Lauren Conrad clears up that 'Laguna Beach' love triangle with Kristin Cavallari, Stephen Colletti
Lauren Conrad is finally voicing her take on the love triangle between her and "Laguna Beach" co-stars Kristin Cavallari and Stephen Colletti.
On Tuesday's episode of Dear Media's "Back to the Beach" podcast, where Cavallari and Colletti rewatch the 2000s reality show and spill on what really went down, Conrad joined as a highly anticipated special guest to share her perspective of her time on the show.
Throughout the first two seasons, Colletti is portrayed as having a relationship with both Cavallari and Conrad, causing a rift between the women. As it turns out, the two had resolved any issues between them ahead of filming, but the MTV producers leveraged it for a juicy storyline.
"You and I never really had any beef," Cavallari said. "There was a little truth to what happened with the three of us but I felt like MTV coming (in) kept it alive and made it way worse than it ever would have been."
Conrad agreed that the two weren't best friends, but any issues between them had been "squashed."
"I think what happened is (producers) saw this as a starting point and then they ran with it," she said.
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Conrad also told her former co-stars that the show only portrayed "a small piece" of her and joked that producers didn't want her to "have anything else" beyond the love triangle.
"I’m often kind of off in a corner just creepily watching you guys," Conrad said, noting she rewatched some episodes in full while quarantining with COVID-19.
She said it was "embarrassing" but also funny because she had boyfriends at the time and if they ever watched, they would think she was in love with Colletti.
Conrad narrated the first season and Cavallari narrated Season 2 of the MTV reality series, which aired from 2004 to 2006 for three seasons. The show debuted a year after the success of Fox's fictional drama series, "The O.C.," which followed wealthy teens living in Newport Beach, California. With the end of "Laguna Beach" came its six season-long spin off show, "The Hills," following Conrad and other young adults living in Los Angeles, with Cavallari eventually joining the cast.
Conrad also recalled on the podcast how narrating the first season was "a little odd" because she was reading from script.
"I noticed I don’t say a lot in the show. The most you hear me speak really is in that intro … it's funny most of my words are written for me," she said.
When Cavallari asked if she ever pushed back on producers if she felt uncomfortable with the script, she said she didn't realize she could.
"I don’t think I ever felt taken advantage of, but I was definitely surrounded by a bunch of producers, a bunch of adults saying, 'Well, this is how it went. This is how viewers feel,'" she said. "They did a good job. They were writing a show. And I think we did need that push in order to make it more interesting."
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