If you grew up watching Laguna Beach and The Hills, this one’s going to hit.
Lauren Conrad hasn’t exactly been making the media rounds lately. She’s been living a quiet, intentional life in Laguna Beach with her family, and she’s genuinely happy about it. But she sat down with Kristin Cavallari on Let’s Be Honest to talk about the reunion, and she’s surprisingly open about what it actually took to show up—the nerves, the creative control she insisted on, and why closing this chapter with the same people she started with just felt right.
She’s already decided this is the last time she’s doing anything like this, so listen up.
Below are the highlights from the conversation, adapted from the episode.
You and Steven Colletti both have executive producer credit on the reunion. Was that a dealbreaker for you going in?
“Yes. I think that I spent so many years doing this without any control, to have the option to have control and say was really important to me, and it made it feel safer, 100 percent.”
What was it like filming that stage day? Because it seemed like a rough start.
“It was really hard for me, which—that was the first thing we shot…I was really nervous. I also, like, I don’t do great with bright light. I have migraines and stuff, so I was struggling on that stage and it was a long day. Every time they would take the camera off of me, I would just like stare at the ground and try and get myself together, but they kept using those clips. I was like, guys, this makes it look like I didn’t want to be with this group of people, which wasn’t true, because I was so excited to be reunited. I was just in that environment personally having a really hard time.”
Was there stuff you pushed to have taken out?
“So many looks taken out. I mean, by the way, I felt so bad for these poor people editing this…My husband watched it with me and he was like, oh no, oh jeez. He was like, it’s okay, they’ll fix it, you’re an executive producer.”
Why did you agree to do the reunion at all? You’ve been pretty selective about revisiting this stuff
“One, obviously this started because you and Steven did your podcast, and you did such a good job. Like, you just celebrated that show, it was really fun and I was like, that was a really nice way to do that….And then when I talked to Steven afterwards, he was like, ‘We’re gonna do this,’ and I was like, ‘If we can do it in this way, that sounds really nice.’ I’m also at a point where I don’t really do anything anymore, and I would love to put a pin in my career on television. It would be really cool to end my career with the same people I started it with…It just felt clean.”
So this is actually it for you—your last thing?
“God, I hope so…I don’t miss it at all. I’m so happy…A lot of people really miss it, and I didn’t. I enjoyed it while I had it, it was great, and I’m really grateful for the opportunity…But I love just being with my family and my friends and living a quieter life.”
What was the hardest part of those years publicly?
“I don’t know that there was like one thing…I think there were a few years that were really hard on The Hills. It wasn’t so much filming—it was the culture and what paparazzi was like during those times. It was really hard. We didn’t live in a gated community, so there were cars outside our house. At one point they were climbing trees and shooting into my bedroom window. I remember I was laying out in a bathing suit, and they had gone into my neighbor’s yard, climbed a wall, and were taking pictures of me…It just felt…I just didn’t have any privacy. If I wanted to leave my house, I’d lay down in the backseat of a car. It was a weird time.”
You mentioned keeping a relationship completely off camera near the end of The Hills. How did you pull that off?
“It just was not an option. He didn’t want to be on camera…Towards the end I sort of faded to the back anyway—other people had bigger storylines…and I probably would have quit like two seasons earlier, but I was like, ‘I need to keep going’…I didn’t want my decision to shut it down for everybody. And then when they said Kristin will come in, I was like, ‘that is great news.’”
Is there a side of you people never got to see on camera?
“I’m definitely more relaxed when I’m not filming. I think I’m sillier. They just never showed that…Like think about how they were filming. A lot of it was out at nightclubs while drinking.”
You’ve been with William for over a decade now. What made him different?
“It was just easy with him. We just communicated together. It felt very safe, I loved him very quickly—like, too quickly…The relationships I’d come off of, it took a long time to trust them. I think we were like a month and a half in and we were openly in love. He moved in after like four months…And he’s a much better parent than me. He’s got endless patience. I got really lucky.”
Last question—are you voting for Spencer Pratt in the election?
“I don’t live here, so I won’t be voting.”
To hear Lauren Conrad’s full conversation, listen to Let’s Be Honest wherever you get your podcasts.
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