Kristin Cavallari came to fame as a reality TV villain in the early aughts, when she was somehow portrayed as the other woman in her own relationship on Laguna Beach and then continued to ruffle feathers on The Hills. It turns out she hadn’t planned on joining the spinoff, and she recently opened up about why she did it, despite knowing that MTV had cast her specifically to antagonize her co-stars.
It’s been 20 years since Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County wrapped its run on MTV, with Lauren Conrad going on to lead The Hills when it premiered months later. Conrad exited the spinoff in Season 5, and Kristin Cavallari was brought in to ensure peak drama. The whole thing was marketed as, “The bitch is back” — a fact Cavallari apparently knew going in. She told SiriusXM’s The Julia Cunningham Show:
I will say, they asked me if that was okay. So nice of them, but that was the other thing too. I knew this character that they wanted me to play, and it was just a matter of fully embracing it and leaning in, or just staying down the path I was currently on, and so I just, yeah. I took a left turn and here we are.
In case you don’t remember all that beautiful staged drama (Audrina Partridge said producers blocked her car in until she agreed to fight with Kristin Cavallari), check out this MTV throwback:
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You can even see them laughing, and yet, I still admit to eating up every bit of that drama back in the day.
Kristin Cavallari and other original cast members are set to come together again on Laguna Beach: The Reunion, hitting the 2026 TV schedule on Friday, April 10, on Roku. We’re sure to get an inside look at how the Southern California reality series changed those teenagers’ lives (probably not financially), but we already know Cavallari has been affected by how she continues to be painted as a villain.
She actually had planned to get into acting, she said, so what made her agree to that “left turn” toward The Hills? The Very Cavallari star said:
[Returning to reality TV] honestly was one of the toughest decisions in my life, and I know that sounds kind of silly, but yes. At the time, I was pretty serious about acting. I was wanting to sort of get out of the tabloid world, have people take me seriously, and The Hills made me an offer that I just, quite honestly, couldn't refuse.
MTV’s like the Don Vito Corleone of reality TV. It may not have been Kristin Cavallari’s Plan A, but she embraced the opportunity that was in front of her, saying:
I knew. I said, ‘If I go back to reality TV, I have to just be all in, capitalize on it,’ and I was like, ‘Then I can go into the branding world,’ and I'm so thankful obviously, because it led me to launch Uncommon James and, I mean, it's just set my life up, but it was a tough decision.
She may not have busted into the acting world like co-star and ex-boyfriend Stephen Colletti, but she helped to create some of the most iconic moments in reality TV history. Let us savor some of her best work:
Kristin Cavallari was able to parlay reality TV villainy into brand deals just like she hoped, and she also has a successful podcast where she contemplates celebrity clones, spills the tea about dry-humping Glen Powell and so much more. Be sure to catch her on Laguna Beach: The Reunion this Friday on the Roku Channel.
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