Rachel Lee is finally taking the chance to address her involvement in the infamous Bling Ring robberies.
HBO dropped a first look on Thursday, September 21, at their upcoming documentary The Ringleader. Lee is the main subject of the project as she offers her side of the story 15 years after the crimes originally made headlines.
“Most people, if they saw me on the street they’d be like, ‘Oh she’s just a normal person,'” she says in the trailer. “But there’s always anxiety. What if they realize who I am and what I did with the Bling Ring?”
According to Lee, her personal life was the reason why she ultimately robbed several homes of high-profile stars. “I didn’t like my world,” she adds. “Going into a celebrity home and trying on their stuff, I was able to live in their world.”
The Bling Ring — consisting of Lee, Nick Prugo, Alexis Neiers, Courtney Ames and Diana Tamayo — became infamous for stealing roughly $3 million in cash and belongings from Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, Audrina Patridge, Rachel Bilson and many more celebrities’ homes from 2008 to 2009.
Following their 2010 arrests, the group was the inspiration behind Sofia Coppola‘s film of the same name and a book by New York Times bestselling author Nancy Jo Sales. Lee served 16 months in prison for her role in the Hollywood heists before stepping back from the spotlight. She has since graduated from cosmetology school for hairstyling and previously hinted at plans to work on a TV screenplay.
Lee later made a rare comment about the crimes, telling Us Weekly exclusively in 2018, “As a teen, I was chasing love in all the wrong places and by the time I realized, it was too late and I was in prison. I truly feel prison was a blessing in disguise — the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me realize you can only trust yourself at the end of the day.”
Lee’s attempt to offer her version of events comes after Prugo and Neiers recently participated in Netflix’s The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist. The pair, who did not film together, recalled how they got involved in the robberies during the September 2022 special.
Alexis, for her part, also publicly made amends by discussing the situation with sister Gabrielle Neiers on Bilson’s podcast one month later.
“We were so excited to own it all,” Alexis explained while crying on the “Broad Ideas” podcast. “This isn’t tears for me — this is because I know how hard this is for [Gabby]. I had to go through it with a different victim. Our intention with doing the documentary was for you and the other victims. It is so frustrating and so unfortunate that that is not what ended up coming out of the documentary.”
Alexis claimed that the Netflix doc didn’t properly portray her version.
“Unfortunately, the truth about what transpired at Rachel’s house that night and Gabby’s whole involvement got cut out,” Alexis said about her and Gabrielle’s participation in Bilson’s home being robbed. “The reason why we did the Instagram Live [after the fact] — we weren’t allowed to do it before the documentary came out — was to say that we aren’t going to be silent about this. The closure deserves to finally transpire 11 years later.”
The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring debuts on HBO Sunday, October 1, and will be available to stream on Max.
