It’s been more than a decade since The Hills took its final bow, but it looms large in the annals of reality TV history — especially because of its iconic finale.
After years of rumors that the show was scripted, Kristin Cavallari and Brody Jenner gave a playful nod to the speculation in the final minutes of the MTV series. After Cavallari, now 36, said goodbye to Jenner, 40, the camera pulled back to reveal that the Hollywood sign in the distance was just a backdrop — and the duo had been filming on a set.
“I actually don’t remember this scene,” Cavallari recalled during an exclusive interview for Us Weekly’s latest cover story. “This is really like I’m seeing it for the first time.”
Cavallari gamely agreed to reenact the final scene with Us, and eventually, her memory started to return. “God, that’s so funny,” she said. “Is this when we’re standing outside of the car? It all came flooding back.”
She also recreated her blowout season 5 fight with Stephanie Pratt and Audrina Patridge, which she assured Us was “not scripted” despite the series finale’s nod to the artifice involved in producing The Hills.
“I’ll give you the backstory on this one,” Cavallari said of the heated conversation, which showed Pratt, 37, arguing about Audrina Patridge’s off-and-on boyfriend Justin “Bobby” Brescia. “This was my first real scene filming for The Hills, and Audrina and I talked prior to this. We kept saying, ‘We know the producers want us to fight. We’re not falling for that. We’re not doing it.’”
Drama found the pair anyway when Pratt confronted Cavallari for speaking to Brescia, 41. “They started coming at me for talking to Justin, and I was like, ‘What?’ So, we just had this conversation,” Cavallari recalled. “I was like, ‘I thought we were buddies. What?’ And we had a bottle of tequila also, which didn’t help.”
While Cavallari is happy to revisit her reality TV days, she’s now gearing up for the release of her new podcast, “Let’s Be Honest With Kristin Cavallari,” which debuts on September 12.
“Since I first started on TV at 17, my image has been controlled to a degree,” she explained to Us. “So, this is the first thing I’ve done where I’m like, ‘This is the real me for the first time in my entire career. I’m in a really good place in my life, and I feel like I can finally open that door and let people in.’”
For more with Cavallari, watch the video above and pick up the new issue of Us Weekly, on stands now.
