'The Hills' cast reunites at the 2018 MTV VMAs, but where is Lauren Conrad?
The red carpet at the 2018 MTV Videos Music Awards looked an awful lot like a Thursday night at former L.A. nightclub Les Deux circa 2007.
Heidi Montag, Spencer Pratt, Audrina Patridge, Jason Wahler, Frankie Delgado, Justin “Justin Bobby” Brescia, and Stephanie Pratt assembled for a photo op Monday night. They were joined by Speidi’s 10-month-old son, Gunner, which was appropriate. Just after the group shared a moment on the red carpet, MTV made a short announcement that The Hills: New Beginnings, featuring original cast members alongside family and friends living in L.A., will debut next year. The teaser trailer, filled with views of the Los Angeles skyline set to a stripped down version of the Hills theme song, “Unwritten,” doesn’t tell us much either.
That former Hills star Lauren Conrad didn’t appear at the VMAs was expected, and she most likely won’t be part of the reboot. Now a fashion designer, Conrad gave a nod to her reality TV roots Saturday when she posted photos of her hometown, Laguna Beach, Calif., as seen in The Hills precursor, Laguna Beach. But she’s generally not one for a lot of looking back.
Even whispers of a possible reunion didn’t include LC, the centerpiece of the show for the first five-and-a-half of six seasons. Hours before the VMAs, a source told E! that Conrad wouldn’t have time for the event. “Lauren is concentrating right now on her Kohl’s line and her charity work, which she is very passionate about,” the source said. “She is the head designer of her Kohl’s line and has worked with them for 10 years, causing her to fly cross-country several times a month for her work.” At the same time, the source said, Conrad is “opening her first store for [online fair trade shop] Little Market.” She’s also mom to 1-year-old Liam, her son with husband William Tell.
Conrad did participate, however, in the show’s 2016 10th anniversary special, The Hills: That Was Then, This Is Now. In one part of it, she sat down with former Hills producer Sophia Rossi to talk about one of the series’ most memorable scenes. In it, LC, upset because she believed Speidi had started a rumor that she filmed a sex tape, says to her former friend Montag, “You know what you did!” at Les Deux, once frequented by the show’s cast. During the reunion special, Conrad seemed surprised to hear that producers had arranged for the altercation and come up with potential scripts for the night’s events. She wasn’t happy.
“You know this is super-creepy right?” Conrad said when told. “I wish I had known.”
Fans of The Hills know by now that much of the show, at least the later part of it, was not as real as audiences less familiar with reality TV thought on first viewing. Kristin Cavallari, who replaced Conrad as the show’s leading lady, has said for years that most of her storylines in the show weren’t real and that she “faked relationships, faked fights.”
It was also expected that Conrad’s friend from Laguna Beach and The Hills, Lo Bosworth, would not be a part of any reunion. Back in February, she said “f*** no” would be her answer to any reunion invites, because she considered her cast members co-workers and nothing more.
Cavallari, on the other hand, has always been excited about getting The Hills gang back together. She’s remained friends with Conrad’s enemies, Montag and Pratt, who have also long been in on the reunion idea.
In June, Cavallari, who’s also a designer and now stars in her own reality show, Very Cavallari, explained that Montag and Pratt were part of the reason the new project has taken so long.
“I was about to sign a deal to do a Hills reunion with E!, and then Heidi and Spencer signed a deal with MTV,” Cavallari told People of Montag and Pratt, who married in 2008. “And they’re such a vital part of The Hills that we couldn’t do it without them. So, it’s been kind of put on hold, but I would love to do it.”
Cavallari and her family, including former NFL star-turned-broadcast husband Jay Cutler and their three young sons, relocated to Nashville over the summer.
Despite Cavallair’s absence at Monday’s VMAs, we foresee her making a completely spontaneous trip to L.A., including brunch with Audrina and Heidi, sometime soon.
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