Kristin Cavallari and Lauren Conrad say MTV played up their drama on Laguna Beach, shocking nation

It is not a surprise to anyone to hear that reality show drama is manufactured. The Hills, a spin-off of Laguna Beach, ended with a wink to that effect by zooming out of the final scene to reveal a soundstage. So when Kristin Cavallari and Lauren Conrad say MTV created the antagonism between them on Laguna Beach, one might wonder, Yeah, obviously, who cares? Nevertheless, Conrad’s appearance on the Laguna Beach rewatch podcast Back To The Beach (hosted by Cavallari and their mutual ex Stephen Colletti) is a salient document for historians and fans of the franchise.

Conrad has mostly put her reality career in the rearview, but she joined the pod to set the record straight on her animosity with Cavallari and their so-called love triangle. “I think it was done when they started filming. … It was like, the week before they started filming, we got into it and then made up,” Conrad explained (per Entertainment Weekly). “And it was fine. … I don’t think we were best friends, but we were fine.”

“My take on it is, you and I never really had any beef,” Cavallari added. “Obviously there was a little truth to what happened with the three of us, but I felt like MTV coming kept it alive and made it way worse than it ever would have been.”

So although the hard feelings “had been squashed,” the network “saw this as a starting point and then they ran with it,” Conrad said, “Which I get—it made for an interesting show.” For instance, the first season often depicted her “off in a corner just, like, creepily watching” Cavallari and Colletti, when in reality she had “several boyfriends” of her own in that period.

But while the negativity may have been diabolically manipulated by the network, it still led to, well, negativity. During the episode, Conrad apologized for calling her co-star a “slut” during a vacation in which she was dancing on a bar. “I couldn’t believe I did that. Because I think where I’m at now—I would never call another woman that, or girl. And it was, for me, the most embarrassing moment, like, ‘Oh gross.’”

“Well, thank you. I called you a slut in a later episode and I was going to apologize to you,” Cavallari said. “My thing is, when I watch it now, I’m like, I wasn’t confident at all. I was actually so insecure, and I took it out on you in a lot of ways. And I am sorry for that, because I said some horrible things.”

Conrad claimed she somehow never thought that her mean comments would “find its way to air.” Granted, it was still the early days of reality and they were still high school kids: “Like, when they were doing this, I was like, ‘I just made two grand.’ We just got away with something,” Conrad joked. “I was like, ‘We have tricked these people.’ Like, who is gonna watch this? There’s no way it’s making it.” Instead, they played right into MTV’s hands. What was that about fake drama…?