Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari know all too well that what happens in Laguna Beach doesn’t stay there — but would they change anything about their time on the MTV reality show?
“I don’t necessarily have regrets,” Conrad, 40, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting The Reunion: Laguna Beach, which premieres on Roku Friday, April 10. “I think I was 18 years old on camera, so I’m definitely a little unsure of myself when I’m filming.”
Conrad pointed out that there’s “actually not a lot of me talking” on the reality show, even though she was the narrator on season 1.
“In scenes I don’t say a lot, you can tell I’m pretty self-conscious. So no regrets. I think I was just so young,” she told Us about filming the show while she was in high school.
Lauren Conrad, Kristin Cavallari. Getty Images (2)
While Conrad — who was known to fans and her costars as “LC” during her teenage years — doesn’t regret any scenes from seasons 1 or 2 of Laguna Beach, she does wish she’d treated costar Cavallari, 39, better.
“I think we both said it [at the reunion our regret] was the way we spoke about each other,” Conrad explained. “We’ve obviously grown a lot since then, but we were pretty unkind about one another, and it isn’t how we treat each other now, or how we would treat other women now.”
During season 1 of Laguna Beach, which aired in 2004, fans watched as Conrad navigated her last year at Laguna Beach High School with her friends. One of her closest pals was Stephen Colletti, who she was also crushing on. Colletti, now 40, was a senior as well, dating junior classmate Cavallari — creating one of the most memorable love triangles on reality TV.
Throughout the show, Conrad and Cavallari were pitted against each other and often bad-mouthed one another on camera. Looking back now, neither of them are proud of how they handled that situation.
“I just found myself to be pretty — not to take a word out of my kids playbook — but cringey. I found myself to be kind of cringey at times,” Cavallari exclusively told Us at the press junket for The Reunion: Laguna Beach. “I really did not like the way that I spoke about Lauren in particular. I think if I could change one thing, it would just be how I spoke about her and I would enunciate a little bit more.”
The Uncommon James founder noted that she thinks “we all need to give ourselves some grace” because they were just kids at the time.
Lauren Conrad, Stephen Colletti and Kristin Cavallari attend ‘The Reunion: Laguna Beach’ special event in Los Angeles. Todd Williamson/January Images
When it comes to her biggest “regret” from filming Laguna Beach, Cavallari said her perception has changed as she’s grown up.
“If you had asked me this question, I don’t know, four years ago, I probably would have said Cabo as an example,” Cavallari told Us, referring to the season 1 episode where the group went to Mexico for spring break and Colletti called Cavallari a “slut” for dancing on the bar and making out with someone else.
Cavallari explained that she looked at that episode in a different light after teaming up with Colletti for their “Back to the Beach” podcast in 2022 and rewatching the series.
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“I watched Cabo and I actually walked away being proud of myself for how I reacted. I was 17, clearly intoxicated, and my ex-boyfriend was yelling profanities in my face, and all I tried to do was remove myself from the situation, and I very easily could have escalated that, and I didn’t,” she recalled. “And so that was one of those moments that I was really happy I got to experience it again, to kind of put that to bed with myself.”
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Cavallari revealed that she doesn’t “regret anything” after watching the show as an adult, noting, “Of course, there’s moments I’m not super proud of, but they’ve led me where I am today.”
“Ultimately, the show made me take a hard look in the mirror and grow up. And so I’m actually really thankful for all of it,” she concluded.
The Reunion: Laguna Beach premieres on Roku Friday, April 10.