Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari's Ups and Downs Through the Years

Laguna Beach: The Real O.C. alums Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari had one of the most famous feuds of the early 2000s - but it may have all been made for TV.

"We had an issue with each other, but it had been squashed [by the time filming started]," Conrad revealed while speaking with Cavallari and her cohost and former Laguna Beach costar, Stephen Colletti on Dear Media's "Back to the Beach" podcast in November 2022. "I think what happened is [producers] kind of saw this as, like, a starting point. And then they ran with it."

Conrad confessed, "I mean, I don't think we were, like, best friends. But we were like, ‘It's fine.'"

After Conrad, Cavallari and Colletti were caught in a love triangle on the MTV reality show, fans became Team LC or Team Kristin. However, more than 20 years after the show premiered, both women are happy with their off camera friendship.

Scroll down to relive Conrad and Cavallari's ups and downs:

2004

Laguna Beach premiered on MTV in September 2004. Much of the first season followed the love triangle between Lauren Conrad and Stephen Colletti and his girlfriend, Kristin Cavallari, who was a year younger than them.

October 2004

One month after the premiere, the show's infamous spring break episode aired, which centered on a post-split fight between Stephen Colletti and Kristin Cavallari, who decided to hook up with someone else. The tension escalated to the point where both Colletti and Lauren Conrad called her a "slut" - which the fashion designer now greatly regrets.

"I'm so sorry," Conrad told her former costar on her podcast in November 2022. "I couldn't believe I did that. Because I think where I'm at now, like, I would never call another woman that. ... It was, for me, like, the most embarrassing moment. I was like, 'Oh, gross.'"

May 2006

The Laguna Beach spinoff The Hills premiered on MTV two years after the original show blew up. The new series centered on Lauren Conrad, who moved to Los Angeles to study at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising.

2009

Lauren Conrad left The Hills in the middle of the show's fifth season and was replaced by Kristin Cavallari. Her final appearance on the series took place at costars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag's wedding, where Cavallari caught the bouquet.

July 2010

"I saw her at the [Hills] wrap party on Saturday and we caught up," Kristin Cavallari told Us Weekly about her former costar Lauren Conrad. "We are not going to lunch together and I don't have her phone number, but we are cool."

September 2012

Two years later, Lauren Conrad told Us that although they had set their differences aside, they weren't close. "I don't talk to Kristin anymore," she said in September 2012.

December 2012

During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Kristin Cavallari confessed that a lot of the storylines on The Hills were scripted, but that she and Lauren Conrad did have genuine animosity toward one another.

"I feel like [producers] put things in our heads," Cavallari said at the time. "I mean, we were 17 and 18. They made it a lot worse than it was."

August 2018

Us confirmed that neither Lauren Conrad nor Kristin Cavallari would return to reality TV for the Hills spinoff, The Hills: New Beginnings, which premiered the following year.

October 2020

Balancing in Heels author Kristin Cavallari explained during a Laguna Beach reunion that a lot of her feud with Lauren Conrad was fabricated through editing. "There was one time that they had me walking down the street and they had a producer on the other side of the street and they were like, ‘Just look at her,'" she recalled. "And she's, like, giving me these dirty faces so I'm like, ‘Oh, my God, look at her!' And of course, they made it seem like I was looking at Lauren being like, ‘Oh, my God!'"

Cavallari continued: "We had no idea what was going on. Now, ... we get it. We know how reality TV works, so it would be totally different now. But I think, to your point, that's what made it what it was."

That same month, the mother of three told Entertainment Tonight that the pair had completely moved on from their feud. "So much time has passed and what we went through was so silly and it was so high school that I'm pretty sure we're both over it at this point," she revealed.

November 2022

Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari officially buried the hatchet during an episode of the "Back to the Beach" podcast. "I just want everyone to know, we've had a handful of really great times together," Cavallari said.

"My take on it is, you and I never really had any beef," she explained, hinting that production hyped up their tension. "Really. I mean, obviously there was, like, 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."

June 2025

Kristin Cavallari reignited fan debate over the real-life relationships behind The Hills and Laguna Beach during the premiere of her reality show Honestly Cavallari: The Headline Tour.

As part of a game, Kim Zolciak-Biermann asked Cavallari whether she'd rather "spend a night in prison" with Lauren Conrad or their Laguna Beach and The Hills castmate Lo Bosworth.

The always candid Cavallari replied, "I hate Lo more, if you can believe it or not."

She later clarified to Us that she had "zero beef" with Bosworth despite her potentially shady answer. (Back in the day, Cavallari accused Bosworth of asking The Hills producers for a Birkin bag in exchange for spreading misinformation on the show. Bosworth has always denied those accusations.)

"That [feud] doesn't even cross my mind," Cavallari added. "You know what I mean? But I'll play the game and answer the question for fun."

July 2025

Lauren Conrad, Kristin Cavallari and former costar Audrina Patridge looked back on all of their Hills drama for the 15th anniversary of the MTV show's finale. The July 2010 episode directly played into longstanding rumours of The Hills producers staging scenes by having a climactic moment between Cavallari and Brody Jenner pull back to reveal they were filming on a set at the Paramount lot.

"It was clearly a nod to the question of ‘is it real?' that had always followed the show," Conrad told Us. "They waited until the final moment of the show to literally break the fourth wall."

Cavallari maintained that The Hills was "70 percent fake" during her time as a series regular, while Conrad suggested her experience on the show was mostly authentic.

"[The Hills] captured a lot of very real moments for me," Conrad confirmed to Us. "Things need to be reshot, restaged and edited. Cameras weren't with us 24/7, so if they missed something important, we understood we would be reliving it in the near future."

March 2026

Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari exclusively told Us in March what it was like filming Roku's The Reunion: Laguna Beach with their original cast more than 20 years after it premiered. The women noted that the reunion further solidified their adult friendship after being rivals for years.

"She really is the full package. She's a mom, she's a wife, she's a business woman, she's a girl's girl," Cavallari said of Conrad while promoting the April 2026 special. "I think it's been nice to be able to get to know her in this phase of life, after not seeing her for so many years."

Conrad echoed those sentiments while attending a reunion special event in Los Angeles at Shutters On the Beach.

"It's been so nice to see her," Conrad told Us. "You know, she lives in Tennessee, so we don't ever run into each other. We don't have excuses to see each other. But this has been such a nice experience."

The women also teased their upcoming "Honestly Cavallari" podcast episode, which Cavallari said gives fans even more insight into their current relationship.

"I think what we've realized is we actually have a lot more in common than we both probably thought. And I'm sure, the world has thought as well," Cavallari said.

Conrad noted that she had "so much fun" doing Cavallari's podcast. "It's been really great to reconnect with her," she added.

Copyright Us Weekly. All rights reserved.

This story was originally published March 27, 2026 at 12:08 PM.