'Laguna Beach' Is Ruined Forever

Take yourself back in time with me, if you will, to the early 2000s. Smell the Curious by Britney Spears perfume on your wrists. Zip up your ripped Abercrombie & Fitch jeans. Charge your pink Razr phone. And then settle in on the couch for an episode of Laguna Beach, complete with moody indie sound track and all the teen angst Orange County can provide. There, don't you feel 14 again? We're not the only ones who are time-traveling this week — just days after Laguna Beach High School's 10 year reunion, Kristin Cavallari is remembering what it used to be like to be on MTV's hottest reality show. And according to Kristin herself? The entire Lauren Conrad/Stephen Colletti storyline was made up for the good of the show. Are you shocked? If you need a minute, I'll understand.

When Kristin makes her appearance on OWN's Oprah: Where Are They Now? special this Sunday, she's coming armed with inside info on Laguna Beach, and no one is safe. Least of all Lauren and Stephen, who more often than not painted Kristin as the bad guy who had stolen Stephen right out from under Lauren's fingertips. But Kristin says that couldn't be further from the truth.

"We had no idea what we were doing. We were just going along with whatever MTV was telling us to do. My boyfriend at the time would take Lauren Conrad to dinner and buy her flowers, which never would have happened if it weren't for the show and MTV. I felt very used and manipulated."

Of course, all's well that ends well — Stephen hopped in a photo booth with Lauren and her husband, William Tell, at the Laguna Beach reunion last weekend, and Kristin is now married to NFL player Jay Cutler, with whom she has two sons. But if Kristin is telling the truth about what went on behind the scenes at Laguna Beach, then a lot of my favorite scenes from the show are now ruined forever.

Like the confrontation that started the whole love triangle off

In the Laguna Beach pilot episode, the Lauren versus Kristin face-off begins after a confrontation at the oh-so-dramatic Black and White party — where, unsurprisingly, all guests are supposed to wear black and white. Kristin and Lauren both have feelings for Stephen, and, since they run in the same circle of friends, they're all at the party together and a brief smackdown ensues. If this was fabricated for MTV, it basically means Laguna Beach in its entirety is a lie. Does that make it any less fabulous? No, but I just want reality TV to be true so bad!

And the time Stephen picked Lauren up at the airport

Because honestly, any boyfriend knows better than to pick up a girl he may or may not have feelings for from the airport, because that's such a relationship thing to do. So if Kristin and Stephen were in a good place at the time, and he still went to grab Lauren when she clearly has friends and family who could've also easily picked her up? That's super lame, and I think Stephen's smarter than that. Even though it was a pretty cute scene.

And all that drama in Cabo

Oh, Cabo, the land of underaged drinking and super dramatic fights with your boyfriend. Kristin and Stephen were on the outs, so Lauren took her opportunity — and yeah, I could totally see this happening in real life. But it was a pivotal moment in the Lauren/Stephen dynamic, so if it was faked for the cameras, their "relationship" barely counted as a relationship after all.

And that time Lauren and Stephen went hot-tubbing together

You know, after they went to dinner and listened to "Don't Stop Believing" in the car on the way home — aka my idea of the perfect date as a teenager. And MTV totally insinuated that a lot more happened in that hot tub than what probably actually went down in reality.

Sigh. I've always, always been team Lauren, and I don't think that will change. But will hating Kristin have to come to a stop, more than 10 years later? Probs not. What can I say? I'm a creature of habit.

Images: Giphy (3)