Southern Charm’s Olivia Flowers says brother died of fentanyl overdose
Olivia Flowers shared the circumstances surrounding the death of her brother Conner Flowers for the first time since his death in January.
The Southern charm star, 31, revealed on Wednesday, November 1, that the coroner ruled Conner’s cause of death was an accidental fentanyl overdose. However, Olivia explained that there is more to her late brother’s story – and that his addiction to prescription drugs was linked to his battle with Lyme disease.
“My brother hated talking about his illness,” Olivia said People on Wednesday. “So many people, even close to him, knew nothing about his Lyme. So again, to hear that he died of a fentanyl overdose, there will be an immediate assumption that he was partying. Conner wasn’t like that. This was a setback. This was his way of surviving.”
Olivia Flowers and Conner Flowers.
Courtesy of Olivia Flowers/InstagramOlivia noted that Conner – who was 32 when he died – began showing symptoms of his Lyme disease when he was just 15 years old. However, it wasn’t until years later that he was officially diagnosed and found a doctor with a plan to help reduce his pain.
“He started depending on this prescription drug at a very young age to feel normal,” she recalls. “And we as a family started to see the toll it was taking on his body.”
Conner was prescribed painkillers to treat the chronic pain, but the associated headaches, joint and body pain and anxiety persisted. Eight years after his battle, Conner was referred to a functional medicine doctor who began helping him fight the disease.
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Olivia noted that her big brother at the time was addicted to various opioids and Xanax which he believed helped him function. “Now not only was he receiving treatment for Lyme, but he was in rehab trying to get off this drug,” she said.
The reality star said Conner “always insisted he had a problem” and didn’t “fight” their family’s efforts to get him into rehab over the years. “It’s really hard to continue talking,” she said, holding back tears. “When people hear words like ‘rehab’ or ‘drugs’ they assume the worst. But these were not tools he used to party. This was medicine. This made him feel normal.”
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Fast forward to the winter of 2022, Conner was living at a wellness center in Arizona and “in the best shape” Olivia had seen him “in years.” After spending the holidays with her sibling and their parents, Conner was scheduled to return to Charleston, South Carolina, for a visit in January.
Olivia remembered talking to Conner earlier in the day, but when she went to her family’s house, no one seemed to be there. A few minutes later, she said her father called and said something had happened. Shortly afterwards the coroner came to the house Conner was pronounced dead.
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Olivia’s family announced his death in February, but at the time did not share any details about how he died. The Southern charm cameras also captured the aftermath of Conner’s death and revealed one of the last conversations Olivia had with her brother on the October 19 episode.
During one scene, Olivia told the cameras that shortly before his death, her sibling told her that he was “proud” of her. “One of the last things he said to me was, ‘You’re doing everything right. You are exactly where you are supposed to be,” she said in a confessional.
Olivia explained on Wednesday that she is “very grateful.” Conner agreed to FaceTime her for the show, because now she has ‘those images forever’.
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