Kristin Cavallari and Lauren Conrad say MTV made their feud 'way worse than it ever would have been'

Any lingering tension or negativity between Laguna Beach costars Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari is officially dunzo.

When the MTV reality series first aired way back in 2004, its storyline hinged upon the love triangle between Conrad, Cavallari, and Stephen Coletti. Now, in a discussion on the Back to the Beach podcast, the women revealed that a lot of what went down between them — the fights, harsh words, and rivalry — was largely made up.

"My take on it is, you and I never really had any beef," Cavallari said. "Obviously there was a little truth to what happened with the three of us, but I felt like MTV coming kept it alive and made it way worse than it ever would have been."

There is some truth to the pair initially being at odds. Conrad shared that, about a week before the series began filming, she and Cavallari got into a spat at a school dance but that it had resolved itself afterward.

"I think it was done when they started filming," she explained. "This is what I remember: I remember everything happened and then was it… Formal? It was like, the week before they started filming, we got into it and then made up."

Conrad continued, "And it was fine. And they came… I don't think we were best friends, but we were fine."

That didn't, however, stop MTV from pitting the two against each other onscreen. "I think they saw this as a starting point and then they ran with it," Conrad said. "Which I get — it made for an interesting show."

Conrad also took a moment to apologize to Cavallari for calling her a "slut" for drunkenly dancing on a bar during the group's spring break episode. "I couldn't believe I did that," she said. "Because I think where I'm at now — I would never call another woman that, or girl. And it was, for me, the most embarrassing moment, like, 'Oh gross.'"

"Well, thank you," Cavallari replied. "I called you a slut in a later episode and I was going to apologize to you." She added, "My thing is, when I watch it now, I'm like, I wasn't confident at all. I was actually so insecure, and I took it out on you in a lot of ways. And I am sorry for that, because I said some horrible things."

John Shearer/Getty Images Kristin Cavallari and Lauren Conrad

At the time, Conrad said she never thought rude comments they spouted about one another would ever actually "find its way to air" on the show. "Like, when they were doing this, I was like, 'I just made two grand.' We just got away with something," she joked. "I was like, 'We have tricked these people.' Like, who is gonna watch this? There's no way it's making it."

Now, in hindsight, Conrad isn't exactly thrilled that she was painted to look like the heartbroken, unrequited love interest. Especially since, in actuality, her romantic life was doing just fine, thank you very much.

"I think they took a small piece of me and used it. Like, in what I watched, I'm often kind of off in a corner just, like, creepily watching you guys, which is kind of embarrassing," Conrad said. "And the thing that's funny is, season 1 was basically our senior year: I had several boyfriends during this time. Which I'm like, 'I feel so bad for them if they ever watched this!' They were like, 'Oh man, she's just going after this guy!'"

"They really hammered the love triangle home," Cavallari said. To which Conrad added, "They really did. They didn't want me to have anything else!"

Coletti also noted that, because Conrad narrated the first season, it "completely tilted" the audience's view of his relationship with Cavallari. "[Kristin and I] were wild and it's this hurricane. And sweet Lauren, you guys need to root for her," he reflected. "But they also, they're very smart, they know that, alright, the majority of the audience should root for this girl, she's the narrator, but there's gonna be plenty of people that are gonna root for Kristen."

He continued, "They're characters on the show. The parts of personality, I feel like, that they highlight are…" Cavallari finished, "Very different."

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