Lauren Conrad usually keeps her feelings about former best friend, Heidi, and her hubby, Spencer Pratt, to herself, but in the August issue of Harper’s Bazaar, “The Hills” star goes to town on America’s most hated couple.

When asked about Montag posing for the September issue of Playboy, L.C. pokes fun at Heidi’s breast enhancements, saying, “They’re not going to pay for themselves.”

She also weighs in on the couple’s attention-seeking gimmicks.

“I don’t call magazines and let them know about things so they can write stories,” she says of the camera-loving couple. “There was never an incentive to keep doing ‘The Hills’ so I could get into [Hollywood club] Les Deux. That was never the point. It was more to create a fan base so I can go create a business and do something I really love doing.”

And as for Speidi turning their honeymoon in Mexico into a photo-op by wearing surgical masks during the swine-flu scare, Lauren says, “I don’t know if it was so funny because people really were being affected by that disease,” she says. “But otherwise [Heidi and Spencer] are very entertaining. You have to laugh.”

For Lauren, whose life has been documented on reality TV for the past five years, fame is not as glamorous as it seems. She explains that leaving “The Hills” will simplify her life tremendously.

“The last three concerts I went to, I was removed by security because I was a fire hazard,” she gripes. “People crowd around you and you lose that whole personal-space concept.”

L.C. added that she has had very little control over her life.

“My roommate went to Europe for two months, but I couldn’t take a vacation without clearing it months and months ahead of time,” she says. “My friends all got to date guys who didn’t need to sign a release form.”

The cameras even affected clothing choices for the budding fashionista. She added that filming “affected the underwear I had to buy because I needed thicker underwear with a more sturdy band so it could hold up a microphone.”

For Bazaar, Conrad wore a brown wig, which hairstylist Ken Paves has decided to personally donate the wig to a girl named Emily who is undergoing Chemo treatments at a hospital in the Detroit area.

“I couldn’t wear whites or prints because they don’t look good on film,” she explains. “I had to consult a director of photography when I picked the paint for my walls because I had to have set lighting in my living room and kitchen. I had to have separate birthday parties for my filming and nonfilming friends.”

Perhaps Speidi will one day agree with Lauren that fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Hopefully that day is soon.

Sources: nydailynews.com & usmagazine.com

It was Lauren Conrad’s final stop on her two-week book tour, and the reality television star and author was filled with nervous energy, smiles and the type of restless you get after being away from home for a while.

That didn’t matter to her fans. She was sitting on the third floor of BookPeople on North Lamar Boulevard. On the floors below, more than 600 fans from toddlers to grandmothers were waiting for their 15 seconds to meet Conrad during a book signing for Conrad’s new book, “L.A. Candy” ($17.99, HarperCollins).

From the looks of the scene, Conrad, who’s wealthy, pretty and tanned, has become a celebrity for the moment. Her fans, who know her from her time on two MTV hit shows, spent hours waiting in line for her to sign their books. Unlike traditional bookstore visits, she didn’t do a reading. She simply offered a string of pleasantries to her fans and scribbled her name on books.

Conrad, 23, is best known for her roles on “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County” and its spin-off reality show, “The Hills.” (After five seasons, she walked away from the show.) And in that short time, she has become the type of celebutante who rivals the Jennifer Lopezes of Hollywood.

That means Conrad is not only a reality television star, she’s also an actress, spokeswoman, fashion designer and now an author. (While she was mum about her upcoming projects, I’m sure, as is the path celebrity moguls take, a Conrad fragrance probably is in the works. That wouldn’t surprise me.)

Her book, which has received mixed reviews, is a fictional account based on Conrad’s own life as a reality-show star. The book, the first of three she’ll write, deals with, well, you probably guessed it, a teen who moves to L.A. for an internship and eventually lands a deal for a reality show. (She has finished the first draft of the second book.)

“As for reviews,” she said, “I don’t read them.”

After signings in Houston and Dallas, the California native told me she was ready to get back to her hub in Los Angeles. For the record, the size 0 Conrad wore a neutral-colored Nikki dress by Lorick and clunky shoes, and her hair was in long blond tresses. The look was surprisingly Austin considering Conrad has spent little time here. She also chewed gum and kept a can of Red Bull with her.

“I get to go straight to the airport from here,” she says of her return to California.

Before the steady stream of fans, some bearing gifts and cameras, I chatted with Conrad as she signed several copies of her book in advance for BookPeople. (For the record, Conrad and I had our moment of bonding. Turns our she liked my ring, a piece a bought from the now-defunct Factory People.)

Why do a book?

“I became interested two years ago,” said Conrad, who dates “My Boys” actor Kyle Howard.

She had approached her publisher, HarperCollins, about penning a book on dating. When that didn’t grab attention, her publisher suggested writing a fictional book for teens. And hence, “L.A. Candy” was written.

What are the essentials for summer 2009?

“A very good fitting bikini,” she said. “Finding a bikini that flatters your body is key. (Also) bright colors and neons are big.”

In March, Conrad announced she was taking a break from her own line, the Lauren Conrad Collection. The line debut at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Los Angeles in 2008. That year, Forbes reported that Conrad makes as much as $1.5 million a year from her various projects.

For now, she’s working with retailer Kohl’s on a fashion line called LC Lauren Conrad, which will hit 300 stores in October and later expand nationwide. (News reports say the line might include intimates, footwear, handbags and jewelry.) The line will have prices ranging from $20 to $60 unlike her high-end line that was only carried at boutiques.

During her run of bookstore appearances, she said she has been doing trend research and taking notes on what women are wearing these days.

“It’s fun,” she said of her many jobs. “I get a little bit of work ADD.”

Right before, we finished our chat, I started to ask her, “And life after ‘The Hills’ …”

Then she quickly stated: “… is awesome.”

“My mom told me I’m a whole new person,” Conrad said.

But her fans didn’t seem to mind.

Source: statesman.com

Lauren Conrad is your quintessential girl next door — provided you grew up in the affluent neighborhood of Laguna Beach, Calif.

Beautiful, blond, tan and wealthy, Lauren was born to have the world at her feet. But it was her natural look and innocence that made her stand out to the MTV producers on the prowl for a star for their reality show, Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. Conrad was such a hit on the show that she was featured in the spinoff The Hills when she moved to L.A.

Now, after five successful seasons, she has moved on from reality TV. And her fans are following. Alice Soto, 65, drove from Corpus Christi with granddaughters, Amanda Guerrero, 21, and Allison Priddy, 16, to join the crowd of 100-plus people who showed up recently at Blue Willow bookshop in west Houston to meet Conrad as she was signing copies of her first book, L.A. Candy ($17.99, Harper Collins).

“About two years ago I wanted to start writing a book, but I didn’t know what I wanted to write about,” she said. “Originally I thought about doing kind of a fun dating book and then a fashion book.”

Her publisher came up with the idea of a fiction novel. So she wrote what she knew. L.A. Candy is inspired by Lauren’s experiences starring in a reality TV show, on- and off-camera. The book follows Jane Roberts, who moves to L.A. for an internship. One night at a club, Jane and her witty, loud-mouthed BF, Scarlett, are approached by a producer to be on a new show, L.A. Candy, a “reality version of Sex and the City.”

Conrad says she identifies with her main character, Jane, and originally planned to tell the story from Jane’s point of view. But as she started writing, she decided to show certain scenes through different characters’ eyes. “Scarlett was how I could use sarcasm. Jane was a little bit sweeter, so she could be more naïve and more affected. I had reasons for making the characters a little bit different to have different ways of looking at things.”

L.A. Candy is the first of a three-book series , which will continue to follow Jane and Scarlett , but with new characters introduced.

What’s next for the star? She is already at work on the second novel, and she has a new collection for Kohl’s due in stores in October, which she describes as “California chic made more accessible.” And she plans to produce a TV version of L.A. Candy some time in the future.

Will The Hills fans continue to watch the show now that Lauren is out and her arch frenemy from Laguna Beach, Kristin Cavallarie, is the star of the show?

Soto said her family will watch the new season, even though they don’t care for Kristin. “We are Team Lauren.”

Source: chron.com

Check out this great article by salon.com! It is a little bit long, but totally worth the read! Read on below…

Last night, Lauren Conrad made an appearance to sign her novel, “L.A. Candy,” at the Barnes and Noble in Tribeca, in Lower Manhattan. A cramped crowd of about 500 young girls, parents and twentysomething men and women turned up, many of whom had waited for hours for their chance to meet the star of the MTV show “The Hills.” Bookstore staff announced that there would be no photos with Lauren, “no personalization of autographs,” and that the store had enough security and police officers to remove anybody who lingered too long near the signing table. There was a brief shriek when it seemed like Conrad would emerge unexpectedly from the bathroom. When that proved to be false, the crowd began chanting her name, hoping to lure her out of the nearby storage area. Ten minutes later, she emerged wordlessly, and stood in front of a row of shouting photographers for a full minute, showing off a silk white top and short black shorts and blindingly glossy lips, before the press got shooed out of the store and she got down to the business of signing books.

One of the first reality TV stars of her kind, Conrad was a “regular” (if very wealthy) teen plucked from obscurity and paid to perform her everyday life for millions of viewers long before the “Real Housewives” started throwing tables at each other near the Jersey turnpike. So it’s not surprising that hundreds of teenagers waited in line for hours to see her in an out-of-the-way neighborhood during one of the rainiest days of the year. For five seasons, she’s been the star of one of TV’s most popular reality shows. “The Hills” has spawned numerous spinoffs, including “The City,” “Bromance” and the never-ending real-life clusterfuck that is Heidi and Spencer Pratt. She and her “castmates” have practically hijacked the gossip magazines.

But there’s also something rather mystifying about the Lauren Conrad phenomenon. For one, there isn’t anything particularly memorable about her — in fact, she’s probably one of the dullest major characters in reality television history. In the “Hills” universe, Heidi is the mean one; Whitney is the smart one; Audrina is the ditzy one with the dead, dead eyes; and Lauren is, well, Lauren — not especially charming, not the prettiest, not particularly interesting or talented, but somehow vaguely likable, or at least likable to a certain segment of the population.

And likable enough, apparently, to compel some fans to make a very long trip for a book signing. Kim Long, a 25-year-old, traveled from Boston on two hours’ sleep because “Lauren Conrad is not like your typical reality star.” She likes that Lauren isn’t a snob, she said, that unlike other characters on the show, she actually cherishes her friends. “She’s real,” she said. “She’s someone you’d want to hang out and watch a movie with,” said Colby Giordano, a 16-year-old New Yorker waiting in line with her two friends. “There’s nothing wrong with being boring.”

Much of the appeal of Lauren Conrad, like the Bella Swan character in the “Twilight” novels, is that she’s a near-perfect cipher for young women. It’s her very blankness that made her so well-suited for “The Hills” — and a much better choice of star than the woman who will replace her on the show, Kristin Cavallari, because she doesn’t create drama. Drama happens to her. It’s a feeling that many junior-high-age girls (and some grown-ups) can easily identify with: I’m just trying to be nice — so why is everybody being so mean to me?

That blank innocence and persistent victimhood, not coincidentally, is also the appeal of the main character in Conrad’s novel — a surprisingly entertaining, if somewhat vacuous book for teens about a “Hills”-like reality show. It’s also remarkably well-written (she cites the best-selling novelist Nancy Ohlin, née Butcher, as a “collaborator” in the acknowledgments). “L.A. Candy” tells the story of Jane Roberts, a recent high school graduate and aspiring events planner who moves to Los Angeles with her best friend, Scarlett, for an internship at a high-end party agency. Just like Conrad on “The Hills,” Jane is well-meaning and a bit naive. She’s awkward around boys, sexually conservative (by Los Angeles standards), and ambiguously “creative.”

Meanwhile her roommate Scarlett, a freshman college student, is described as a “rebel with off-the-chart SAT scores” (as evidenced by her “cogito, ergo sum” coffee cup and the fact that she reads Gabriel García Márquez in the original Spanish). The plot kicks off when the two head out to Les Deux, the L.A. club and site of many a “Hills” martini flinging. The two are approached by a reality TV producer named Trevor Lord. The girls are “exactly what [he's] looking for” for his new show, he claims, and before long the two are being miked up for their first night of filming for “L.A. Candy,” a series about four young women living in Los Angeles.

But, as the cliché goes, Jane and Scarlett soon discover that reality show fame isn’t what they bargained for. They’re forced to disingenuously interact with the other “stars” of the show — a mean-spirited girl named Madison and a dim bulb named Gaby. Producers make them repeat flubbed lines of “dialogue.” Jane can’t tell if boys’ advances are the result of her charms or the surrounding cameras. Trevor Lord is revealed as a calculating manipulator. And, to cap things off, the aspiring actor of her affections totally won’t sign the show’s release form.
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In fact, many of the book’s plotlines and characters will seem very familiar to watchers of “The Hills.” Jane encounters a “twenty-year-old celebuspawn” named Jesse Edwards who is “mostly known for his looks and the girls he [dates].” Her bitchy costar, Madison, becomes jealous of her voice-over narration for the show, and hatches a plot to release photographs of Jane hooking up, and Jane gossips at the agency with a “conservative, but pretty” co-intern named Hannah.

All of these elements make “L.A. Candy” one of the most bizarrely meta projects in recent memory: a novel partly inspired by the events of a partly scripted reality show, purportedly written by one of its stars but more likely ghost-written by a novelist pretending to be her. To make it even more meta, the novel doubles as a claim to Lauren’s “realness” and an attack on reality television itself; Jane just wants to live her life as honestly as possible — and plan celebrity parties, dammit — but is foiled by the producers’ meddling and the distorting lens of the camera.

To put this into perspective, Conrad now faces the daunting task of leveraging her generic persona into a long-lasting career; after all, how do you continue to captivate the public’s attention if you’re known for being like everybody else and staring blankly at your costars? You can, on one hand, try to branch into a legitimate industry, like fashion (which Conrad has attempted and failed to pull off), or continue milking your manufactured reality show fame — while pretending to be above it — for many years to come. Given that “L.A. Candy” is the first of a three-book series, it seems that she’s opted for the latter (she’s also expressed interest in turning it into a movie).

Will that be enough to keep the fans’ interest? Leslie Notor, a 48-year-old from Princeton, N.J., who watches “The Hills” with her daughter, says she won’t be tuning in to the next season (”because Kristin Cavallari is a ho”), but she isn’t sure what to expect from Lauren now that she’s left the show either. She’ll probably be following her in the magazines, she says. “I’m interested in reading about her boyfriend stuff.”

Source: salon.com