Paige DeSorbo of ‘Summer House’ Adds Author to Her Resume With ‘How to Giggle’

When Paige DeSorbo graduated from school in 2015, she scored a full-time place at a TV station in her hometown, Albany, N.Y. She’d all the time wished to be an on-air persona, so the job appeared excellent, at the least on paper. As her mother put it on the time, Ms. DeSorbo may work her manner as much as anchor, get married, have children, and reside down the road.

However she imagined one thing completely different for herself.

“I bear in mind simply getting the most important pit in my abdomen of like — no, that’s not my life. No manner,” Ms. DeSorbo, now 32, mentioned in a latest interview.

As an alternative, she persuaded her dad and mom to foot six months of hire in New York Metropolis in order that she may attempt to discover one thing higher. She took a job as an government assistant at ABC earlier than touchdown a task on “Summer time Home,” a Bravo actuality present that follows younger New Yorkers as they spend debaucherous summer season weekends at a shared home within the Hamptons.

“​​I referred to as my dad crying once they provided it to me as a result of I used to be like, ‘I feel I’m really too delicate to do that,’” Ms. DeSorbo mentioned. “And I bear in mind him saying: ‘Do it for the primary summer season, and should you hate it, we’ll get you out of it. You by no means have to return. And should you like it, you’ll by no means surprise, Oh, think about if I didn’t do that.’ And actually, after the second weekend, I used to be like, ‘I like it.’”

So started Ms. DeSorbo’s surprising profession as a actuality star.

So far, she’s appeared on three Bravo reveals — “Summer time Home,” “Winter Home” and “Southern Attraction” — even supposing, in some ways, she’s the antithesis of the modern-day actuality persona. She has a New Yorker’s authenticity: direct, assertive and unafraid to voice her opinion even when it would make her look dangerous. She lacks pretense and showiness, which has earned her followers.

Ms. DeSorbo is extra like the truth TV stars of yore — assume the primary few seasons of “The Actual World” relatively than the previous couple of seasons of “The Actual Housewives of Beverly Hills” — serving up memorable one-liners not (simply) as a result of they make for good TV, however as a result of that’s genuinely her persona. There are occasional missteps, like a podcast remark in 2021 concerning the pores and skin tone of Regé-Jean Web page, for which she apologized, and there are moments dramatic aptitude, however there’s no performing for the cameras: What you see is what you get.

Seven seasons into her run on “Summer time Home,” Ms. DeSorbo has customary herself into the last word millennial multihyphenate: a actuality TV star, a mode influencer, an writer, and a co-host of a prime comedy podcast, “Giggly Squad,” together with her finest pal and former “Summer time Home” solid member, Hannah Berner. Ms. DeSorbo just lately launched her personal shoe collaboration with DSW, and, alongside Ms. Berner, hosted the Vainness Honest Oscars after-party livestream. In March, the 2 capped off a multicity podcast tour, promoting out venues like Radio Metropolis Music Corridor.

Now, they’re publishing a satirical self-help ebook, out April 15, referred to as “Methods to Giggle: A Information to Taking Life Much less Critically.”

Ms. DeSorbo mentioned that her and Ms. Berner’s writer, Simon and Schuster, insisted that, not like different actuality TV authors, they not use ghost writers in order that the ebook might be authentically of their voices.

“I used to be like, ‘I can’t wait to inform all of my English academics from Grade 3 to 12 that they had been incorrect and I do know punctuation,’” Ms. DeSorbo mentioned.

Very like the subject of the ebook itself, it’s not meant to be taken critically. “It’s for the informal reader,” she mentioned. “I actually pictured the women like, occurring trip, grabbing this ebook, throwing it of their bag. Perhaps they decide it up on trip — however perhaps they don’t even open it.”

Although the ebook tackles questions on love and relationships, it was written earlier than the ending of Ms. DeSorbo’s personal: In November, she and her boyfriend of three years, the Bravo star Craig Conover, formally referred to as it quits. Ms. DeSorbo introduced the information on “Giggly Squad.”

The previous couple made some pointed remarks about one another on reveals that aired in latest weeks — Mr. Conover mentioned on a “Southern Attraction” reunion that he was shocked by the breakup, and in a dialog with Ciara Miller on “Summer time Home,” Ms. DeSorbo requested, “Am I courting a secret hater?” — however Ms. DeSorbo downplayed the drama between them.

“Nobody did something,” she mentioned. “It wasn’t a foul factor. I feel we each had been simply being actually mature and saying what we would like and what we didn’t need, and I feel that’s extraordinarily highly effective to have the ability to voice the way you’re feeling in actual time and what you need in your future.”

The breakup of one of many community’s most beloved {couples} generated loads of on-line commentary and hypothesis, particularly because it occurred simply forward of the premieres of the brand new season of “Summer time Home” and Mr. Conover’s present, “Southern Attraction,” which follows the lives of younger individuals residing and dealing in Charleston, S.C.

Each on-camera interplay between the 2 abruptly grew to become fodder for dissection. On one episode of “Southern Attraction,” Ms. DeSorbo and Mr. Conover, who had not but damaged up, mentioned her more and more busy schedule, and the way that conflicts together with his need to have her transfer to Charleston and begin a household.

“It makes me really feel like if I get increasingly more profitable, it’s a foul factor,” Ms. DeSorbo says within the episode. “Like, if I don’t make you the No. 1 precedence, I’m going to really feel responsible.”

The scene is awkward to look at, particularly with the data of the place the connection finally ends up. Mr. Conover, who has mentioned having bought an engagement ring for Ms. DeSorbo, appears to need the life that Ms. DeSorbo ran away from in Albany all these years in the past. However her refusal to surrender her goals, and to as a substitute commit herself to the profession she’s labored so arduous to construct, has stood out within the usually unfeminist world of actuality TV.

“I’m pleased with myself for making a troublesome choice although the general public was like, ‘You’re incorrect, you’ll by no means discover one other particular person once more,’” Ms. DeSorbo mentioned. She mentioned she had been heartened by the response of a lot of her feminine followers, who’ve written to her expressing how grateful they’re to see a girl on TV prepared to face robust in what she desires. “I’m actually grateful for the ladies that supported me and noticed what I used to be going by way of,” she mentioned.

Although the love story between her and Mr. Conover could also be over, the one between her and Ms. Berner just isn’t.

“It truly is true that there’s nothing higher than your finest pal in moments like that,” Ms. DeSorbo mentioned. “I really feel like I used to be processing the breakup so in a different way as a result of I had these months the place she allowed me to say each single thought that got here into my mind about relationships, being somebody’s spouse, being somebody’s mom. Like I had mentioned the whole lot I may, even I may assume in these months. And so then as soon as, like the general public discovered, I used to be like, ‘Oh, that is going to be tremendous.’”

Now that she’s single, Ms. DeSorbo is targeted on persevering with to develop the profession she’s fought for. “I undoubtedly really feel pushed and targeted,” she mentioned. “I wished one thing, so I’m working towards it.”

And the truth that her success has are available tandem with Ms. Berner’s solely makes it that a lot sweeter. “Hitting these milestones in your profession is so thrilling,” Ms. DeSorbo mentioned, “however hitting them along with your finest pal is sort of a completely different stage of happiness.”