The Fakest Storylines On The Hills Revealed
When "The Hills" debuted on MTV in 2006, it brought a new wave of reality TV with it. There's nary a millennial who can hear Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" without thinking of Lauren Conrad rolling through Hollywood in oversized sunglasses and a black BMW convertible. In some regards, the series was a precursor to Bravo mainstays like "Vanderpump Rules," "Southern Charm," and "The Real Housewives," all of which borrow MTV's patented formula — cast a group of pseudo-friends with dramatic tendencies and let it rip.
Though the series was meant to serve as a documentary-style look at 20-somethings in Los Angeles, by the time the show ended with its sixth season in 2010, it had endured years of speculation about scripted plot lines. By that point, Conrad had exited the series and Spencer Pratt went full Jekyll and Hyde, squandering his fortune on energy crystals. For many, it started feeling a little unbelievable — so much so that producers gave the speculation a nod in the finale when the camera zoomed out revealing a Hollywood backlot.
In more recent years, the cast has revealed that some scenes were scripted, edited, or coerced. Heidi Montag told i-D that "there were a lot of real emotions" playing out on screen, but that seems like one of the only things that was genuine in the show's later seasons. With the 2022 cancellation of the highly anticipated reboot, "The Hills: New Beginnings," it's time to revisit some of the fakest plot lines from the show.
Heidi Montag didn't crash LC's Teen Vogue party
It may be hard to remember now, but Heidi Montag and Lauren Conrad always had a tumultuous friendship. They may have finally cut ties after the sex tape rumors, but the besties had a blow-out in the very first episode. For those who need a refresher, in the series premiere, LC landed her first major assignment at Teen Vogue — assisting at the Young Hollywood Party. It seemed to be going off without a hitch until Montag showed up uninvited, snuck into a VIP area, and had a very public fight with her then-boyfriend. As a result, LC almost lost her internship. The storyline was so iconic that MTV News cites it as one of the show's "most buzzed-about moment[s]."
While nearly costing someone their job is grounds for a bestie breakup, there's a reason the friends didn't cut ties until years later. This storyline was totally staged. While Montag told i-D that the first season was "pretty real," she also revealed "there were a few setups — I didn't crash Lauren's Vogue party or certain things like that."
Justin Bobby was Audrina Partridge's untrue love
One of the most infamous on-again-off-again relationships on "The Hills" was between Audrina Patridge and Justin Robert Brescia (aka Justin Bobby). Patridge just couldn't seem to quit giving Brescia chances, even when he gave her every reason to walk away for good (Remember when homeboy wore combat boots to the beach? We'll get to that later). The pair even seemingly reignited the spark a decade later on the reboot — but was their romance for real?
As it turns out, Brescia was not the one that got away. Speaking to Complex in 2015, homeboy revealed, "Were we like boyfriend girlfriend? No, we weren't. We worked a lot, we had some moments, we spent a lot of time together." Similarly, Patridge told ET that their romance "was a fine line of real and fake, because we definitely had real feelings for each other."
Stephanie Pratt, the veritable villain of "New Beginnings," ended the ruse once and for all (a trait she shares with her brother). No, she never stole Patridge's man. In fact, Partridge wasn't interested in Brescia to begin with. "You married someone else & have a child with him," Pratt wrote in an Instagram post addressing her co-star in 2019. "And-As if you liked Justin!! you were dating someone off camera!!" Consider this plot line as real as Patridge's tan.
This Hills love triangle was totally staged
Kristin Cavallari, who managed to parlay her reality fame into her own series "Very Cavallari," joined "The Hills" during Season 5 as Lauren Conrad's replacement. Understandably, she had big stilettos to fill and stirred up some instant drama — especially when she took an interest in Audrina Patridge's on-again-off-again boyfriend, the aforementioned Justin Bobby. In reality, when the cameras cut, neither woman had an actual interest in homeboy or his combat boots.
In an interview with ET, Patridge recalled filming a party scene where she was supposed to fight with Cavallari over her former flame. At the time, she was actually dating Ryan Cabrera and told producers that she had "moved on" and wanted "nothing to do with" the storyline. In retaliation, they allegedly took her keys and locked her car in the gate so she couldn't leave. "I called my lawyers and [told them] they won't let me leave and they want me to do this fake fight," she said. "And it's just going to make me look bad and I'm with someone else and I'm not obsessed with Justin and it's making me look like this crazy person, like I can't get over him, [but] I am."
Cavallari seemed keener to roll with it. In her eyes, it was business as usual. "I never saw Justin when we weren't filming," she told Us Weekly. "He's a really nice guy, but he's not necessarily my type."
Homeboy doesn't wear combat boots to the beach
As far as reality TV heartthrobs go, Justin "Bobby" Brescia had a certain je n'ais c'est quoi. There was something so deliciously early aughts about his two first names, his motorcycle, his penchant for eyeliner and black nail polish, his rock band, and the fact he wore a beanie regardless of the weather — like a mix between Carson Daly and Johnny Depp (before the divorce scandal). Brescia is basically the ideal archetype of a television bad boy, so much so that it's hard not to scream "he's never going to commit" at Audrina Patridge through the TV.
Out of all of Brescia's quirks, he's mostly remembered as one thing: the homeboy that wore combat boots to the beach. It was spitfire truth from Lauren Conrad, who rattled off the insult after he allegedly ditched Patridge in an early episode. Sadly, the boots were a one-time thing. In an episode of the podcast "Reality Life with Kate Casey," Brescia admitted he chose the peculiar beachwear because he wasn't actually planning to go to the beach. "They called me on my off day and asked me to actually shoot some scenes and I was with my boys riding Harleys," he said.
Brescia also claimed he never ditched Patridge. Producers reportedly had the star bring her own helmet to make it look like they were riding together, but that wasn't the case.
Heidi Montag's career at Bolthouse was... a lie
A key Season 1 storyline on "The Hills" involved Heidi Montag dropping out of college to pursue a career in public relationships, much to classmate Lauren Conrad's dismay. However, in a 2016 interview with BuzzFeed, Montag revealed that her entire job at Bolthouse Productions was, in fact, a lie. It seems that Montag's involvement with the company was a mutually beneficial relationship, but not an actual career. By the way, that promotion Montag supposedly got over her co-worker, Elodie Otto, in Season 3? That apparently was totally fake, too. "I definitely did not get the promotion over Elodie!" Montag told BuzzFeed. "She really worked there and I pretend worked there, so it was obviously a pretend promotion for her to be upset about. That whole plot was scripted."
However, that very same year, Montag gave an interview to InStyle that seemed to suggest her job was real. "Working at Bolthouse was such a fun experience. It was great holding the clipboard and feeling like you're running the line," she said. "They're one of the biggest event companies in the world, throwing multi-million dollar parties."
Despite giving conflicting descriptions of her time at the PR powerhouse, "holding the clipboard" and attending expensive parties doesn't sound like much of a job description, does it?
Give this kid an Oscar
When Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt moved into a new neighborhood, they found themselves living next door to an adorable young person called Enzo. Viewers may remember the time they threw the little kid a party, complete with an elephant ride. It all seemed adorable, but Pratt confirmed that Enzo was just a character. "His mom and dad [would be] in another room, and we'd come to Enzo's house to pretend," he told E. "Poor kid, it's like, 'Why are they here in my house again?'" Enzo's house apparently wasn't even close to where Speidi actually lived. "[We] commuted all the way to Hollywood to go into this fake world," said Pratt.
As for whether they've kept in touch, Montag told BuzzFeed, "I don't talk to Enzo, but honestly he's like the cutest kid I've ever seen in my life and obviously he was a child actor! He did a great job."
The Hills' phony baby-making plot
Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag welcomed their first child, Gunner, in 2017, but when they were filming "The Hills," one of their most memorable storylines involved Montag hatching a plan to get pregnant, despite Pratt's protestations. Discussing the introduction of next-door neighbor Enzo in Season 6, Montag told BuzzFeed that the child actor's role was meant to suggest that she was ready to start a family and was going "baby-crazy" as a result, but that apparently wasn't the way Montag really felt.
She told ET in 2016 that she wasn't trying to manipulate her husband into having a kid. "Yeah, I would never do that," she said. "I think that's the worst thing any human could do. I don't like tricking or manipulating people or things like that. I think that's a really important step, and I was way too young. I wasn't even thinking about kids then." So there you have it, the baby drama was a sham cooked up for viewers to enjoy ... and it totally worked.
Producers allegedly manipulated a key moment at Speidi's wedding
An extremely memorable moment in "The Hills" Season 5 took place when Lauren Conrad surprised Heidi Montag by turning up at her wedding to Spencer Pratt. However, Conrad's unexpected appearance at the nuptials, where she handed over the show to new star Kristin Cavallari, was not all that it seemed. As Montag told BuzzFeed, "I know Lauren did not want to come to my wedding, and I was shocked when I saw her." Her initial thought was, "They must've paid you a lot to come here!"
Despite that, Montag did think Conrad's appearance made sense. She had to "pass on the baton" to the new "head b***h in charge" — but that required them to meet face-to-face. That's where things got a little hairy (and we're talking 30-inch extensions level hairy).
Speaking to Us Weekly, Conrad admitted that she had to dip out of the wedding early to attend a film premiere with her then-boyfriend, actor Kyle Howard. When the church's generator went out, production was stalled for two hours. Producers allegedly "locked [her] in the basement with two security guards and wouldn't let [her] leave" until they could film the reveal. "I was like, 'You can't keep me here!' I was throwing a fit," she said (producer Adam DiVello denied her claim). All in the name of good TV, right?
Sacre bleu! The Paris gig was a sham
At the end of Season 1, series star Lauren Conrad was given an incredible opportunity — to spend the summer interning in Paris with Teen Vogue. However, Conrad ended up turning down the internship, thus forever becoming known as "the girl who didn't go to Paris." Lisa Love, the editor who offered Conrad the position, revealed to Vogue that editor-in-chief Anna Wintour coined that infamous nickname: "Anna asked me what happened with 'the girl who didn't go to Paris,'" and the rest is history.
But according to co-star Whitney Port, the Paris internship wasn't as glamorous as it was made out to be. Port was selected to travel to the City of Lights in Conrad's place. "It wasn't an ideal situation, but I thought, okay, this is good for me because I really was pursuing a career in fashion. I thought it showed that I was down and determined to do this," she told Vogue. Port claimed the gig "was very Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs [from 'The Devil Wears Prada']." Perhaps the worst part? The trip wasn't the summer-long internship it was sold as on TV. "I went for a meeting, but I didn't go for an extended period of time," she told MTV News.
Kristin Cavallari wasn't the bad guy
If there was anyone fighting Spencer Pratt for the title of series villain, it was Kristin Cavallari. Make no mistake, this was a role and she knew what she was doing. "The money was the reason I did it. Producers gave me an offer I couldn't refuse," she told Us Weekly. "I'm glad I went back to [reality TV] because this time I looked at it strictly as a job, and I knew the character they wanted me to play." That character? The party girl villain.
In that same Us Weekly interview, Audrina Patridge admitted that producers cast Cavallari as "the crazy, wild drama starter" and wrote "a bunch of different storylines for her." One of these was her fake romance with Justin Bobby. The other was her so-called drug problem. Cavallari even claimed that producers bribed her co-stars to call her out on camera for doing drugs. Lo Bosworth reportedly asked for a Birkin Bag (which she never received).
"Listen, I definitely had fun in my early twenties," she said. "I was never out of control."
These Hills stars were never, ever, ever really together
Despite the fact that viewers were busy shipping Lauren Conrad and Brody Jenner, it turns out that their fledgling relationship was totally fake. Conrad broke the news to Us Weekly in 2016: "We were always more friends than anything." While several plot lines on "The Hills" involved Conrad and Jenner hanging out, dating, and even sharing a kiss or two, apparently that was all for the cameras. "He was always very sweet to me, and we enjoyed each other's company, but I think it was one of those things where producers really wanted us to be together, and we both knew that we didn't really have that kind of chemistry."
Jenner concurred. "We would literally film a scene of us kissing or being in this lovey-dovey scene and right after it would be like, 'Cut!' ... and then we'd go our separate ways," he told Yahoo! Lifestyle. The tryst with Conrad wasn't his only fake relationship on the show. He told the outlet that "the hardest part of it was having to live that fake reality. The not being able to say ... 'I didn't have sex with Jen Bunney, I didn't hook up with Audrina, I didn't hook up with any of these girls.'"
So if most of the relationships on "The Hills" were a lie, what is there to live for? We hate to break it to you, but there's more bad news ahead...
Audrina Partridge says she never dated Spencer Pratt
When Spencer Pratt arrived on the show in Season 2, he was portrayed as Heidi Montag's possible love interest ... who just so happened to be hanging out with Audrina Patridge. In an interview with Broadly, Montag recalled the moment Pratt arrived at a club with Patridge, who supposedly wasn't on speaking terms with anyone thanks to rumors that she'd been hanging out with one of Lauren Conrad's ex-boyfriends, Jason Wahler. (Key word: rumors.) As Montag told Broadly, Patridge "showed up with Spencer, and we were like, 'B***h, please!'" Just like that, Season 2's drama was born.
However, Patridge claims that all of the friction between her and Montag was fabricated, and she never had any romantic interest in Pratt. "Oh, God, no! I did not have history with [Spencer] and this was one of the things that really upset me, and this was when I started distrusting the producers," she told Us Weekly. Although we'll never know for sure, it seems some clever editing helped create a connection that was never really there.
Lauren Conrad's canceled cameo
Season 6 of "The Hills" ended with the reveal that Brody Jenner's final scene was being shot on a sound stage — a not-so-subtle nod to the show's fake storylines. But things could have gone very differently because Lauren Conrad actually returned for the series finale and filmed an alternate ending. MTV broadcast the special cameo years later: It shows showed Conrad waiting at home for Jenner, as if they were now living together. (In reality, the secret girlfriend Jenner kept referring to throughout Season 6 was actually Avril Lavigne, who he was dating at the time.)
While Conrad previously told E! she had "no plans to come back," producer Adam DiVello wasn't going to give up so easily. "It's something I always wanted for the finale, and it just took a lot of persuading," he told Entertainment Weekly. "... I was relentless and I bugged MTV until they gave in." But when all was said and done, MTV didn't follow DiVello's vision — the one where Jenner and Conrad are cohabitating. "It wasn't my decision. I handed in two finales. ... I think even Lauren was surprised when they decided to go with the other one." Thanks to the internet, Conrad's totally fake cameo is now immortalized forever.
Spencer' Pratt's Jekyll and Hyde persona
The most polarizing character on "The Hills" was definitely Spencer Pratt, who admits that he played into his villainous storylines as the show got more popular. According to Pratt, he couldn't be more different from the erratic, sometimes violent, consummate dirt bag he personified onscreen. Heidi Montag's other half told InStyle: "We wanted to have a show that people watched, so we did all this stuff that made us look like the worst humans on Earth. When the cameras were off, I was a complete gentleman — opening doors and going to the movies and cuddling." Pratt insisted he was simply "chasing a payday" by playing into his nasty narrative. "There was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing going on."
One of the show's producers seemed to confirm Pratt's version of events, telling Refinery29: "I feel like he knew the character the show was portraying, and he played into it, and it helped him and the show out. Now I feel bad if any of that is ruining anything he wants to do moving forward." Even Pratt's (now-estranged) sister, Stephanie, described her brother as "a reality TV genius."
Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt faked their separation
Not every storyline on "The Hills" was fake. At the time of this writing, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt have been married for over a decade, share one child, and are trying for baby No. 2. They really fell in love and really tied the knot on the show. So, which parts were staged for the camera? According to an Instagram post Montag shared in 2021, a good "90%" of the series — especially all her fights with her husband (who, at one point, was the kind of dude who carried around two phones).
In 2008, Spencer and Heidi officially became "Speidi." Cue: the weird rumors about Lauren Conrad's sex tape that we still don't know who started. The marriage marked the end of Montag's longtime friendship (see: Conrad's iconic "I want to forgive you and I want to forget you" line), but it seemingly imploded shortly after the pair said "I do."
A year after walking down the aisle, Montag filed for a separation — only, that never actually happened. According to the Mirror, the pair faked their whole split, which ended in their reconciliation and vow renewal, for the sake of getting press. Till death (or the tabloids) do they part.
Lo Bosworth wasn't really friends with the cast
Though Lo Bosworth was a tertiary character on "The Hills," she was also one of LC's oldest friends — or colleagues. The pair first appeared together in "Laguna Beach" before graduating to the spin-off (and literally graduating from high school). Today, Bosworth's pretty far removed from the rest of the cast. She runs a successful wellness company called Love Wellness and opted out of the "New Beginnings" reboot (even slamming her former castmates over the new series). Why? Apparently, she's over it. The cast were never really her friends to begin with (which could be why she was allegedly willing to throw Kristin Cavallari under the bus for a Birkin).
"I don't want any association with any of those people. The dissociation from all those people is what I'm hungry for," Bosworth said during an episode of the "Lady Lovin'" podcast (via the Mirror). "I think everybody actually feels that way about their coworkers, which is really what the 'The Hills' was. They were all just my f**king coworkers. It was a job. A j-o-b."
In other words, LC was nothing more than Bosworth's work wife. Ice cold.
This Hills friendship was orchestrated by producers
Heidi Montag moved to Hollywood with Lauren Conrad, but the former Teen Vogue intern became increasingly enthralled with her boyfriend, Jason Wahler (to the point that LC became the girl who didn't go to Paris). Without many connections in the area, Montag ended up forging a friendship with Audrina Patridge. The friendship was real — but the first meeting was a total setup.
In an interview with i-D, Partridge revealed that when she was cast for the show, she had never seen "Laguna Beach" and certainly never met the people who were about to be her co-stars. Instead, she caught the eye of producer Adam DiVello when he was "scouting the apartment complex" for Montag and Conrad. She was sitting poolside, and he apparently "liked the fact that [she] was [already] living in LA." From there, she met with a casting director, landed the part of one of "Lauren and Heidi's first LA friends," and the rest is history.
Though the circumstance was completely staged, the friendship blossomed organically on camera. Producers made sure to keep Montag and Patridge separated for two weeks before filming so when they met by the pool, it was their very first introduction. Luckily, they instantly gelled.