Kristin Cavallari and Stephen Colletti are sitting down with Lauren Conrad!
Yeah, that was a sentence you probably expected us to say in 2006 or something, right?! But no! That went down in the present day! Like, NOW! And we are here for three former Laguna Beach stars rehashing their days on MTV and alllll the controversial drama they went through during that iconic reality show!
Related: Kristin Shows Off ‘Breast Lift’ Results In New Bikini Pics!
As Perezcious readers will no doubt recall, the then-high school students starred on the hit series from 2004 to 2006. There was major love triangle drama between them at the time, as the show played up a rift between Lauren and Kristin after each were romantically involved with Stephen.
For years since, it seemed the beef has been maintained and the distance has held. But this week, the vibe MAJORLY shifted! On Tuesday morning, Stephen and Kristin released their season one finale of the podcast Back to the Beach. In it, Lauren sat down with them for a deep dive into where they all came from!
Holy s**t!
Here are some of the biggest highlights from the brand new podcast ep re-living those Laguna Beach days (below)…
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The REAL Story Behind The Love Triangle
There was no love triangle as salacious as the Lauren-Stephen-Kristin love triangle. (Sorry, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, and Angelina Jolie! Ha!)
But according to Lauren, the issues she had with Kristin were “done” before the show even began to film!! LC told the podcast hosts:
“We got into it and then made up. I mean, I don’t think we were best friends. But we were like, ‘It’s fine.’ You and I really never had any beef. Obviously there was a little truth to what happened. I felt like MTV coming kept it alive and made it way worse than it ever would have been.”
Kristin tried to play it down even further, saying the two women “never had an issue with each other.” Lauren didn’t quite buy that, but did acknowledge:
“I mean, we had an issue with each other. But it had been squashed! They ran with it. It made for an interesting show.”
Interesting!
Lauren’s Love Interests…
Producers on Laguna Beach went to great lengths to set up and promote the Lauren-Stephen-Kristin controversy. But that wasn’t what was really going on! LC explained that she was actually quietly connecting with cast member Talan Torriero during filming, even though none of that ever ended up making it to air:
“This is terrible, but honestly, I was hooking up with Talan.”
Kristin replied:
“We all were!”
Oops!
Still, producers just didn’t care about the tall Talan tale. Lauren explained:
“They would fabricate a story with [Stephen]. But we would be like, ‘everyone’s actually hooking up with him!'”
LOLz!!
Lauren And Stephen Go WAY Back!
LC used the podcast to look back at her long-standing connection to Stephen — but apparently misremembered it!
According to Conrad, she started hanging with Stephen during their senior year, after all the upperclassmen boys she was friends with graduated. And when she hooked up with him, she explained, Stephen had already been split up from Kristin:
“I don’t think I realized you guys were boyfriend and girlfriend. I didn’t know you guys had a whole relationship. So then we started hanging out again.”
But it turns out LC and Colletti did date! In SEVENTH GRADE!!!
Incredulous that Lauren didn’t remember, Stephen recalled how they were very briefly together in one of those awkward middle school relationships until she split with him on Halloween:
“We did date, seventh grade! Do you remember this? For two weeks? You broke up with me after two weeks. I remember because you were in your Halloween costume. I think it was Supergirl or something.”
Reliving All Their Regrets
Both women got candid about an ugly (and infamous) episode down in Cabo San Lucas. During that wild trip, LC called Kristin a “slut.” That insult has lived on in Laguna Beach lore ever since, but Conrad is remorseful that it ever happened, though.
She extended an olive branch to Cavallari on the podcast, saying:
“I’m so sorry. I couldn’t believe I did that. Because where I’m at now, I would never call another woman that. And it was the most embarrassing moment. I was like, ‘Oh, gross.'”
She wasn’t the only one, though. Kristin replied that she also regretted calling Lauren the same slur in a later ep:
“I said some really dumb stuff. And I look back and that’s like my biggest thing. When I watch it now, I wasn’t confident at all. I was actually so insecure. I took it out on you in a lot of ways. Hindsight’s 20/20. If I could go back, I probably would have directed a little bit more towards [Stephen], instead of [Lauren].”
Growth and maturity! Snaps and claps!
It Didn’t Survive A Rewatch!
Conrad recently went through a COVID-19 battle, and she used that time to watch back all the old episodes. She claimed on the podcast that she actually never watched them in full before. (Really?!?!) And she wasn’t too keen on seeing it this time around, either! She joked:
“Watching it was, like, so much worse than I had imagined it would be. It was really cringey. And I noticed, like, I don’t say a lot in this show … It’s just really little bits and, like, weird faces for me.”
Sad to see that it didn’t hold up for her. Def not true for us! Ha!!
How Lauren Became Voice Of The Show…
Lauren also recalled how she accidentally became the show’s lead after producers asked her to do all the voice-over narration for the first season. She didn’t expect it to be such a big deal at the time — but the impact of her VO work lasted. The now 36-year-old explained:
“I was just sort of told I was gonna be the narrator.I don’t really remember it being a conversation. And I don’t think I understood what that meant. They were like, ‘We need you to come in and do some recording,’ which was sort of odd, because when we went to San Francisco, I was basically commuting back to L.A. every weekend.”
She also (slowly) learned along the way how to push back on scripts. During her later time on The Hills, Lauren wasn’t afraid to reject script ideas or alter spoken lines. (Yes, the show is scrip:ted! Shocker!) But on Laguna Beach, she didn’t understand that part of the game — and so she said what she was told to say:
“There was probably a few things I would say, ‘I don’t think this is right,’ or, ‘I feel uncomfortable.’ But because you’re so young, you were like, ‘Well, this is what I signed up for. This is your job.’ No. I don’t say a lot in this show. So, the most you hear me speak, I think, really is in that intro. So, it’s funny that most of my words are actually written for me.”
Always interesting to hear what goes on behind the scenes. It’s never quite like how you imagine it to be, is it?!
…And The Producers Were Very Persuasive
Kristin agreed with some of Lauren’s assessments. Jay Cutler‘s ex said producers could be “very persuasive” during filming. Lauren didn’t want to make it seem like they were being outright manipulated on set, but she did admit that MTV’s production team knew how to make interesting television:
“I don’t think I ever felt taken advantage of. But I was definitely surrounded by a bunch of adults saying, ‘Well, this is how it went. This is how viewers feel.’ And you know what? They did a good job. Like, they were writing a show. And I think we did need that push in order to make it more interesting.”
No Regrets!
Even though she missed out on some “normal” stuff during her high school and college days, being on a hit reality TV show gave her all kinds of opportunities she otherwise wouldn’t have had. She’s certainly made the most of those today, too. Lauren explained:
“If I could relive any moment it would probably be, like, graduation or prom. … I think a little bit of, like, normalcy. We missed out on that.”
And yet she added:
“It gave me so many opportunities and I wouldn’t be able to build the career I have without it. That’s definitely the best part. I think the hardest part is that I feel like we didn’t really get to go off and have a normal college experience. It was worth it.”
Well then!
What a podcast ep. So many memories come flooding back! Reactions, Perezcious readers?? Share ’em in the comments (below)!
[Image via MEGA/ATP/WENN]
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