He can laugh about it now, but even Craig Conover admits Season 5 of Southern Charm was a rough one for him. We’re chatting in the sitting room of Patricia Altschul’s extravagant Charleston home as the afternoon sun streams in, touching on the changes for Conover, Altschul, and Kathryn Dennis, who is running behind but will soon join us to reflect on the new season of the Bravo series which kicked off last week.

It’s Altschul who comes up with the best description for where Conover was in his life last season, describing it as “the clip art period,” referring to the generic, highly unspecial, and quite unfinished product he delivered to her after having plenty of time to perfect an assignment for a pillow she presented him. “Poor Craig, his hand was in that…whatever that apparatus was, he had just broken up with Naomie, the house was a mess, you couldn’t do anything, you were trying to zip up your pants with a coat hanger,” Altschul laughed. “Yeah, I guess that was kind of a challenging period,” he agreed. “You can’t really be creative and productive when you can’t zip up your pants,” she stated (and my god, someone get that on a t-shirt ASAP), to which he agreed, “A lot was out of order. I think I blocked a lot of that out.”

Now he’s all smiles, and who wouldn’t be after spending the better part of the last year in the Bahamas? His Instagram is sprinkled with clear blue ocean pictures and happy smiles from Conover who retreated to the islands to clear his head and his heart. “I realized after the reunion last year that I had a lot of stuff to deal with,” he admitted, pointing to the anger brewing inside him after his breakup with Naomie Olindo. “I was trying to process and go through it and grieve in Charleston but after being here for eleven years, the social circles are really small and anyone I ended up hanging out with, everyone was linked and so I got out of town.” After an invite to Bimini from his pal Whitney Sudler-Smith (Altschul’s son), Conover remembered enjoying a jaunt to Marsh Harbor in the Abacos for a wedding, and it’s there where he says he, “Found peace and happiness for the first time in a while.” He flew back to Charleston, bought two of the biggest suitcases he could find in Wal-Mart, packed them up with all this stuff and flew back down to the Bahamas where he spent two months “spearfishing, going out on the boat, and reconnecting with myself.” Conover was finally able to move on from Olindo, and says, “I just felt like myself again.” His pal and fellow cast member Cameran Eubanks agreed, as Conover relayed, “She said I have my smile back and I think it’s a happy one.”

Which is what led to Altschul granting Conover a do-over on the pillow concept they discussed last year. “When I came back, it was not necessarily an apology tour, but checking things off the list,” Conover says of their meeting. “She gave me a second chance,” and the original idea of the partying cats and dogs pillow has become a reality. We’ll get to see how it all comes together on the show this season, and the pillows will soon be available for purchase, with the proceeds going to an animal charity. “He picked the colors, he really did the whole design,” Altschul complimented Conover, giving him the credit for the concept as well. It was this project that Conover says, “Gave me the confidence to start a bigger company,” and Sewing Down South officially launched last month.

Meanwhile, Patricia’s Couture is thriving, with Katy Perry even recently posting a picture wearing pajamas with her pet’s face on them. Altschul gifted an incredibly touched Andy Cohen with a baby blanket and bib with his dog Wacha’s face on it during her appearance on Watch What Happens Live last week, and she’s not stopping there. “I should make you a throw with Bethany’s face on it, or pajamas, whatever you want,” Altschul offered Conover, referring to his furry new roommate. She’s gotten requests for pets that include dogs, cats, ducks, bunnies, and even an iguana, and notes that her line will soon expand to caftans and pajamas with flamingos and martinis on them, as well as other pillows, but as she promised Conover, “I’m not gonna be in competition.”

She’s in a league of her own when it comes to the parties Altschul frequently throws, the ones we see on TV and otherwise. “I’m happy to throw a party at a moment’s notice,” she tells me, lighting up at the mere mention of inviting others to her home. “They’re always fun. You’re pretty good at throwing parties,” Conover tells her.

“And stuff always happens,” she adds, as if we haven’t been watching that in action every single season of this show. “I don’t usually know what’s going on at the dinner party, I’m in a bubble chit chatting and thinking everything is fine when all hell is breaking loose.” As far as her preparation for these soirees, Altschul says, “All I do is what I like to do: flowers, tables, think of funny, amusing themes and then I just sit back and watch the disasters take place.”

“I have four people that work for me full-time so I either bring in a caterer or we do it simply,” she says of her infamous dinner parties, knowing exactly when to go all out, and when there’s less pressure to impress. “If some of the guys come over and we have a dinner, it’s not that complicated,” she says, though look out for a ladies’ dinner later this season that does get a bit complicated.

“That flamingo party was really fun,” Conover offered, referring to the unforgettable Season 3 bash at her house. “That took some doing,” she admits. As does the party she throws for the season finale this year, that she says took at least two weeks to plan. “We rented a beautiful hall, a historic home that had to have a ballroom. We had special décor and fabulous food and all of that.”

“That’s one of the most popular wedding venues in the country,” Conover told me. “I think it takes like, 24 months to book for your wedding or something crazy,” he said. “It’s a gorgeous place,” Altschul continued. “I used a party planner and she had an in with this place because she does all the big parties and weddings so we were able to sneak in.”

And while I was here, I had to sneak in a few etiquette lessons from Altschul, who’s become known as quite the party behavior expert, likely because she’s seen it all. In the first episode of the season, we see Dennis present Altschul with a beautifully wrapped present, but we never see her open it — are you supposed to open it on the spot? “No. You thank them profusely, put them aside, and open them later,” she tells me. “What about wine?” Conover wonders.

Oh, she’s got a special routine for that. Altschul has two big wine storage spaces, so first she’ll “look [at the bottle” and see what kind it is, and if it’s “an inferior wine,” then it goes into the main wine storage area which is “For people who are just wandering around and help themselves.” But there’s also a storage space

“behind this door which you wouldn’t know is hidden” where she keeps all the really good stuff. So if it’s “undrinkable” it goes into the main wine storage, and “If it’s really good I’ll say, ‘Oh this looks so special, we must try it at dinner.'” If she even tried to put the inferior wine on the table, Altschul says, “Whitney would take a sip and say, ‘What is this swill we’re drinking?'”

She takes a moment to be a proud mom around the topic of Sudler-Smith, telling me he’ll be visiting Charleston soon but that at the moment he’s doing “A big deal in China, he’s doing another big deal in Paris” and insisting “he actually works.” She remains in mom mode when Conover refers to a lady friend as “the new one,” appropriately asking the most mom question of all time, “Oh, we have a new one?”

“Kind of,” Conover says, looking at the ground and explaining that it’s “not that serious” even though she spent a week with him in the Bahamas, but it remains unclear if she’s worth a trip to Altschul’s home. “I would be even more choosy bringing them here than my house in the Bahamas,” Conover confesses.

“I’m not that judgemental!” Altschul exclaims. “You are very welcoming,” Conover assures her. “I remember the first few years, I don’t know how you dealt with us.”

“Which time?” she asks.

“When we used to come back and jump in the pool,” he tells her. “Oh, Michael has a big plastic bag, a collection of things people have left by the pool,” Altschul says. “I think he found your passport one time,” she tells Conover, which is 100% believable judging the past behaviors we’ve seen on the show. “There are rings, earrings, watches, thongs, passports, just in a big bag,” she continues.

Hopefully, that big bag will stay hidden when Below Deck‘s Captain Lee and his wife stop by her home at the end of May. Their tweeting back and forth has led to her entertaining them, and perhaps they’ll flesh out the next steps of our dream Bravo crossover: Altschul chartering a yacht for the show. “He wants to do it, Kate [Chastain] was all in favor. She was saying she and Michael could have a martini-off.”

I caught Altschul’s butler, when he wasn’t preparing drinks, standing in the back of the room and proudly taking photos of her during our interview. But it’s at this moment that another familiar face enters the room as only she can. Dennis appears, with no announcement necessary, as her presence says it all. She’s wearing a silky jade green suit that would make sense if she were wearing in either a bed made for royalty or on a red carpet, but it would immediately make any mere mortal feel just that. Not just any woman can pull off this look. It’s fitting that we’ll soon discuss the Games of Thrones meme she posted on Instagram, where a viewer photoshopped her head onto Cersei’s body, and Dennis admitted, “I was like, oh wait, that’s kinda cool and it looks legit,” even though she doesn’t keep up with the show. “I can hardly understand anything that they say so I put on subtitles and I still can’t process it, I suppose.”

“It’s so complicated. I tried and gave up,” Altschul agrees. As for Conover, it was the Red Wedding that did him in. “Everyone that I was invested in just died. I watch TV as an escape, this is way too much.”

As Dennis takes her place on the sofa next to Altschul, it’s a sight to behold for any Southern Charm fan: an alliance over five seasons in the making. And it has arrived. “Kathryn and I were definitely estranged for five years, but I feel like I know her because I’ve seen her grow up on the show,” Altschul explains. “All the cast told me how she progressed as time went on so it made it very easy to make that transition. We both apologized to one another.” Much of the catalyst to this friendship was Altschul distancing herself from Dennis’s ex and father of her children, Thomas Ravenel, no longer a cast member on the show as he deals with sexual assault allegations.

When I ask what the two women have bonded over, whether it’s something they both love or despise, Altschul quips, “Oh despise, that’s an easy one.”

“We wear the same size shoe, we love shoes,” Dennis tells me, with Altschul offering, “I have some that I can’t wear, I’d love to see if you can wear them because they’re incredible. But I cannot walk in them.”

“I can hardly walk in any of the shoes that I have but I like to look at them,” Dennis tells her. And the honesty doesn’t stop there. As she reflects on this new chapter of Southern Charm, one that’s watched her grow from party crasher to triumphant mom of two, Dennis says, “For the first time I feel like I’m going into a season not connected to another person on the cast. I’m living my own life, I’m able to talk about my own life. That felt pretty liberating and exciting. I’m not in someone’s shadow,” she explained before adding, “I have friends! The redhead made friends.”

How those friendships have fit into her life, Dennis offers, “They know me well enough to know when they should let me have my alone time because I do need that to rest my energy and process all that goes on. But they know whenever I reach out and I’m like, ‘Hey what’s up, let’s hang out,’ that that’s because I need them. They really just listen and that’s all I really need. Just someone to hear me, and that sounds really selfish but that’s what friends are for.”

“You don’t have to apologize for wanting people to be good friends. It’s what decent people do,” Conover tells her softly.

“I’m still learning about decent, it’s all new to me,” Dennis replies. But her friend and castmate Austen Kroll was aware of that last year when he invited Dennis to join him and his family for Thanksgiving. “She can be very tough to get a hold of but I grew closer and developed a relationship with Kathryn this year,” he explained to me. Kroll also admitted he was a bit surprised she took him up on the offer to come over for the holiday. “I let her know that I was there for her if she wanted to come and she actually took me up on it. Even on Thanksgiving day, I was like there’s no way that she’s gonna drive out here, but I think I held her feet to the fire a bit because I was like, ‘You made a commitment to come so now you have to come.’ And she was like, you’re right.”

As she battles Ravenel for custody of their two kids, Kensie, 5 and Saint, 3, Dennis tells me, “I’ve learned to just kind of coast. I’m great. Well, that’s not really a good answer. I’m doing well given all that’s going on and it’s mainly because of my children. I just focus on them whether it’s being with them and hanging out or looking at pictures on my phone which I do all the time when they’re not with me. I’m good. Focus on the positive, don’t get lost in the negative. There’s a light at the end, you know?”

As far as the kids go, she can’t help but gush, “They’re wonderful. Oh my gosh, they’re so much fun, their personalities are exploding right now.” When it comes to Kensie, Dennis says, “She thinks she’s a model, that’s for sure. It’s really cute. She will talk about herself being sassy and it’s so interesting to see a child have a point of view. It’s so weird and oddly very much like I was when I was a child.”

She’s also got a new boyfriend, singer Hunter Price, who she’s been dating since January. “I never thought this would happen for 10 more years. Minimum 10,” she says of finding a solid partner. And the good news about this one: her friends approve. Altschul said, “He’s attractive he’s a gentleman, he’s charming, and he’s very protective of Kathryn. He’s a nice guy.”

Conover agreed, noting that “He’s a great singer,” and that he’s “really easy to get along with and you can tell he cares about Kathryn.”

“He’s really easy to talk to and get to know,” Dennis said. “He’s not too guarded, he’s very open. And he’s not from Charleston which is refreshing.”

While many on the internet critiqued Dennis’ recent appearance on WWHL for being fidgety and seeming nervous: she was. But when she talks about things she’s comfortable with (her family, boyfriend, fashion) she gets excited and comfortable at once. However, when the topic of social media and being recognized in public comes up, both Dennis and Conover lose a bit of their ease. “It might not be a professional camera but you always have a camera phone on you,” Conover says, explaining that when he went to a bachelor party in Montreal, where the show wasn’t even airing yet, he couldn’t help but watch his behavior.

“When I go to the grocery store I’m like, ‘Aw man, am I getting this Kraft macaroni, people are looking at me funny,'” Dennis says to laughs in the room. But it’s Altschul who’s got them really beat.

“I was in Jaipur, India, I was there with Georgette [Mosbacher]. I was in the ladies’ room in the stall and she was washing her hands and we were talking about what we were gonna do, and this voice said, ‘Is that Patricia?’ It was a woman from Akron Ohio, she recognized my voice.”

However, Dennis, of all people, has found the positive side to social media. “It’s good for feedback.” Um, what? She says the positive messages she gets on social media about her positive transformation over the years “Helps me understand what I am giving people and the value that I’m providing. It motivates you even more so.”

“Well your comments have gotten a lot more positive than they used to be,” Conover tells her. He breaks down the platforms for me from his perspective: “Instagram’s nice, Twitter is mean, and then Facebook is just very unhappy angry people. It takes about one season of looking at Facebook comments before you never go back.” Conover even says people in the airport have stopped him and pal Shep Rose and brought up Rose’s outspoken nature on Twitter, to which Conover urges his pal to “chill out.”

Neither Dennis nor Altschul are onboard with Rose’s typed outbursts, but Altschul does admit, “There is something satisfying, every once in a while, I did this a little with Ashley.” She’s referring to her Twitter responses to Ashley Jacobs’ outrageous behavior, on the show and online, that took place last summer.

It’s at this point Sudler-Smith calls, hoping to meet up with Conover soon in the Bahamas, where even Dennis has a trip planned for later this summer — despite the fact that she had a nightmare of a time when she visited last year, telling a story about how she was stranded on a boar for nine hours due to seaweed in the motor. Besides crazy waves, she also got sun poisoning for being out there so long, and a sassy phone call from Conover, because she was with Olindo, the person he was trying to avoid the most at the moment. “You got sassy with me and I was like, Craig I’ve never seen this side of you,” she tells him.

“That was the last weekend I was angry,” he says.

It would be inaccurate to describe Dennis; reaction to new cast member Eliza Limehouse as angry but perturbed, sure. Limehouse made quite the impression when she offered up Dennis to be a surrogate during an awkward dinner exchange in the first episode of the season, following that up with a confrontation which only served as a backwards effort towards friendship. She was met with a sharp, “My coattails are all worn out” instant classic line from Dennis who tells me, “I don’t want to be petty, I’m just not interested,” when it comes to pursuing a friendship with Limehouse. “There’s not much to connect on, in the nicest way possible. Talking about me being a surrogate, it’s like, I don’t know what to think. It’s passive aggressive things.”

“If she wants her approval she definitely does some stuff this season that’s not what you should be doing,” Conover says. “She asked us and we were like, you can do whatever you want, you’re a grown adult. But there’s not gonna be a positive reaction from a lot of people we’re friends with and it’s gonna alienate them. We’re telling you there are people that will care.”

“The issue is that she’s consciously aware that it’s not the right thing to do because she’s even questioning whether or not it is. Then following through with that allows you to see that her conscience is there but she doesn’t care,” Dennis points out. Oh, and not to mention, she does one other thing that is sure to displease Dennis. “She decides to invite Ashley places. That’s kind of a slap in the face to people.”

“I would hate to be the type of person that would try and alienate someone because I’ve been on that side of things,” Dennis reasons, explaining their relationship today as “cordial.”

And then there’s the matter of Madison. The hair and makeup artist and Kroll’s girlfriend makes quite the splash this season, and ultimately starts to divide the cast. Altschul knows what team she’s on, as LeCroy has done her hair for the past ten years. “She is career driven, she is beautiful, she’s funny,” Altschul tells me. “I get a kick out of her. She doesn’t put up with any stuff and I really like that about her. I would say that the guys are not necessarily great with that at all.”

Conover has also known her for quite some time, explaining, “I’ve been friends with Madison before I met any of y’all. I love her to death. I think you’ll see that I don’t agree with the relationship that she and Austen are in at all this season, but unlike some of the other cast members who have a problem with maybe her, I love her and I make that clear. I love Madison and I love Austen, I just think it’s not a healthy relationship. Hopefully you can distinguish the difference between Shep and I this season,” he says, though that difference has been clear for quite some time now.

Conover will also be putting that law degree to use, working with homeless vets in Charleston this summer doing pro bono work, and will even incorporate his hobbies along the way, hoping to use the scraps of fabric from the pillows he makes to create into blankets.

“Well, Kathryn and I need a lawyer,” Altschul joked, as she’s currently suing former Southern Charm pal K. Cooper Ray for defamation.

“The courtroom’s my favorite place,” Dennis added sarcastically.

“Oh, you didn’t hear? I’m actually representing…” Conover jokes. Dennis’s eyes widen and she shouts, “I was about to say, oh my god!” as the room erupts into laughs.

Altschul takes this moment to confess she just realized she wore the same gold dress in the first episode of the season as well as the last. “You try not to wear the same thing twice,” she says (though she does wear the same dress she has on now to her WWHL appearance, but who’s counting — it looks great).

“That’s the difficult thing with social media,” Dennis agrees, “You can only wear stuff once and I wear crazy things.”

“Your outfits this year are phenomenal,” Conover compliments Dennis, especially excited for a getup she wears on the upcoming ski trip. “You’ll steal the show,” he tells her. And she will — for the sixth season in a row.

Southern Charm airs Wednesdays at 8pm ET/PT on Bravo, and stay tuned to Decider for more with the Charleston crew.

Photos by Paul Cheney.

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