In the 14 years since The Hills ended, Lo Bosworth has been busily writing her own story.
And, spoiler alert, she's reached her most fulfilling chapter yet.
"I have grown into the life that I always dreamed for myself," the Love Wellness founder told E! News in an exclusive interview. "I've achieved a lot. So, for me, it's just about maintaining my status quo: Happy, healthy, family and great spirits, and spend a lot of time with people that I care about."
But while the 37-year-old spent less time trying to fit a square into a circle than some on Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County and The Hills, it's still the rockier, steeper parts of her journey that make where Bosworth is standing now all the more rewarding.
And not least because the soul of her business is self-care from the inside out, and she practices what she preaches.
"Deeply passionate" about her full-body regimen, the host of the Gut Feelings podcast eschews the snooze button to give herself enough time in the morning to soak in the tub before work every day, and she takes an "everything shower" at least once a week.
"My time in the bathroom is a very big part of my wellness routine and I'm very focused on what I can do every single day to keep that balance," she explained. "We live in a crazy world and making time for yourself—even if it's five, 10, 15 minutes, an hour, whatever it is, whatever you have time for—is a great way to stay steady."
Her "everything" routine includes a close shave with a scented BIC Soleil Escape razor, the chance to co-curate the brand's 5 Senses Shave Kit an absolute yes for Bosworth. Yet while she's found that "experiential products" are all the rage these days, she admittedly didn't foresee the current level of demand for innovation in the women's wellness space when she started her supplements company in 2016.
"But it speaks to where we're at culturally," she noted. "And we provide women with what they deserve."
Bosworth also happens to love the nitty-gritty details of the business, from the research and collaboration with Love Wellness' medical advisory board, nutritionists and food scientists to the regulatory side.
"Innovation is the best part of my job," she said, adding that her plan is to build out the label to be more of a lifestyle brand. "Wellness is lifestyle, regardless of whether it's vaginal health or skin care. It's all wellness at the end of the day."
A key to self-care that isn't on the shelf at Ulta, however, is looking after one's mental health, which so often is the first thing to be sacrificed to the career gods.
"Lazy days are my favorite days because you get to rest and recharge," Bosworth said. "I carry no guilt whatsoever when it comes to a lazy day. I think the idea that we have to be on, on, on all the time, constantly going from work to activity to a dinner and drinks—no, I don't want you to invite me to that dinner. I want to stay home and I want to take care of myself, my body and my mind."
And while she's a busy content creator, Bosworth approaches social media especially strategically.
She aims to keep it real for her 854,000 Instagram followers, but also recognizes the importance of boundaries and is "very choosy" about what she shares.
"I have a very high bar in terms of, is this something that should be shared or not?" Bosworth explained. "At this point it's easier for me to focus on my career and what is driving me from that perspective. If you grew up on reality TV, you can get burned by the internet and your audience so many times that it can become difficult to want to continue to share really personal things about your life."
But Bosworth did get her company off the ground by getting super-personal.
Before she started Love Wellness, "I had very severe vitamin deficiencies" that caused "a ton of health issues," she recalled. "I was working on my blog almost full time and I started to tell my health and wellness story there."
Detailing her struggles with depression and anxiety on The Lo Down, Bosworth didn't expect to find a community of kindred spirits online, but that's what happened.
"Holding up a product and just saying what it does, 'Oh, it fixes this, it fixes that,' to a certain degree no longer resonates anymore," she continued. "People want to know your authentic story and why you believe it. I think it's critical. And, for me, talking about my body and my health back in 2016 was very groundbreaking at the time. Nobody was talking about that kind of stuff, and now it's every other video."
Ultimately, Bosworth concluded, "I'm really happy that I was able to use that moment in a way that helped me move through my own health issues and my own emotional journey to create something that is bigger and more important than me in my company."
And while there's always more work to be done, Bosworth takes her leisure time quite seriously.
Below Deck being an exception because it's just that fun, she doesn't really watch reality TV, for example, because she is too aware of how orchestrated so many shows are behind the scenes.
"It's hard for me to actually enjoy it," she said, "because if I do catch something, I'm like, 'Oh, they made her say that four times,' or 'Oh, I can tell that line that person just said when you can't see the front of their face was done in a recording studio.' I know the mechanics."
She also went through a period where Hills associations made her cringe and gave The Hills: New Beginnings a wide berth, but Bosworth is down to participate in the rumored 20th anniversary reunion of the original Laguna Beach cast in whatever form that may take.
Aside from childhood pal Lauren Conrad, Bosworth shared, "I'm not in constant touch with a ton of people from the show, but it's been 20 years. I don't know a lot of people that are still on a day-to-day basis with people that they went to high school with. But I'm very friendly with everybody and, if I saw them, I'd run up to them and give them a big hug."
And aside from her "regrettable" trucker hat-and-graphic-tee ensembles, it's not as if she doesn't have some lovely memories of those days in the O.C. sun, especially their high school graduation. Yet even if it were possible to send some hard-fought wisdom to her 17-year-old self, Bosworth believes everyone's page starts off blank for a reason.
"I am of the mindset that I would not give my younger self advice," she said. "You have to live through experiences to gain experience and insight."
So, she quipped, "Sorry, Lo from 20 years ago, you're on your own."
But also, don't worry, Lo, you're going to like how it all turns out.
—Reporting by Nikaline McCarley
Keep reading to see how it's turned out for more Laguna Beach alums:
Literal LOL at Teen Vogue's Lisa Love telling Lauren, "You'll always be known as the girl who didn't go to Paris." (A line actually lifted from Vogue's Anna Wintour, a 2019 Hills deep dive revealed.)
More than a decade after that admittedly questionable decision and her subsequent split from Jason Wahler, LC has earned a few more laudatory descriptors: New York Times best-selling author; co-founder of The Little Market, with a mission to empower female artisans worldwide; and, of course, fashion designer, her Kohl's Line LC Lauren Conrad just the start of her now wide-ranging lifestyle empire.
Now long past fights outside Les Deux, she married Something Corporate rocker and law school grad William Tell in a 2014 Pinterest wedding of our dreams. In October 2019, their second son, Charlie Wolf Tell, joined now 6-year-old brother Liam James Tell.
Everyone's favorite bad girl went from being a (well-compensated) s--t-stirrer to full-on boss with her successful lifestyle brand, Uncommon James opening its third brick-and-mortar location in Dallas in 2021.
Rounding out her growing empire: a Chinese Laundry shoe line and three cookbbooks. Teammates for 10 years, she and retired NFL quarterback Jay Cutler welcomed sons Camden Jack Cutler, 11, and Jaxon Wyatt Cutler, 9, and daughter Saylor James Cutler, 8, before splitting in April 2020.
Now going back, back to the beginning with dating, "I've gone on a lot of dates in the last few years," she told E! News in 2023, "but I don't like a lot of people and I don't [think I'm] picky. I just think it's because I don't have time for bulls--t anymore."
The resident bad boy of Laguna Beach and The Hills ran into nothing but trouble after his time on the reality series: drugs, DUIs, fights, arrests…you name it. It wasn't until he appeared on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew Pinksy that he finally cleaned up.
Jason went on to marry girlfriend Ashley Slack, a relationship he claims is his first sober one, and he and "the most beautiful, loving, kind and caring woman I know" welcomed daughter Delilah Ray in August 2017 and son Wyatt Ragle in June 2021. The founder and owner of Widespread Recovery, he continues to be open about his struggles, both while he was on The Hills: New Beginnings and during his YouTube series, JAWS Diaries with Jason & Ashley Wahler.
Stephen Colletti
When he's not giving us new material for our LC-Kristin-Stephen love triangle fan fic, Laguna's resident heartthrob is focused on building a pretty solid acting career. He was a recurring castmember on the CW's One Tree Hill for five seasons and starred as Taylor Swift's love interest in her "White Horse" music video.
He also had a temporary gig as an MTV VJ on Total Request Live (the original, not the reboot). Among his latest: the 2018 TV movie Hometown Christmas and Hulu's Everyone Is Doing Great, with former OTH costar James Lafferty.
As for he and his Back to the Beach podcast cohost Kristin? Definitely dunzo, Stephen proposed to NASCAR Reporter Alex Weaver in November.
Truthfully, LC's BFF would prefer to be excluded from this narrative. When an exec gauged her interest in returning to The Hills, "I was like, 'F--k no!'" she recalled on a 2018 episode of her Lady Lovin' podcast. "I don't want any association with any of those people. The dissociation from all those people is what I'm hungry for."
Which, to be fair, sometimes that happens when you change careers. Now based in NYC, The International Culinary Center grad and The Lo-Down author founded Love Wellness, a line of personal care products for women, in 2016. As she recently told E! News, "I live such a different life now than I did 10 years ago."
Enjoying the briefest of flings with K.Cav, the romantic exploits of Laguna's "ladies' man" remained in the spotlight as he dated Kimberly Stewart and Nicole Scherzinger. But he settled down for good when he met now-wife Danielle Torriero at an L.A. bar on her 21st birthday in 2009.
Decamping from Cali to her native Nebraska where they're building "their dream home(stead)" on a 0.87-acre lot, the two wed in June 2014 and welcomed their son Bronson in October 2017 and daughter Hudson in December 2020.
"I said, 'Who the hell is that?'" Talan reflected to E! News of their first meeting. "I ended up talking to her and she said she was from Nebraska. I had no idea where the hell that was. Yet here I am, 14 years later, living in Nebraska."
Trey Phillips
Turns out that season one runway show was just his first step into the world of fashion. After leaving Laguna, Trey made the leap to New York City and Parsons School of Design. Graduating in 2010, the fashion design and renewable energy major hung around the Big Apple, scoring a job as an associate designer at Vera Wang and spent time in London.
Founding Motion Illustrated in 2023 ("I’ve spent over a decade designing and illustrating for some of the biggest names in fashion. Now, I want to share my own vision of style with you," he shared on his site), the artist keeps a relatively low-profile on social media. He has, however, shown the occasional glimpse of partner Kasumi.
Lauren and Stephen's bestie left the Beach behind for his future in hospitality and hotel management, currently working as a VP for Choice Hotels International.
He's still tight with his high school crew, though, Lauren, "proud groomsman" Stephen, Trey and Loren Polster turning out for his 2016 Monterey, Calif. wedding to Isabell Hiebl. The pair, who call Austria a "second home", welcomed their first child, son Nico Josef Schmitz, in September 2018 and daughter Leni in March 2023.
Jessica Smith
KCav's Laguna Beach pal has largely stayed away from reality television after her run on the MTV show ended. Following a brief return to notoriety, thanks to a 2007 DUI arrest, she settled into a quiet life in Texas with her husband, Michael Evans, "the most kind, patient, strong, amazing, loving and ridiculously handsome human I've ever met," as she put it on Instagram, and their four children.
Though she has her own blog and Amazon shop, mostly, as she jokes on Insta, she's just 'trying not to lose a kid."
Long gone are the days of Alex battling Jessica for Jason's heart. Marrying Kyle Johnson in 2014 (Morgan Olson and bridesmaids Alex H. and Taylor Cole attended), they've since welcomed three boys: Levi in 2016, Kase in 2018 and Rome in April 2021. Making use of her communications degree from California's Chapman University, she co-founded MOX Agency, a social media marketing business, in 2014.
Morgan Olsen
When Morgan signed on with MTV in 2004, she had no visions of stardom: "I thought it would be a fun experience to do with friends, and also a way to capture my high school experience on film," she told Time. And no amount of fame was going to deviate from her plan to find a nice Mormon man to settle down with.
Two years after graduating from Brigham Young University in 2008, the humanities and journalism major married Joel Smith. "I did the things I think I would have wanted regardless of being on a TV show: graduate college, travel, get married, and start my career in New York and now Los Angeles," she said of her Minnow Swim brand. Now stationed in South Carolina, where she opened a new Charleston showroom, the designer is mom to Theo, Georgia and Julian.
Casey Reinhardt
Though she wasn't an original castmember of Laguna Beach, Casey's arrival to the reality series was a memorable one. Since then, she's launched a successful foray into the world of confections by opening Casey's Cupcakes in Orange County. She even won Food Network's Cupcake Wars in 2011.
Her home life, meanwhile, is just as sweet. Wed to Sean Brown (a relative of the late Nicole Brown Simpson) since August 2015, they share daughter Kensington, 7, and sons Sean Brown Jr., 6, and Conrad, 6 months.
Not quite three years after Alex stood up in Taylor's October 2015 wedding to real estate investor Kevin Simshauser, the friends found themselves expecting just eight weeks apart. Welcoming daughter Tatum September 2018, Taylor gave birth to son Cole in January 2020 and son Olson in August 2022. The founder of Taylor Cole Holistic Nutrition also shares picture-perfect outtakes of her life on Insta.