Many think Bravo's Southern Charm star, Craig Conover, gave up his lucrative career on the way to becoming a lawyer for the simple life, but this isn't necessarily the case. Conover's company, Sewing Down South, has turned him into a pillow-making magnate. He may not have the old money of his influential friends, but he has done quite well on his own.
The 31-year-old is originally from Delaware and comes from a family of athletes. Initially, Craig had aspirations to play major league baseball, but an elbow injury shattered that dream and sent him in an entirely different direction. He studied law at Charleston Law School, and eventually landed a job as a law clerk at Akim Anastopoulo Law Firm. He was just at the beginning of his legal career when he landed a role on the docuseries, Southern Charm, back in 2014.
At the time, according to the Cinemaholic, season one earned him about $25,000 per episode. As of season seven of 2020, Conover is raking in about $30,000 per episode from the show, which would mean $480,000 for the entire season. Of course, reality TV money is nice, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg for Conover.
Conover is pulling in a majority of his income from a pillow-making business, Sewing Down South, started in 2018. The Charleston, South Carolina-based company has been booming ever since. The business has already landed products on the sites and shelves of shops such as HSN, Wayfair, and Thomasville. These deals can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at the very least. All that considered, Craig Conover's overall net worth is around one million dollars as of 2020, but shows no signs of slowing down.
There's no doubt that the pillows Conover sells are very pricey, with many of the pillows on his site selling for upwards of 50 dollars a pillow. That being said, Conover has managed to build his brand through the Southern Charm reality TV series. As soon as fans start poking around to learn more about the star, they're bound to run into his site. Conover is even known to sign some of the limited edition pillows his company creates. Not only that, but a plethora of clever online marketing and well-timed giveaways has helped Conover tap into a certain niche market that has guaranteed his small fortune.
Only time will tell where the lawyer turned reality TV star turned pillow entrepreneur will go next, but there's no doubt that riding the success of Bravo's Southern Charm will help get him there.
Source: Cinemaholic, Distractify, Sewing Down South