Kristin Cavallari Admits She Was ‘Really Unhappy’ on ‘Laguna Beach’

Kristin Cavallari is speaking out about her MTV days, and she’s admitting that it wasn’t as much fun as it seemed. In an interview with the parenting blog Momtastic, the mom of three revealed that she wasn’t a happy camper when she was filming the reality show Laguna Beach while in high school in Ocean County, Califirnia.

We played 20 questions with our fabulous February guest editor, @KristinCav! –> https://t.co/CC5Gb9m1v5 pic.twitter.com/tYTQmSryRq

— Momtastic (@itsmomtastic) February 2, 2016

Kristin admitted that she and fellow Laguna Beach castmates Lauren Conrad, Lo Bosworth, and Stephen Colletti were all manipulated and put in situations that they wouldn’t have normally been in. And it sounds like she didn’t like herself very much back then, either.

“It’s funny because on Laguna Beach I came off like the person who really had my s**t together but I was a mess–like most teenagers. I was really unhappy. There’s a saying that you have to learn to love yourself before anyone else can love you, and it’s very true.”

Cavallari also revealed that by the time she joined the cast of the LagunaBeach spinoff The Hills, she was a seasoned reality star and was ready to play a character. Kristin said she looked at the experience “strictly as a job,” and admitted that her life on-camera was totally different than her life away from the cameras.

“I knew the character they wanted me to play, and this time I was game. Since I looked at it as a job, it was fun to play up the villain character.”

This isn’t the first time Kristin Cavallari has talked about Laguna Beach and The Hills being fake. In an interview with talk show host Bethenny Frankel, Cavallari said she faked relationships and fights on both of the MTV shows. Kristin also revealed that sometimes the producers would ask the cast to film something that had already happened, or to fake something that never happened.

In an interview an Oprah: Where Are They Now?, Cavallari revealed that producers purposely pitted her against Conrad when they were teens at an Orange County High School. Kristin said it was a “tough” experience and that it was especially difficult to watch her real life then-boyfriend, Colletti, go out on dates with Conrad on-camera. Cavallari said she had to put on a tough girl exterior as a teen because she felt that the show’s producers were taking advantage of her. But behind the scenes, she would cry for hours after seeing how she was portrayed on the show.

A decade later, Kristin Cavallari is calling the shots. In addition to raising her three kids with husband Jay Cutler, the ex-MTV star has her own jewelry and shoe lines and she’s about to release her first book, a memoir/lifestyle book titled Balancing in Heels. It sounds like fans will see a new side of her with her new book.

“I think people think they know me from being on reality TV, but they really don’t. This is the first time I’ve ever been this raw and real.”

In recent months, Cavallari has had to overcome a couple of difficult personal issues. Days after the birth of her daughter, Saylor James, the reality star lost her brother, Michael, after he went missing in Utah. She was also recently involved in a car accident in Chicago and she dislocated her elbow, making it difficult to hold her newborn.

Despite the difficult times, the MTV alum is forging on. In fact, Kristin admits that 10 years after her living a double life on reality TV, she has finally found true happiness. Fans can learn more about Kristin Cavallari’s personal self-discovery journey when her first book launches in Spring 2016.

[Photo by Photo by Grant Lamos IV/Getty Images]