Austen and Craig After Southern Charm Season 11: Where They Really Stand Now
Southern Charm is no stranger to fleeting alliances, but when season 4 newcomer Austen Kroll hit Charleston in 2016, his instant connection with Craig Conover stole the spotlight — a rare bond in a sea of shifting friendships.
If you watch Southern Charm, you know friendships in Charleston shift with the tides. But when Austen Kroll showed up in season 4, his quick connection with Craig Conover actually felt... solid. It started in 2016 when Austen began filming with the group, and the two locked in fast. Why? Because unlike a lot of the OGs with old-school pedigrees, Craig and Austen were the guys punching a clock and trying to build something from scratch. That shared grind, plus a mess of dating highs and lows, glued them together. For a while.
Why they clicked
Both Charleston locals, both more 'show up and work' than 'born with a monogram.' As the show leaned into legacy and lineage, Craig and Austen stood out as the dudes hustling to get their careers off the ground. It gave them a different kind of chemistry on camera: less cotillion, more trial-and-error. And if you were tracking their personal lives too, the parallel chaos there only made the bond tighter.
The triangle nobody asked for
Then came the Kristin Cavallari moment. In 2020, Austen was linked to Cavallari. In 2021, Craig was linked to her too. That overlap threw a grenade into the dynamic and turned a lot of off-camera whispers into on-camera tension. The situation was murky at the time and messier in the editing, but here’s the simple version: both guys ended up connected to the same very famous person, just in back-to-back years, and the fallout was exactly as awkward as you’d expect.
Where they landed
They eventually got past the triangle, kept the friendship intact, and even teamed up on multiple business ventures. That said, if you’re expecting happily ever after, this is Southern Charm. Their relationship stays wobbly. They’ve proved they can work together and hang out without it blowing up, but it’s not bulletproof.
The quick timeline
- 2016: Austen starts filming with the cast; he and Craig click fast as the two 'working guys' in a crew heavy on Southern pedigree.
- Season 4: Austen officially joins Southern Charm, and the Craig-Austen friendship becomes a thing on the show.
- 2020: Austen is romantically linked to Kristin Cavallari.
- 2021: Craig is then linked to Cavallari, which stirs up drama and tests the friendship.
- After: They move past the love triangle, collaborate on multiple business projects, and keep the friendship going — with the usual bumps.
Bottom line
Craig and Austen’s friendship is built on shared hustle and mutual chaos, detoured by a very public, very avoidable triangle, and now living in that familiar Southern Charm space: functional, fun, and one argument away from a storyline.