Craig Conover is jumping from the small screen to the literary scene.
The Southern Charm star is taking fans on a trip down memory lane in his new book Pillow Talk: What's Wrong With My Sewing?, which hits shelves March 29.
Candidly sharing his life on the page, Craig looks back on the experiences that helped shape who he is today, from being a bullied high school teen to run-ins with the law, to how his Adderall addiction and fame affected his relationships, especially with former girlfriend and Bravo co-star Naomie Olindo.
"It's a weird feeling being open and vulnerable," he recently told E! News in an exclusive interview. "And you know, it's gonna be crazy hearing how everyone else takes to it."
Fans of the series are familiar with the star's passion for sewing, a hobby which he turned into a business—Sewing Down South—in 2018.
But, is the star ready to be an open book?
"I'm comfortable with being vulnerable because I feel like I'd rather have people judge me for the whole story [rather] than a partial story," he said.
Find out some of the biggest bombshells revealed in Craig's new book below, including some juicy Southern Charm behind-the-scenes drama!
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"There's no need to recount all the episodes of bullying that happened to me as a teenager. The best way to describe it is that it was just this persistent state of being for me, something that I just had to deal with every day. Most of it originated with the older players on the school soccer team," he wrote.
"Why did they target me? I was small and skinny, so I suppose that had something to do with it. I also believe that the self-confidence I had acquired and built throughout adolescence made me a target too."
"During my junior year I was arrested for public intoxication," he shared. "It was, in fact, a case of mistaken identity (they later caught the real culprit), but it left a lasting impression on me. My father called a friend of his who was an attorney to ask for his advice. After hearing my story, he decided to represent me in court and got the charges dismissed."
Luckily, his run-in with the law didn't deter his interest in a legal career—he says he was "in love with the law in college"—but rather strengthened it. "The whole process fascinated me, not least because I felt like I had been wronged by the system," he wrote. "Being punished for something I didn't do opened my eyes to the harsh reality of the judicial system."
"Two seasons of filming Southern Charm while managing law school as well as the responsibilities of working as a paralegal at a busy firm had drained me, physically and emotionally. Life in Charleston [S.C.] had drained me. The endless nights; the booze; the struggle to keep up; and, yes, the Adderall, had kicked my ass. The consequences of living like a celebrity had finally arrived and beat the hell out of me," he wrote.
Struggling to maintain the balancing act, he moved in with his parents in Ocean View, Del., to "come up with a plan to get my life back on track."
Craig recalls how at their friends' wedding, the bride's emotional vows sparked the beginning of the end of his relationship with his Southern Charm co-star Naomie Olindo.
"Almost everyone in the audience was crying by that point. But I saw that Naomie wasn't crying tears of joy for her best friend; hers were tears of sadness. Later, during the reception as we celebrated the newlyweds, she would tell me that she was crying because of us. I asked her why. ‘Because I know I will never be your biggest fan, Craig. I can't be that person for you,'" he wrote.
"My relationship with Naomie, or rather, our deteriorating relationship, was the principle motivation behind my taking up sewing again."
"Hopped up on Adderall," Craig's outburst during an argument cemented the end of his and Naomie's relationship.
"'Get the f--k out!' I heard myself shout. She paused. Only for a moment, before she grabbed her stuff, picked up Zee [the cat], whose home was always the house where Naomie and I lived, and walked to her car," he recounted. "I watched her from window. She sat in the driver's seat, her head down. She started to cry. Then she picked her head up, wiped away her tears, and backed out of the driveway. I could've run after her, but I didn't."
"I wanted to believe that the selfies and shots I took with fans meant I had made it. I didn't need Naomie," he wrote. Unfortunately, his reality TV fame wasn't enough to shake the breakup and his Adderall struggles.
"I would sometimes rifle through my backpack and come upon a tissue that I used to protect the pills from the moisture. I'd open it up and there would be pink dust everywhere, the remnants of what had once been an Adderall pill," he shared.
"Instead of finding calm and happiness, my life had been an endless parade of searching for that next high; that next jolt of what I thought was real life. But it had been an illusion; a trick that my money and fame had played on me," he wrote.
After previously getting clean, he found himself hooked once more, stating that he didn't know "how to film without being on Adderall."
Although he doesn't watch old episodes of the show often, the Southern Charm star looked back at how far he has come since the show's earlier seasons. "Then you watch season seven. Damn, but what a difference. Gone is that 'skinny Adderall freak,' replaced by a confident, successful, and hustling young man," he wrote.
"My happiness isn't about whether I come off 'looking good" on the show; it's tied to whether I got out of bed and got something done that day," he shared.
Before getting together with his current girlfriend, Summer House's Paige DeSorbo, Craig dated Natalie Hegnauer. And like his relationship with Naomie, an argument between the two—involving cast member Madison LeCroy—put the nail in the coffin of their romance. (Craig's castmate Madison had a famously complex and ultimately doomed relationship with Craig's good friend and co-star Austen Kroll.)
"When I left to film Winter House in January 2021, we were still together, and despite rumors that I had started seeing Paige DeSorbo, nothing happened between us. However, I was also upset when I heard that she had had dinner with Madison while I was filming in Vermont, given that Natalie knew full well how I felt about Austen's ex," he wrote.
"So when I returned, we both agreed that the relationship wasn't working anymore. What had happened between us during quarantine just couldn't last in the real world, and while that is unfortunate, I don't regret a moment of it."
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Pillow Talk: What's Wrong with My Sewing? by Craig Conover
To learn more about Craig's life, check out his memoir for behind-the-scenes scoop on Southern Charm.