Craig Conover showed off the alleged engagement ring he planned to give ex-girlfriend Paige DeSorbo.
The Southern Charm star, 36, surprised “The Toast” host Jackie Oshry during an episode of her podcast on Wednesday, June 25, by pulling up a photo of the ring on his phone. Jackie admitted to Craig that “the one” question fans wanted to know most was whether or not he bought Paige a ring. (The former couple split in November 2024. Craig claimed on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen in March that he’d returned the engagement ring he picked out for Paige, but she later said she didn’t think there was a ring at all.)
When Jackie, 32, told Craig “there was a lot of doubt cast” over whether the engagement ring was real, he replied, “That was a bummer!”
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“I just heard about that [rumor],” he told Jackie. “I mean, I heard a lot of nasty things about myself in the last six months. I don’t think you ever get used to it but you learn how to, like, process them. The ring one was a bummer because it was such a fun memory.”
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Craig went on, “It was such a good experience [shopping] for the ring. [Paige] had told me, she was like, ‘It’s time.’ I was happy and we were having a great couple of months. Really, the whole relationship was great until it wasn’t.”
He recalled going with his brother and sister-in-law to “the diamond district in New York” to pick out Paige’s ring “at the end of March” in 2024. Craig said he kept the trip secret from Paige by claiming he was meeting with Southern Charm’s production company.
According to Craig, the former couple agreed to “hold off” with any proposal until both Southern Charm and Summer House finished filming last summer.
“I was just on her calendar. I wasn’t in a rush,” Craig explained. “I wanted it to stay a surprise. Like, I had dreamt about proposing. I just think it’s such a special moment.”
When Jackie asked to see a picture of the ring, Craig found one on his phone and handed over his device. Jackie briefly showed a photo of the ring on camera, before confirming Craig’s timestamp and geotagging.
“I can confirm that photo was taken in Charleston,” Jackie announced. “[The ring] is really so pretty!”
Craig insisted that his messy split from Paige hasn’t “ruined” his enthusiasm for proposing to someone else someday, though he admitted returning the ring was “weird.”
“Returning an engagement ring isn’t something you plan on doing,” he joked. “It’s funny because when I bought it, the jeweler said, ‘Hey, in case anything happens, I’ll work with you [to return it].’ … When I brought it back, I felt weird but it wasn’t weird.”
One potential downside was the jeweler explaining that the diamond in Paige’s ring had “gone down [in value] a little bit” since Craig bought it.
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“I was like, ‘It’s OK. I don’t need the money now. You need [to take] custody of this. I don’t need it in my house,’” he remembered.
Jackie later clarified that Craig will only get the money back once the jeweler is able to sell the ring to someone else.
“Someone should go buy it because it’s really beautiful,” the “Toast” host suggested.
A source revealed to Us Weekly earlier in June that Craig was casually dating Natalie Buffett following his breakup with Paige, although their relationship wasn’t “exclusive” or “serious.” Asked about dating on “The Toast,” Craig said that he is now single.
“I was seeing a really, really nice girl,” he said. “She will be someone’s ‘perfect person.’ I just wasn’t ready to date but I didn’t know that [at the time]! There’s no guidebook for this.”
He referred to his November 2024 split from Paige as “a chapter that I didn’t think I’d ever be experiencing,” but insisted he is now at peace with the situation.
“It’s a fun new chapter,” he said of his post-breakup life. “Everything happens for a reason.”
Craig concluded, “Over the last three years, I was able to evolve into a person I only dreamt of being. My ex [Paige] helped me unlock potential in myself that I would have never reached before … It’s hard for me to understand why things have to end sometimes but now I’ve accepted that. For three years, it was great and it was a fun chapter. You just have to believe that each new chapter is going to be just as fun … No one is ever not better off after a breakup. No one!”
Us Weekly
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