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I’ve told this story before, but a decade or so ago, Rendy – a dear, lifelong friend of mine – called to say I was on television. That wouldn’t have been anything unusual in a former chapter of my life, but what she meant was the cast of Southern Charm. “Your kind of people,” she said. Posh, a little elusive, a touch aristocratic. Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe I haven’t. At the time, I hadn’t even heard of the show. It was in its first season with the OG cast still in place, and I started watching at her insistence. I’ve dipped in and out of Charleston ever since – figuratively and literally. I have even intentionally driven by the Isaac Jenkins Mikell House, if I must admit it, but something happened last week that made me pay closer attention. One of the show’s OG and current cast members, Craig Conover, gave an interview to Forbes and said something different, something that is much needed. Something that I’m going to write about, even though the Kentucky Derby ran over the weekend and I’d usually write about that. I even thought about trying to tie them together – Southern Charm and the most southern of events. Alas, that didn’t work out. What Conover spoke about deserved its own space.He talked about bullying.
As someone who has written and spoken openly about the loss of my older brother – and the very real connection between bullying and suicide – I didn’t hear his words as just another celebrity confessional. That would have put me off, and that doesn’t seem to be Craig’s modus operandi. While he wasn’t the cast member Rendy compared me to, he’s arguably the one I’m most like now. In reading the Forbes piece, there was something more grounded about him. He acknowledged being bullied as a child and, just as importantly, admitted that it didn’t simply vanish with age or success. Today, he stands as an example, not just someone who survived, but is thriving. In this modern world, that distinction matters, because the truth is, bullying doesn’t end when the school bell rings for the last time, or when we toss our hats through the air of a high school football stadium. It just evolves. Today, it lives in comment sections and direct messages, in the quiet cruelty of anonymity that social media invites. According to data from organizations like StopBullying.gov, roughly one in five students report being bullied at school, while a significant portion experience cyberbullying that follows them home, onto their phones, and into their most private moments. Adults aren’t immune either. We’ve simply normalized it under different names.
I’m no exception. I’ve been called things I wouldn’t repeat here. I’ve been told, plainly, that the world would be better off without me. All by adults. That kind of language doesn’t just disappear when you log off. It has a tendency to linger. It embeds itself into your psyche in ways that are difficult to articulate and harder to shake, even when you think you’ve become more calloused to it, as surely both Craig and I have.
Conover made a point, though, that should rattle us all, especially those of us with children – the bullying he experiences now, as a public figure, pales in comparison to what he endured as a child. That says something powerful – not just about him, but about how formative those early wounds can be and what children actually go through. Even years later, even after success, they continue to echo. I suspect most of us, if we’re honest, carry some version of that around with us. A moment. A voice. A person who made us feel smaller than we were. It may be buried in the back of our minds, but it’s still there. I’m no exception.
There’s a tendency to say that adversity builds character, and perhaps it does for some. That’s not a justification for bad behavior. Even if growth can come from hardship, that doesn’t make the hardship necessary, or even noble. What matters more is what we do in spite of it. That’s equally what builds character. That is a voice stronger than any bully.
For Conover, part of that has been embracing what once made him a target. His creativity. Sewing. Building something tangible out of something intangible. His message is simple, “chase what makes you happy.” When you do that – regardless of the noise that surrounds it – something inside you shifts. It begets confidence.
So no, I never made the cast of Southern Charm – sorry, Rendy, but maybe you were onto something after all. If being “those kinds of people” – which she meant and I took as a compliment – means taking life’s hard knocks and reshaping them into something that might help someone else, then I’m happier than ever to embrace the comparison, and if that message reaches even one kid who feels like they’re the underdog and don’t belong, then it’s worth far more than any storyline Bravo could ever script.
As for me, I’ll still watch every now and then, but in the meantime, we can all say thank you by visiting www.sewingdownsouth.com. After all, it’s proof of what you can do with a passion, and in Craig Conover’s case, that’s $5 Million in annual pillow sales. I can’t argue with that.
To read more from Shane Gilreath, find him on social media, or visit shanegilreath.substack.com