Is ‘Very Cavallari’ Fake? This Is Why Some People Think So
Kristin Cavallari has been very open about the fact that MTV’s Laguna Beach and The Hills are manufactured. Even still, it’s where we all decided to love or hate her as one of reality TV’s most memorable villains.
In an interview with Buzzfeed, Cavallari revealed, “Laguna Beach was more putting us in situations where we normally wouldn’t be in or hanging out with people we wouldn’t necessarily hang out with.” She added, “In The Hills, I knew sort of this character that they wanted me to play. When I decided to come on board, I made a decision and I was like, ‘OK, this is my job and I’m going to separate my Hills life from my real life.'”
Cavallari wanted to do reality TV her way this time around
Even though Cavallari wasn’t afraid to spill the tea on her past TV shows, that didn’t mean she was done for good. In July 2018, she made her return to reality TV in her new E! series, Very Cavallari. In the show, we follow her life in Nashville, TN alongside her husband, Jay Cutler.
She opted not to include her three children, Camden, Jaxon, and Saylor, on the show. But we do get to see her business ventures while opening up her jewelry and homegoods store, Uncommon James. With a handful of young women working for Cavallari, we still get to enjoy the entertaining drama that seems to follow Cavallari everywhere.
Cavallari had an eight year gap from the time The Hills ended and Very Cavallari began. And this time around she promised an authentic reflection of her life. She told Paper magazine, “The audience is so in-tune to authenticity now because there have been so many fake shows. E! was adamant about everything on the show being real and I was too.”
“Because I came from a world of such heavily manufactured shows, I wanted this to be true,” she added. “I think it’s so easy for the audience to tell what’s real and what isn’t. It was a conscious decision that we made in the beginning, there was no other option really.”
The show’s timeline doesn’t exactly match reality
Some scenes of Very Cavallari, however, have people questioning the authenticity of the show. The sixth episode of Season 1, “Beach, Please,” follows Cavallari and her team on a trip to Florida for a company retreat. In the prior episode, Uncommon James model Taylor Monaco revealed to BFF Shannon Ford that she was pregnant.
When the team travels to Florida, Monaco takes it as an opportunity to reveal her pregnancy to the team. Then, in the preview for the next week’s episode, Monaco’s boyfriend is seen preparing a proposal. The description of the episode even hints, “With her store opening only a week away, Kristin travels to New York to promote her new cookbook … And Shannon is enlisted into a plan for a surprise wedding proposal.”
The Chicago Tribune did some sleuthing on social media, revealing the real timeline of these events doesn’t match up to the timeline on the show. They found that Monaco was actually already engaged before traveling to Florida — which wasn’t very well hidden, considering she was wearing an engagement ring in the episode. Adding to the engagement timeline, Monaco revealed the proposal on Mar. 7, 2018 — five days before their Florida trip.
The newspaper also pointed out, “Cavallari traveled to New York after the store opened to promote her True Roots cookbook, which came out Apr. 3. Cavallari’s publisher announced Apr. 16 that the book made it onto the New York Times Best Sellers list, a plot line for next week’s episode.”
Reality TV shows often air scenes out of order
It’s possible that everything we’re seeing on Very Cavallari is authentic, but is potentially being aired out of order. After all, producers know how take a storyline and make it as entertaining as possible for the viewers. Cavallari is an executive producer on the show, so even if the timeline doesn’t exactly match up, she’s making sure it’s being portrayed in a way that makes the most sense.
Reality TV producer Rahel Tennione revealed to The Providence Journal what normally happens when she works on a show. “There are going to be times when great things happen that we weren’t present for,” she spilled. “But it affects how the cast feels and it affects how they operate going forward.”
“Sometimes, you have to do a pickup interview where you explain this is what happened. It’s very natural and very normal, and I think shows that can afford it, do it,” she added. “Is it the ideal and best way to do things? No, it isn’t, because we’re humans and not robots and very few shows run 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week surveillance.”
