The Hills: Lauren Conrad Left Show To ‘Emotionally Recover’ From The Drama

Lauren Conrad from The Hills spoke out on her reality TV exit, saying she needed time to “emotionally recover” from the show’s toxic elements. The Orange County native first came to audiences through MTV’s Laguna Beach, where fans followed Lauren through her high school days, boy troubles and all. She became a fan favorite from the beginning and eventually landed the lead on the spin-off show The Hills, where she shared her life after high school, working her way up in the fashion industry while balancing Hollywood relationships and endless friend drama.

The reality star-turned-fashion mogul starred in five seasons, leaving the show in 2009, but not before the world knew her whole life story. Or rather, the MTV edit of her life story, including a tumultuous friendship with fellow The Hills co-star Heidi Montag. Though Lauren went through work woes and boyfriend drama, like her infamous pass on a trip to Paris to instead be with boyfriend-at-the-time Jason Wahler, nothing was more tumultuous than her falling out with Heidi in season three. The friend breakup was fueled by rumors supposedly started by Heidi’s now-husband, Spencer Pratt, and spun out into a feud that followed Lauren through her remaining time on the show and beyond. The years of her personal life playing out on TV took a toll on the Little Market creator, who is now looking back on her time in the spotlight 15 years later.

On fellow The Hills co-star and former “work wife” Whitney Port’s podcast With Whit, the 34-year-old reunited with her fellow Teen Vogue intern to discuss the reason she finally said goodbye to reality TV. After the pair cleared the air over their long hiatus of being in each other’s lives, Lauren spoke about her absence from the spotlight, “…I stopped filming and then I just kinda needed a clean break for a minute to kind of emotionally recover and I took some time off and then obviously moved out of LA.”

Port then brought up how her break from the show caused a rift in their friendship because of Lauren’s need to distance herself from the cast. Lauren spoke of her need to live a different life, saying, “It was such an odd time for me and I did it for as long as I could and it was one of those things where I was like, okay, well, this isn’t like a healthy space for me anymore. I need to kind of like live my own life and do this…I kind of like removed myself from that whole scene.” She went on to explain that after living her life onscreen for a long period time and at a young age, there came a time where she had to remove herself from the unhealthy situation, saying, “...there is certain, like, toxic elements there and it gets really hard...I got to just like step away from this world and like kind of heal in a way and like figure out who I want to be.”  

Whitney and Lauren seem to be on good terms after Lauren’s farewell to The Hills. Although the beloved starlet has moved on from her days club-hopping around L.A. with Brody Jenner and the gang, she hasn’t let any time go to waste and has since become a wife, mother, best-selling author, and wildly successful fashion designer.

Source: With Whit