Former reality TV star Lauren Conrad has opened up about her decision to walk away from the bright lights of fame — and the dizzying world of Los Angeles’ entertainment scene — in order to live a quiet family life with her husband and children in her hometown of Laguna Beach.
Conrad, 40, shot to fame while starring in the hit MTV series Laguna Beach, which documented the lives of a group of teenagers growing up in the Orange County enclave and also starred the likes of Kristin Cavallari and Stephen Colletti.
The mother of two was chosen as the leading lady of the first season of the reality show, which was inspired by the sensational popularity of the drama series The O.C., and she later allowed the MTV cameras to follow her move to Los Angeles, where she attempted to launch a career in fashion, Realtor reports.
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Former reality TV star Lauren Conrad has opened up about her decision to walk away from the bright lights of fame. Picture: Michael Tullberg/Getty Images
Conrad, now 40, was just 18 years old when she made her reality TV debut on the hit MTV series Laguna Beach. Picture: Netflix
But after spending seven years in the reality TV spotlight, Conrad walked away from The Hills, choosing to step down from the series and pursue her dreams away from the cameras — although she later returned to the show for a guest appearance in its 2010 finale.
More than 15 years later, she’s now returning to that heady world, joining several of her original Laguna Beach castmates for a reunion special, which will be broadcast on Roku on April 10 and will see Conrad, Colletti, and Cavallari all appearing alongside several other co-stars.
Despite spending nearly a decade of her life on camera, Conrad admits to People that stepping back into that arena was much harder than she had anticipated, admitting that she had expected the process to feel “like riding a bike.”
“I thought it was going to be easier, like riding a bike,” she shared. “But I actually had a pretty hard time getting back into it.”
That’s largely because Conrad no longer courts the spotlight like she once did — having quit Los Angeles in order to return to her hometown, where she now lives just a few minutes’ drive from the property that her parents lived in during Laguna Beach.
The former reality star and her husband, musician William Tell, bought the picturesque beachfront abode for $12.3 million ($US8.5 million) in February 2014, according to records, around seven months before they tied the knot in an intimate ceremony held at the Sunstone Winery in Santa Ynez, California.
The fashion designer married musician William Tell in 2014, and the couple now live with their two sons in Conrad’s hometown. Picture: Instagram/Lauren Conrad
The couple purchased a stunning beachfront home for $US8.5 million just a few months before they got married, and they are now raising their two sons in the dwelling. Picture: Instagram/Lauren Conrad
While Conrad did achieve her dreams of launching a fashion empire — which now includes two Kohl’s lines, LC Lauren Conrad and Little Co. by Lauren Conrad — she sought to do so from behind the scenes, preferring to keep her personal life private and operating her business as a brand founder, rather than a celebrity face.
While she was arguably once one of the most famous faces in Laguna Beach, the designer says that has completely changed since she returned to the beachfront town, where she now lives a largely “normal” life with her husband and their two sons: Liam, 8, and Charlie, 6.
“I really appreciate private moments,” she explained to People.
“Nobody cares who I am here [in Laguna Beach]. It’s such a privilege to be able to live my life for myself after putting many years on camera.”
Conrad is full of praise for her husband, describing him not only as a “smoke show,” but as an attentive and caring father to their sons, noting that he is “so engaged” with both of their kids.
“He’s the parent who does funny voices when he reads the story, he coaches every team they’re on. It’s been really fun to parent together,” she adds.
While her path to fashion success has perhaps been somewhat unconventional — with Conrad admitting that she always viewed reality TV as a stepping stone to the industry that she had always dreamed of working in — today, the brand founder says her life is much like that of any other working mother.
She notes that her days begin by getting her sons ready for school, driving them there each morning, then oftentimes juggling their many extra-curricular activities, including soccer, baseball, and surfing, sports that have extra significance for Conrad because they are being played on the same fields and in the same oceans that she enjoyed as a child.
Conrad has reunited with several of her Laguna Beach castmates for a reunion special of the hit series. Picture: Instagram/Lauren Conrad
In 2022, Conrad explained that her decision to relocate back to Laguna Beach from California — where she had been living in a stunning Brentwood home she purchased for $5.3 million ($US3.7 million) in 2013 — was largely based around her desire to create a sense of “normalcy” for herself and her family.
“Big picture, when I think of what I’m proud of, it’s of my family and being able to find normalcy for us,” she told Scary Mommy.
“We’re pretty settled down; we don’t live in LA, and [my kids] aren’t really experiencing any of the stuff that I had for the last 15 years. So, I feel like they live a pretty normal life. ‘Normal’ in that they’re so lucky.”
“I feel really lucky to have grown up where I did, and I’m excited for them to experience some of the things I did,” she added.
However, she admitted that returning to Laguna Beach had involved some interesting moments — namely chance encounters with people she hadn’t seen in close to a decade.
“It is a funny thing, right? Going back to your hometown,” she conceded. “You go to drop your kids off at school, and you run into someone you haven’t seen in, like, 10 years, and you’re like, ‘Oh, you’re in this school? So, you made a tiny person?’”
In addition to the normalcy that her children now get to enjoy, Conrad said that another major draw about Laguna Beach was her ability to live so close to the ocean, joking that the beach now serves as her sons’ “playground,” where they spend a majority of their time.
“I also think there is something about growing up on a beach, like, understanding the importance of taking care of it. That is your playground; that is where you spend your time. So I love that for them,” she added.
The show will be broadcast on Roku on April 10. Picture: Roku
For those fans hoping that The Reunion: Laguna Beach heralds Conrad’s return to reality TV, she has been quick to insist she has no plans to appear in front of the camera again, telling The Hollywood Reporter: “I think this is the last time I’m interacting with cameras. I missed all the people but I didn’t miss the cameras.”
Her time on the reunion special did give her the opportunity to prove that she has long abandoned her former high school grudges — namely her very public feud with Cavallari, which served as a central plot line in the first two series of the show.
In the reunion, the two women will be seen sitting down together for their first one-on-one on-camera chat in more than a decade, a moment that they insisted was anything but awkward.
“I’m thankful that we had the opportunity to even do that,” Cavallari told People at the premiere of the special. “And it’s been, obviously for us, we haven’t had any beefs for the last however many years.
“We’re adults. We’ve all moved past it, but I think it’s nice and to show everybody that we’ve moved past it is going to be really therapeutic in a lot of ways.”
Parts of this story first appeared in Realtor and was republished with permission.
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