We show that, when a gold nanoparticle is coated by a thin layer of nematic liquid crystal, the nanoparticle surface has a strong effect on the director orientation, but, surprisingly, this deformation can enhance the surface plasmon splitting. We consider three plausible liquid crystal director configurations in zero electric field: boojum pair (north-south pole configuration), baseball (tetrahedral), and homogeneous. From the discrete dipole approximation, we find that the surface plasmon splitting is largest for the boojum pair, and this result is in good agreement with experiment.