Now that MTV has announced plans to reboot a reboot, many original cast members from The Hills are sharing their experiences about being part of the franchise. After hearing some of the OG’s opinions and lowered expectations for the franchise, it seems that Lauren Conrad made the best decision of all to walk away from reality TV for good.
It all started with The Hills from the early 2000s. Then came two seasons of The Hills New Beginnings, which mixed original cast with a few new faces. In January, MTV announced that the show would not be picked up for a third season.
But the network is not done with the lucrative legacy. In May, 2022, MTV announced a new spinoff with a new cast of twenty-somethings called The Hills: Next Gen. Kristin Cavallari, who joined the The Hills when Lauren left, has spoken out against production’s decision not to include legacy star Audrina Patridge. For her part, Audrina is admittedly “shocked” but understands the need for younger cast members that can be out partying every night.
Brody Jenner echoed this sentiment when he spoke with People recently. The 38-year-old DJ was asked to react to the cancellation of The Hills: New Beginnings. Brody told the publication that he was “excited” to hear the news.
“I was so stoked,” Brody revealed. “To be honest, yeah. It just wasn’t the same experience. It was very stressful. There was a lot of manipulation involved. It was just a lot.”
Brody explained that all filming expectations fell on the original cast. He continued, “I was at a completely different point in my life and what I was sold on, on the show in general, was not what they were producing. They had told us in the beginning that, ‘Hey, we’re going to do a new Hills, and we want you guys to be on, but we’re going to hire a new, younger cast.’ They said that they were going to hire the new, younger cast like they’re doing now when they originally grabbed us. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s great.’ They’re going to hire a new, younger cast, ‘You guys will come in as the OGs. It’s not going to be focused and centered around you guys.'”
Surprisingly, Brody embraced a more domesticated lifestyle in recent and alluded to that change as the reason he resented filming or the show.
“I’m like, ‘Dude, I’m f—ing 37 years old,” Brody exclaimed, “I don’t go out to nightclubs every night and go hunting for chicks in nightclubs. That’s just not me anymore. So that was kind of a bummer, because we needed a younger cast to be on there. I didn’t mind coming in and out and filming and living our authentic lives of where we were at, at that moment, but everything else felt very forced and pushed.”
But Brody is happy to capitalize on his prior fame, so long as it’s on his terms. He is teaming up with Audrina and Frankie Delgado to rewatch The Hills, and offer reaction on the Was It Real? The Hills Rewatch podcast.
Brody recalled the experience of creating the project with Kast Media. “That was a fun time,” he said. “When you’re in the moment when you’re filming, I feel like sometimes you are just living your life and you don’t really get to step back and take it in, and realize how special it is, what you guys are doing, because you’re living it. But as you get older, you can look back and you realize what an incredible time that was in our lives and be able to have that all on film. To have these memories of that time in our life is awesome.”
The Hills: New Beginnings episodes will not be included in the podcast. There was no interest between Brody, Audrina, and Frankie to relive those days. “We don’t need to talk about the new seasons,” Brody opined. “That s— was so whack.”
