It was a different world back then! In honor of the 10th anniversary of The Hills’ MTV debut on May 31, 2006, Audrina Patridge sat down with Us Weekly exclusively in the new issue to explain just how blurred those lines between reality and fiction really were.
The soon-to-be mom, now 31, joined the show unbeknown to the other characters, and her story line changed and shifted depending upon the needs of the series, she tells Us.
“I was actually laying out at the pool where I lived at the Villas, and I actually was laying out with my two roommates at the time at the pool, and Adam DiVello was there scouting the location, and he walked up and … started talking to us,” Patridge said of how she first got involved with the reality show. “He told us [Patridge and Heidi Montag] that we were not allowed to go to the pool for two weeks because they wanted to set it up; they wanted us to meet on cameras.”
The story line where Patridge and Montag’s now-husband Spencer Pratt dated? Totally staged.
“Oh, God, no! I did not have history with him and this was one of the things that really upset me, and this was when I started distrusting the producers,” she said, recounting a time when they asked her to show up at a Pinkberry frozen-yogurt shop without explanation, only to have Pratt, now 32, arrive with roses to stir up drama.
“That was all fabricated for drama because they needed something to film,” Patridge said. “And I think that was one of the first dramatic — that’s what started all the drama.”
Her on-again, off-again romance with Justin Bobby similarly suffered from their split existence on the screen and off. When Kristin Cavallari later joined the cast and began to “date” Justin Bobby, things got complicated.
“Yeah, it was really weird for everyone and then it just wasn’t genuine,” the reality star recalled. “It was really weird, and then whenever the producers kept wanting me to fight with her over him, I was like, ‘I’m not doing that! I’m not even with him! I’m with someone else!’ It really was hard with my real life and then my TV life.”
“You can’t have a real relationship on that show,” she continued. “The Hills, any real relationship you’d bring on or try to have, it would get ruined.… I think if social media was a thing, The Hills would never be what it was. Even now, going to dinner, [fans] sit there and take pictures and film and, like, listen. The secrets! There would be no secrets at The Hills anymore if there was social media back then!”
For more behind-the-scenes Hills secrets — including sit-downs with Heidi Montag, Spencer Pratt, Lauren Conrad and all of your other faves — pick up the new issue of Us Weekly, on stands now!
