MTV’s The Hills was once an essential viewing, and fans tuned in to see Heidi Montag and Lauren Conrad—whose friendship once defined the show—until a nasty rumor draws their relationship to a bitter end. Publicly, things remain awkward between them.
The feud kicked off at the premiere of The Hills Season 3, when Conrad officially ended her long-standing friendship with Montag, suspecting that she and Spencer Pratt were spreading cruel rumors about Conrad and her ex-boyfriend. That episode created one of the most infamous moments of the series, when Conrad tells Montag, “You know what you did!”
Prior to her finding out about the sex tape rumors, their relationship had already been rocky. Conrad moved out of their apartment and onto the next phase of her life. Not to mention she wasn’t the biggest fan of Pratt and Montag together.
From that confrontation on, though, a bitter feud ensued, and the rift still hasn’t been patched up almost 20 years later.
Nearly 20 Years Later, Lauren Conrad Still Isn’t Interested in Revisiting Her Heidi Montag Feud
Almost immediately after the rumors spread via Perez Hilton, Conrad took to her website to squash the rumors. “I am posting this note on my website regarding the reports that have circulated the internet this morning,” she wrote in 2007.
“Jason and I would like to make it clear that we did not make a tape with us having sex. Jason and I are both shocked and hurt that people would say such horrible things about us. I can’t believe that somebody would go to such great lengths to try to damage my reputation.”
Conrad is then interviewed by US Weekly, where she continues to deny the ordeal and says one of her good friends didn’t even reach out when the news broke. Well, that friend wound up being Montag, who responded in her own interview, explaining she was in recovery from her nose and boob jobs. Many years later, we found out who the real culprit behind the story was.
Who started the rumor?
In 2009, on a Paleyfest panel, Conrad dishes that Pratt admits, on tape, to starting the rumor. Despite this, their feud continues burning until Conrad departs the show in Season 5. Their feud culminated with Conrad’s famous words: “All there is left to do is forgive and forget you. So I wanna forgive you, and I wanna forget you.”
Once the show officially ended, the drama was finally dying down—in part because Conrad avoided talking about it at all costs—but also because Pratt admitted to the whole thing.
“Lauren is a cold-hearted killer,” Pratt told Complex at the time. “That’s what people don’t get. She will cut you in your sleep. She tried to destroy us. If you want to throw missiles, I’m throwing a nuke. This is how I operate.”
Mending fences?
Over the years, Conrad and Montag have tried to mend fences by talking it out, including in the mid-2010s, which Montag admitted was “awkward.” In 2017, Montag congratulated her former co-stars Conrad and Whitney Port on their pregnancies. Ahead of The Hills reboot in 2019, Montag believed she and Conrad would’ve been friends again. Then, in 2021, she called out LC for treating her like a “dog.”
“When that whole Spencer thing happened, she’s like, ‘If you date Spencer, you’re off the show,” Montag told Call Her Daddy. “How dare you? And I’m not your dog. Yeah, I appreciate you getting me on this show, but that doesn’t mean you own me and you can tell me what to do in my life. I just don’t appreciate that.”
Despite their differences, Montag says she still loves her former friend. “I do have such a love for Lauren, and it didn’t have to go that way,” she continued. “She chose and wanted it to go that way, and then kept following up with that, and then kept blaming things on me.”
After years of staying mum about their feud, LC was thrown off in April during an interview on Today with Jenna and Sheinelle while promoting the Laguna Beach reunion. The hosts ask if Conrad has mended things with then-LA County mayoral candidate Pratt. She gives a passive “sure,” but when they press her, she answers more directly. “You’re asking me about people I haven’t spoken to in decades.”
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