‘Laguna Beach’ Reunion: Stephen Colletti Opens Up About Lauren Conrad Friendship (VIDEO)

Stephen Colletti is reuniting with all of his Season 1 Laguna Beach costars for the first time in more than 20 years for The Reunion: Laguna Beach, premiering Friday, April 10, on the Roku Channel. The special will dive into the cast’s memories from the beloved MTV series, including, of course, the actor’s love triangle with ex-girlfriend Kristin Cavallari and longtime friend Lauren Conrad.

The love triangle ended up being the main storyline in Season 1 of the show, but Colletti says he didn’t quite know that would be the case until the first episode aired.

“In the first episode, you’re like, wow, they really leaned into this and took their liberties of what they wanted the story to be,” he tells TV Insider. “I obviously knew they were interested in Lauren and I’s friendship and the relationship, and Kristin and I’s relationship as well. There were some questions, and they were asking a few more about that [situation], but I really did not think they were going to hone in on it as much as they did until we actually saw the episode. Out the gate, they’re selling it as Lauren and I having an affair while Kristin and I are dating. Like, whoa, hold on a second!”

Part of the storyline was driven by the fact that Colletti and Conrad, both seniors in high school at the time, were headed to colleges in San Francisco, while Cavallari was staying behind in Laguna Beach for her senior year. Season 1 ended with Colletti picking a smiling Conrad up from the airport after an emotional breakup and goodbye with Cavallari in Laguna.

Once the cameras went down, Colletti and Conrad only saw each other “a couple times” in San Francisco, and she dropped out of school after one semester. “We would catch up a little bit,” Colletti recalls. “The scene in the show where I’m kind of mad at her, I’m like, ‘You’re going? You’re not going to be back for second semester? That’s weak.’ I watch that back like, dude, what’s wrong with you? Why are you judging her so much for wanting to go back home? Such a funny young interaction between the two of us there. We hung out a couple times. We both did our little worlds. She was at her school and I was across town on campus at my school. So we hung out a couple times, but not all the time. We definitely wanted to do our own thing.”

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Scroll down for more from our interview with Colletti, including how being on The Traitors gave him some PTSD from his Laguna Beach days. Plus, watch the full Q&A in the video above for more Laguna Beach scoop, Colletti’s reaction to Rob Rausch winning Traitors, and much more.

What did you tell your parents when you got home from signing up for Laguna Beach at school?

Stephen Colletti: I told them MTV was showing up on campus, and this rumor that we’d heard about for basically a year came true. There they were, just on campus, with a table and some packets. My parents were like, “OK, that’s interesting, what’s it going to be about?” They had a lot of questions. I think especially as we started to get cast and get involved, they wanted to know more. They were supportive. I think they knew I had some ambition there to want to get into entertainment, so they were on board. But it was very much a documentary that was being pitched to us. We didn’t know it was going to be this more soapy drama with stuff that’s going on in our personal lives. It was really this documentary drama that was teased to all of us.

Is there anything you still feel like you need to clear up based on how things were portrayed?

There’s only so much I can say as far as what MTV took in their liberties because I have plenty I need to take responsibility for. You can look at going out to Cabo, and the way I completely ignored the fact that there were cameras there and let the emotions get the best of me, and all that went down down there. So those moments, I have no one to blame but myself.

I think [viewers] have wised up just like us. They’ve grown up with the show and grown up with us. Everybody is looking back at that time and being like, “Oh, it’s interesting, I remember wondering what exactly was going on.” But now the resources for us to share our story are out there, so I feel good about where it’s at for people to understand.

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Aside from Cabo, was there anything you found tough to watch when you look back at the show?

Kristin and I in Season 2, when they have us come together and do a scene, you actually get that awkward energy because we were still teenagers and still had these emotions at the time we weren’t processing appropriately. So I think having a better understanding of the fact that I was being on camera and that this was a story that was going to be about my personal life, and people were going to believe that, I would have made a lot more cautious moves. Even going into Season 2, we still didn’t grasp what was happening. We wised up a little bit, and there was a bit of a guard up, but I think we still could have been a little better at that.

Was anyone from the cast hesitant to come back [for the reunion]?

That apprehension was there from the jump. The guards were up. But really quickly, it was just having a nice conversation. People were like, you know, I think I’d like to be involved, it’d be fun to get together. We had a Zoom with everybody during COVID, before the podcast, and we kind of said at the end of that, ah, this was a nice experience, if we could just get everyone together at some point, that would be nice. So it actually didn’t take too much convincing. Just a good dialogue about what we wanted to do and what we wanted the tone to be.

Why were you ready to return to reality TV for The Traitors, and how did that come about?

The opportunity to be on Traitors was something that was too good to pass up. I actually had to pass it up for Season 3, and I was like, oh no, I’m going to regret that. Because the more and more I watched the show, the more I was a fan of it.

It came back around for Season 4. I couldn’t have been more excited but also scared because I knew right away, like, you have to do this. You are available for it, and you haven’t done any reality in 20 years, but you’re going to do this. So it was a process for me to kind of wrap my brain around that and talk to people and be like, OK, what does this look like? There’s some things I can’t control here, and that gives me some PTSD. There’s an element of who’s going to be on the show, what are they going to have you do, and how are they going to edit you? You can only control so much of who you are.

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But again, after watching the show and understanding that this little murder mystery and campy vibe that’s fun and silly and weird, that’s the lead of the show. From there, the reality stuff that happens in the castle and the relationships between the people is secondary. I was very intrigued by that and had great conversations with the producers, and just felt like they kept leveling up with each season. I knew if I passed it up I was going to be regretting it. I’m so glad I did it.

The Reunion: Laguna Beach, Friday, April 10, Roku Channel