn’t Paige’s. (Hey, I might not be choosing a villain, but if I’m gonna choose a side, it’s going to be Paige all day.)

Which brings us back to the new season of Summer House. Much like Lindsay and Carl’s breakup last year, watching Paige navigate her feelings and interactions with Craig throughout the season will be like watching Love Island by way of an Agatha Christie murder mystery unraveling in reverse. Every Paige-Ciara-Amanda in-the-bed confession a clue, every interaction with Craig a foreshadow, every eye-roll a j’accuse!

Summer House ends production around Labor Day, just three months before Paige calls it quits with Craig. We might not be able to cast a villain but over the next several weeks —and with cameras picked up in the aftermath—we should be able to see what prompted the end of their relationship. Summer really is the best season.