Olivia Flowers officially joined the cast of Southern Charm in 2022, and since her debut on the series, she’s garnered a pretty adoring and supportive fan base, which helped her through an extremely difficult time in her life: the loss of her brother, Conner.

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Conner was two years older than Olivia and a dream big brother, as she describes him. He was the light of her life, her protector and confidant, and a creative brilliance in this world whom she says everyone loved. At 6’5″ with a charming smile, it was hard not to notice Conner when he walked into a room, and Olivia shares that his added charisma made it easy for people to be drawn to him.

Olivia’s brother meant the world to her, and when she learned of his untimely passing on Jan. 30, 2023, she knew that people needed to see the truth of Conner’s journey, his life experiences, and the ups and downs he navigated with a fundamental belief that he’d make it out of the depths one day.

What happened to Conner, Olivia’s brother?

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A post shared by Olivia Flowers (@oliviabflowers)

The answer to what ultimately took Conner’s life is a complex one because it’s not as simple as the cause of death in his autopsy. While he passed due to an accidental Fentanyl overdose, there’s far more to his story than that.

Conner suffered from a debilitating disease from the time he was just a teenager and wouldn’t get an official diagnosis until much later in life. Due to years of pain, dizziness, headaches, etc., Conner had a hard time performing daily tasks, and he went from an athlete and college student to a person who had to put his dreams on hold simply because he could not keep going with the pressures he was facing.

It was then that his parents finally got him to a doctor who did the work instead of “putting a bandaid” over the symptoms, as Oilvia tells People Magazine, and that’s when he received his official diagnosis. By that point, however, he’d already become dependent on a variety of medications to live his life, and he desperately tried to get himself off of them.

“Nobody wanted to get better more than Conner did. It was just such a hard time. We are very, very close as a family. We were all very involved and rallied around him. But for years, he was just in and out of rehab, trying so hard to get on the other side of this.”

At the time Olivia joined the cast of Southern Comfort, her brother was supposed to join her but opted to continue living at a wellness facility in Arizona to receive care for his addiction and Lyme disease, and Olivia said he looked the best he ever had in the weeks before his passing. He went to Charleston to visit his family on the weekend of his death, where he experienced an accidental overdose that took his life.

What disease did Conner have?

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A post shared by Olivia Flowers (@oliviabflowers)

The disease that led to Conner’s addiction was Lyme disease, an illness that makes it hard to do the most routine and otherwise mundane tasks for a variety of reasons. From fatigue and joint pain to depression and heart-related illness, Lyme invades the body and is challenging not just to diagnose but to begin overcoming.

Via a post on Instagram, Olivia explained that the disease changed her brother in a number of ways:

“My brother suffered from this insidious disease for his entire adult life. I grew up with a creative, confident, and active brother. Conner was an incredible athlete, an avid golfer – he was ranked state-wide. He always had an entrepreneurial spirit and an inspiring energy about him. Although he was very private about his struggles with Lyme disease, my family saw the toll it took on his life trying to navigate the debilitating symptoms over the last 17 years.”

She went on to say that Lyme disease is difficult to diagnose and extremely complex, with little to no accurate or “across the board” methods of testing, and many who suffer go undiagnosed for months to years. It’s believed that Lyme can lay dormant in your system and that a person can suffer from flare-ups for years.

Olivia still honors her brother to this day and will carry him with her for years to come.