Kristin Cavallari has moved beyond "Laguna Beach," both physically -- she now splits her time between Nashville and Chicago -- and professionally -- as a designer, lifestyle entrepreneur and soon-to-be author. Alas, the MTV series still follows her.
"No one knew what that show was going to become, obviously," Cavallari told Elle in a new interview. "I had envisioned it being, like, do you remember 'True Life' on MTV? I thought it was going to be like that. None of us knew that it was going to be turned into a soap opera. And, so, filming the first season, we were sort of just going along with it, listening to producers, doing what they asked, not realizing -- me especially -- that we were going to be edited the way we were."
The show, which ran from 2004 to 2006, was supposed to document the real life of teenagers growing up in Orange County, but the network took some creative licenses. Cavallari said she didn't even know the love triangle involving her, Stephen Colletti and Lauren Conrad was even happening.
"[Stephen Colletti] was my real boyfriend, so that was really difficult for me to watch," she told Elle. "Even though a lot of it was manipulated and for the show, it's still hard to see your boyfriend going and hanging out with a girl that he probably normally wouldn't. It was tough for me. You were either the Lauren or you were the Kristin."
This isn't the first time Cavallari has talked about the pseudo-reality show (and it probably won't be the last).
April 2010: "'Laguna' was, you know, my real boyfriend and those were my friends, and we were really young. MTV basically just came in and shook up our world."
December 2012: "We were 17 and 18, and they made [the feud with Conrad] a lot worse than it was."
February 2013: "The producers were really crappy to me. I felt like everybody was against me and manipulating me, and that forced me to be a bitch.”
December 2013: "[On] 'Laguna Beach,' they really just manipulated situations and put us in situations that we normally wouldn't have been in, or we'd have to film something that maybe happened a month ago or hasn't happened yet -- stuff like that."
December 2014: "Being 16, 17 in high school, not knowing really how to handle your emotions or even realizing what's going on, you know, I put up a wall and I put up a really tough exterior because I felt like they were really trying to take advantage of me. It was a really difficult time. Then when I saw it air and saw the way that they represented me, I was really, really upset. I cried for hours and hours after I saw the first episode. It was hard. I still, to this day, think you should have to be 18 to do a reality show only because of my experience."
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