What happens in Cabo doesn’t always stay in Cabo, because Us Weekly has learned about one Laguna Beach fight during the group’s wild 2004 trip that never saw the light of day.
“In Cabo, Dieter [Schmitz] and Jessica [Smith] had a fight, and Dieter asked us not to air it. And it comes up in the special,” Liz Gateley exclusively told Us while promoting The Reunion: Laguna Beach.
“When you’re producing a show like this, it’s all about trust. And Dieter didn’t feel like it was his best self, and we wanted to honor that,” she explained, noting it was the “only time” any of the cast asked them not to air what was shot.
“Casey Wilson [the reunion host] asked, like, ‘Did you know you could do that? Stephen [Colletti] and Kristin [Cavallari]?’ And they were like, ‘No, we didn’t know we could ask them not to air things,’” Gateley laughed.
Laguna Beach fans will forever remember the explosive fight between Colletti, 40, and his then-girlfriend Cavallari, 39, in Cabo.
While partying during the California crew’s spring break, the on-again, off-again couple hurled drunken obscenities at each other, including Colletti calling Cavallari a “bitch” and “slut.”
Looking back, Colletti regrets his actions but he isn’t hiding from them.
“I understand people’s reaction to that [scene]. It’s always something I’ve been able to just wear because I take responsibility for what happened and all the sequence of events leading up to that moment and when we were down there in Cabo,” he told Us in March. “That wasn’t one of my best moments, but I think at the end of the day, that’s not who we are.”
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Colletti already made amends with Cavallari about the situation on their joint podcast, Back to The Beach, where they rewatch episodes and react in real time.
Cavallari told Us that she doesn’t hold any grudges about what went down more than 20 years ago.
“I watched Cabo and I actually walked away being proud of myself for how I reacted. I was 17, clearly intoxicated, and my ex-boyfriend was yelling profanities in my face, and all I tried to do was remove myself from the situation,” she exclusively told Us last month. “I very easily could have escalated that and I didn’t.”
Cavallari explained, “I don’t regret anything. Of course, there’s moments I’m not super proud of, but they’ve led me where I am today. Ultimately, the show made me take a hard look in the mirror and grow up. And so I’m actually really thankful for all of it.”
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As for the deleted Cabo scene, Colletti joked it would have been nice for his buddy to give him a heads-up.
“I’m like, ‘Dieter, where were you on that?’ It would have been really, really great to know that there was a possibility of, you know, maybe we can tone this down a little bit,” he said with a laugh. “I mean, MTV really leaned into it. I was like, ‘Did they really have to show me saying that word, like, every time? I think we got the point.’”
The Reunion: Laguna Beach premieres on The Roku Channel on April 10.
