How did Olivia’s brother die from Southern Charm?
How did Olivia’s brother die from Southern Charm? Olivia’s older brother, Conner Harry Flowers, died on January 30, 2023. He was 32 years old. Conner died of a fentanyl overdose, Olivia revealed in an interview with People in November 2023.
“I wish you could have met him, because he was just the most amazing guy,” she said. “My brother, he was very lively and loved bringing people together; he literally made friends everywhere we’d go. Even when we went on vacation, we’d go down the hotel lobby to get breakfast and he knew everyone by name. He was this 6’5″ beautiful guy who had the biggest heart.”
Olivia told the magazine at the time that her brother used fentanyl as a way to “survive” the symptoms of his Lyme disease, a vector-borne disease often transmitted to humans through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks. If left untreated, the infection can spread to the joints, the heart, and the nervous system, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“My brother hated talking about his illness,” she said. “So many people, even in his close circle, didn’t know about his Lyme. So again, to hear he died of a fentanyl overdose, there’s immediately going to be this assumption that he was partying. Conner wasn’t like that. This was a relapse. This was his means to survive.”
“Conner was a remarkable young man, with the gift of compassion and love for others, earning him friends everywhere he went. His values were seeded in his faith and in his family,” the Flowers family said in a statement to Us Weekly at the time of Olivia’s brother’s death. “We know his absence will be felt by many for years to come. Please respect our privacy while we grieve the overwhelming loss of our son and brother.”
Olivia opened up about her brother’s diagnosis with Lyme disease in an Instagram post on May 9, 2023, in which she explained how Lyme disease is often difficult to diagnose. “I recently learned that May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month. While I still have a lot to learn about Lyme disease, I want to use today to speak about my family’s experience with this illness over the years,” Olivia captioned a series of photos of her brother.
She continued, “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.”
Olivia went on to explain why it took her brother so long to find a diagnosis for his Lyme disease. “Lyme disease is complex and incredibly difficult to diagnose, given the severe limitations of diagnostic testing, wide-ranging symptoms, and a lack of education within the medical field,” she wrote. “For years, I remember my parents traveling with Conner to countless doctors’ appointments looking for answers to his symptoms and pain.”
She continued, “Dr. Kelley, Founder & Medical Director of Case Integrative Health, shared with me ‘this delay in diagnosis can be devastating… it is often because the symptoms start out vague and or mimicking other illnesses… too many patients are told ‘your results are normal, there is nothing wrong with you, go see a psychiatrist.'”
She also revealed that Conner experienced several misdiagnoses and unnecessary medical treatments until the doctors diagnosed him with Lyme disease. “For Conner, this led to several misdiagnoses and unnecessary medicinal treatment at a young age,” she wrote. “By the time he was properly tested and given a diagnosis from Dr. Jemsek, a God send, and an infectious disease specialist, the disease had caused severe internal damage, and the consequences from his earlier “treatment” were just as long-lasting and devastating.”
She continued, “Anyone that knew Conner knew of his love for helping others. It was a passion of his. Although talking about this loss on a larger public platform has been difficult and uncomfortable, I hope that by stepping outside of my comfort zone, I can honor my brother as well as help others avoid the same struggles brought on by Lyme disease that he suffered.”
Olivia ended her statement by thanking the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society for their work researching her brother’s disease. “Thank you ILADS for your dedication to advancing the standard of care for Lyme, through education, research, and awareness. @ilads.lyme,” she wrote.
In her interview with People, Olivia described her brother’s “longtime battle with Lyme disease” as “heartbreaking.” “It’s just heartbreaking,” Olivia said. “There are these holes in the healthcare system, and my brother fell into one.”
Olivia explained that her brother’s Lyme disease symptoms, including headaches, dizziness and joint pains, first started surfacing when he was 15 years old, though it would take years for doctors to diagnose him because of how common his symptoms were to other conditions. She revealed that there is still no way for doctors to test the presence of the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. “I remember my parents taking him to doctors literally around the world trying to find answers to these symptoms that he talked about to no avail,” she said. “My parents saw the best of the best clinics, and Conner was just told over and over, ‘It’s all in your head, you’re fine.'”
To treat his chronic pain and anxiety, Olivia’s brother was prescribed painkillers, which led to longterm trouble. “He started depending, at a very young age, on this prescription medicine to feel normal. And we as a family started to see this toll it took on his body,” she said. The pain led Olivia’s brother to stop playing in regular golf tournaments and eventually drop out of the sport, for which he went to college on a golf scholarship, because the pain had become too unbearable. “It just changed him,” she said. “The symptoms he had from Lyme, they were debilitating.”
Eight years after he first experienced his symptoms, Olivia’s brother was referred to a functional medicine doctor, who finally diagnosed him with Lyme Disease. By that time, Olivia revealed that her brother had become addicted to opioids and Xanax he had been prescribed that he thought were helping him. “Now, not only was he getting treatment for Lyme, but he was also in rehab dealing with getting off this medicine,” Olivia said. “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 round him. But for years he was just in and out of rehab, trying so hard to get on the other side of this.”
She continued, “He always maintained that he had a problem. It was never a fight to get him to go to rehab; anytime my parents would get him help, it was because asked for it. He wanted to stop this.”
Olivia also recalled a time when Connor was on a nature walk while in rehab for his addiction and broke his back jumping into the water. “He was rushed to the hospital and they pumped him full of pain meds, not even thinking,” she said. “That was a relapse all in itself.” Olivia continued, “It’s really difficult to speak on. People, when they hear words like ‘rehab’ or ‘drugs,’ they assume the worse. But these weren’t substances he turned to for partying. This was medicine. This is what made him feel normal.”
Olivia also revealed that her brother was also approached to star on Southern Charm with her but declined the opportunity to focus on his health. “He was in the best shape I’d seen him in years,” Olivia said of one of the last times she saw Conner before his death. “We had all gone up there to spend Christmas with him and he was completely clean. He just looked and felt great. My brother, he had such a hunger for life and an entrepreneurial spirit. He loved to work. He had huge dreams he wanted to accomplish. And he was talking about his plans to move to Dallas, Texas, where he already had jobs lined up.”
She continued, “We were supposed to have dinner together while we were here. I talked to him on the phone that day and we were going to meet at our house in Isle of Palms. But I went there, and it didn’t seem like anyone was home, so I left.”
Fifteen minutes after she left, Olivia received a phone call from her father. “My dad called me and said he could see on the cameras in our driveway that there was an ambulance there. And I turned around to get back but by the time I got there, the house was blocked off and nobody was allowed to go in,” Olivia said. “I think I stood there for, it felt like an hour — just asking questions, not getting any answers. And it wasn’t until the coroner pulled up that I put two and two together and realized he was gone.” She continued, “It was just so crazy. We were on the phone not even an hour earlier. And then… he’s gone.”
Olivia also hoped her brother’s story could shed light on Lyme Disease. “Like most siblings, Conner and I have always been very protective of each other. So discussing this loss with a larger audience hasn’t been easy. But I definitely want to step outside my comfort zone and use my platform to shed some light and awareness and possibly help others, because I know I’d be honoring Conner in some way by doing that,” she said.
Olivia also told People about how she wanted her brother to be remembered. “He loved to help people,” Olivia said. “He was actually the one who encouraged me to do the show. And I remember producers asking several times if they could do a scene with Conner and I, but because I’m so protective of him, I never wanted to talk about what he was going through on camera. But he agreed to do a FaceTime call from Arizona and I’m so glad he did because now I have that footage forever.”
She continued, “It was such an accurate portrayal of who he was, too. If you watch, what he’s saying is ‘Passing the torch to me.’ And I didn’t know at the time what that would mean, but I’m very, very grateful for that conversation. You know, I’ve always been known as ‘Conner’s sister.’ Not ‘Olivia,’ mind you — that was what they’d call me. ‘Conner’s Sister.’ Literally, written on my name tag at camp. I hope they still call me that…”
After Conner’s death in January 2023, Southern Charm alum and the Flowers family’s friend, Thomas Ravenel, honored him in an Instagram post at the time. “RIP Conner Flowers 2/9/1990-1/30/2023 Words can’t rightfully describe how rare and remarkable you were. You will be terribly missed by those to whom you were so kind and selfless. My sincerest sympathies to your broken-hearted family,” he captioned a series of photos of him and Conner.
Leslie Green, the mother of Olivia’s Southern Charm co-star Taylor Ann Green, also honored Conner in the comments of his Legacy obituary page. “Precious Olivia, Robin and Garry … please know how heartbroken we are for your unspeakable loss,” she wrote. “We are holding you in our hearts and prayers for the peace, comfort and strength of God to carry you through. With much love, Leslie and Rick Green (& all of Taylor Ann’s family).”
Conner’s funeral service was held on February 5, 2023, at First United Methodist Church Isle of Palms in Isle of Palms, South Carolina. In lieu of flowers, the family asked for donations to be made in Conner’s name to LymeDisease.org and Pet Helpers.
