The truth behind the TV. More than a decade after their split, Laguna Beach exes Kristin Cavallari and Stephen Colletti teamed up for their “Back to the Beach” podcast, which details their time on the MTV reality show.
The series, which aired from September 2004 to November 2006, followed the lives of several high school students at California’s Laguna Beach High School, including Cavallari and Colletti as well as Lauren Conrad, Jason Wahler and Lo Bosworth. For their podcast, Cavallari and Colletti rewatch old episodes of the show and reveal what was really happening behind the scenes — and what didn’t make it to air.
For starters, the duo clarified that they weren’t actually close friends with everyone who was on the show. “We knew who everybody was,” the Very Cavallari alum explained during the “Back to the Beach” welcome episode on July 19. “But we’re not hanging out.”
Colletti echoed that sentiment, explaining that many of the scenarios the teens found themselves in would not have happened without the intervention — and budget — of MTV. “For example, in the first episode, this hotel party,” the former One Tree Hill actor explained. “We did not have hotel suite parties where somebody was just, like, throwing out a credit card, booking a suite.”
The Hit the Floor alum also noted that his romance with Cavallari didn’t play out in real life the way that it did on the show. The pair, who dated off and on in high school, seemingly split because of Colletti’s involvement with Conrad, but Colletti said he was “uncomfortable” with the way the series portrayed the alleged love triangle.
“We dated for real my sophomore year, your junior year,” Cavallari explained on the podcast. “And we were together for, I think, a little over a year. And I would say that was actually probably the best that we ever were. … Before MTV showed up.”
When the Balancing in Heels author started her junior year, she broke up with Colletti and moved on with Talan Torriero. “All of this happened before MTV came,” the former E! personality recalled. “And then when MTV did show up, they caught wind of what happened. … You and I were actually really trying to work on the relationship.”
The duo’s romance never got back on track, but they’ve remained friends since the show wrapped more than a decade ago. “We’ve always been in each other’s corners, always been rooting for each other,” Cavallari explained. “We’ve always really cared about each other, which I think is important.”
Keep scrolling for the biggest revelations from Cavallari and Colletti’s “Back to the Beach” podcast.