The Hills revival, The Hills: New Beginnings, premieres on Monday, June 24, but when it comes back a major cast member will be missing. Lauren Conrad isn’t on the new The Hills revival, and it’s for a good reason: She’s moved on. Like, really moved on.
Reality television might have made Lauren famous, but she’s long been done with sharing her life on TV. After starring on Laguna Beach and The Hills for five years (it feels like so much longer!), she left The Hills during its fifth season and couldn’t have been more excited to go.
“It's been a long time coming," Conrad told the Los Angeles Times in 2009. "I went through many phases when I thought I was done, but I'm at this point where I'm really ready." She explained that she had pared down the amount of her life she was willing to show on screen, including guys she was dating, and started thinking about the show as just a way to get to do other things she wanted to do, like design clothes. Basically, she was over it. “They'd put us in situations we didn't want to be in,” she said of the show. “There were times I'd take my mike off and just stop."
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And Lauren is still — to quote her former co-star Kristin Cavallari — dunzo. She’s busy with her lifestyle website, her shop The Little Market, her podcast Asking for a Friend, and her clothing and home line with Kohl’s. On top of all of that, she’s raising her son, Liam, and is pregnant with her second child. This isn’t to say the stars of New Beginnings don’t have their own things going on — many of them have kids, as well — but they’re clearly still open to making reality TV a part of their lives, too.
As further proof that she’s really, truly not involved and has no interest, Hills star Whitney Port who is returning for New Beginnings told The Hollywood Reporter in September, “I have tried to convince Lauren through people. I haven't gotten directly to her, but I recently spoke to one of her friends and I was like, 'Tell her to do it!' Who knows? Maybe she'll say yes in the future. I feel like the door's always open." Whitney, I am sorry, but I think the door is closed if you, of all people, can't even talk to her about it directly.
Meanwhile, some other co-stars had different opinions on the matter. Heidi Montag told Good Morning America that she’s glad Lauren isn’t coming back to The Hills. "I actually was kind of excited Lauren wasn't on it because I felt like it was more freeing and fair, like, for me,” she said. Audrina Patridge added, “Without Lauren, like, she was always the one — she's the leader, the one that would tell you what to do, what not to do. So now it's kinda like we all get ... you kinda get to make your own choices and be your own self.”
Lauren, unsurprisingly, hasn’t commented on revival, but a source told People, “She’s in a different place in her life. But she wants everyone to enjoy themselves. She wishes everyone the best.” Now, please, just let her be.