Audrina Patridge was basically The Hills‘ MVP, ever since it all started. Now she’s got her own show, and is ready to get real. No, really.
So what’s up with Audrina Patridge? As she picks up the phone I find it hard to resist launching into one of those long, meandering conversations (about life, guys, cool work opportunities, and of course, the day’s inevitable “drama”) that constituted a large part of MTV’s colossally successful quasi-reality series The Hills, in which Audrina, starred as Hollywood’s most stalwart BFF.
OK, it wasn’t exactly always clear whose BFF she was at any given point. Or why. Or whether any of the shows characters actually liked each other at all. But that’s all irrelevant, because the basic fact is that Audrina was the only girl who made it through all six seasons of the programme with dignity and sanity intact – demonstrating a certain loyalty to the viewer that eluded many of her blonde, handbag-toting, surgery-addicted comrades.
“At the end of the day you just have to be true to yourself,” she says, explaining her longevity on the show. “I was very level-headed and I tried not to play into the dramas too much. Because otherwise you just go insane and you lose it.” Having made it through The Hills, Audrina subsequently bumped up her reality credentials by strutting her stuff on Dancing With the Stars. Suddenly, the girl we knew best for her laconic latté-sipping and wistful, near-distance gaze was faultlessly hotfooting it around the stage in glittery pants, much to the glee, presumably, of all the readers of FHM, who on several occasions have voted Audrina one of the top 20 hottest women on the planet.
But now, alongside being the figurehead of an online talent competition for Yobi.tv (the winner will get a chance to star alongsid AP in an upcoming internet mini-series) Audrina’s about to launch her own reality show, which focuses on the aspects of her life – such as going to photoshoots, being chased by paps and generally dealing with her huge celebrity – details that The Hills missed out, or papered over with supremely entertaining lies. Most importantly, she won’t be hanging out with random people she doesn’t get on with. Which she certainly seems relieved about when I ask her to explain it all …
So, hi Audrina. What is life like you for the moment?
Well. right now we’ve been filming my new show called Audrina.
A good name … [laughs]
Yeah, I know, right? It airs very soon on VH1, and I’ve really just been filming my everyday life.
It’s a different kind of life from what was presented in The Hills?
Yeah, in The Hills, I was kind of living in a bubble, and this is everything outside of that bubble. So this is my family, my grandparents, my mom, dad, sisters, brother, my boyfriend. You know, and a few of my best friends that nobody ever saw on The Hills.
Why have we not met all these people before?
Adam Divello, one of the main producers, always talked to me about including my family in The Hills, and I was like “absolutely not, because I don’t even know how you guys are going to edit them. And the show isn’t completely real so why would I want to do that?” I wanted to save it… and now it’s my show. It’s my family and they’re not going to be edited in a way that makes them look like something they’re not. In The Hills there was always this storyline to stick to … constant drama and catfights and gossip.
Simply because you were all forced to hang out with each other?
Yes, absolutely. Definitely, that’s right on.
What a bore.
It is. And it would be like, oh God, now we have to go to this club, and I know I don’t get along with this person, but, for the cameras, they want us to get in a fight, and it’s like “Urgh. I don’t even want to go.” In real life, you just wouldn’t go, you wouldn’t go near those people. But in the show we had to really hype it up.
How sick are you of being asked to dump on the rest of the cast of The Hills?
Everyone always asks me. And honestly, who have I seen? I’ve seen Whitney and Kristin, and that’s about it. We don’t hang out like we used to, we’re going down different paths. But there are definitely run-ins in Hollywood.
People think they know everything about you – what don’t they know?
That I do have an opinion, and I do have my head on straight, and that I am very driven and optimistic and I have more to me than gossip and drama. I really want everyone to see the other side of me – what I’m passionate about and what I will do anything for. And they will see.
Photography: Robbie Fimmano
Fashion: Vanessa Chow
Words: Adam Welch
A full version of this article first appeared in Wonderland Issue 26, April/May 2011