Back in October 2004, one of the most iconic episodes of “Laguna Beach” aired — and it’s one that’s haunted Stephen Colletti ever since.
Titled “What Happens In Cabo …”, the episode found the gang headed to Mexico for Spring Break after Stephen and Kristin Cavallari split up. While there, a very single Kristin hopped up on the bar and started dancing on and making out with another boy, Sam — sparking serious jealously and one insane outburst from Stephen.
“What the f— is your deal, bitch? Hey, get up on the bar, you look real good slut,” he shouted at her. “I can get so much better than you, I don’t even care. I feel so sorry for you. You and me, completely done. You are such a f—ing hoe.”
“You look so good. Keep dancing on the bar, slut!” he exclaimed, as she told him to leave her alone and walked off.
It was brutal and on the latest episode of Stephen and Cavallari’s “Laguna Beach” rewatch podcast Back to the Beach, the two revisited the moment with a deep-dive. Setting the scene, Stephen explained that while the two had split already, he felt they were still flirty with each other and believed they’d hang out a lot together during the trip. She, however, thought he was getting close to Lauren Conrad and didn’t believe there was any hope of them getting back together.
“So I think that’s why I was like, I’m set on Sam, I’m not going to go down this road because I don’t want to set myself up for that,” she explained.
That disconnect led to a very frustrated Stephen, who admitted he was “medicating” himself with alcohol on the trip. After “drinking for probably 12 hours” at the pool, they all made their way to a nightclub and all hell broke loose.
“That’s where we get to this moment, this infamous moment where I speak to you in a very uncool way, which is the most shocking and brutal moment for myself in this show,” he continued. “This is very much an IRL moment where you’re seeing a very immature little boy having his emotions boil over and not processing them in the right way, mixed in with a ton of tequila and it is a very unhealthy combination. Frankly I was embarrassed.”
“It is a bad moment. I wish things had happened differently,” he continued, as Cavallari said the whole situation could have been solved by a simple conversation laying out their expectations and where they stood with one another before the trip.
“That moment is a sequence of bad decisions leading up to a very bad decision,” he said, before breaking down where he went wrong. “Believing our relationship was a healthy one to carry on after everything we had been through, allowing ourselves to be filmed in Cabo knowing this was a very loose place for everybody to drink and let loose and completely escape thing, to consuming an excessive amount of alcohol when I knew I was being filmed and not leaving the bar when I knew I should.”
Watching the episode back, Cavallari said that while it “breaks my heart” to hear it was a rough one for Stephen, she said she was “actually proud of how I reacted to you” and stands by her behavior all these years later.
“You were in my face yelling at me, calling me a slut and I was just trying to walk away and I wasn’t trying to react to you, I was really trying to remove myself from the situation and just do my thing,” she continued. “Maybe not everyone will agree with me, but I was very happy with how I reacted. Instead of trying to fight back and get in your face and create a bigger scene, I was trying to walk away. I was proud of myself for being 17, hammered at a bar, having someone yelling that I’m a slut and I wasn’t reacting.”
As she walked away from the confrontation with Colletti on the episode, she shouted, “F— you, Stephen” at him from across the bar — something he now says she had “every right” to throw his way.
He said that the next morning he really didn’t have any strong recollection of what happened, explaining that he recalled her dancing and them fighting about something, but not the specifics. Colletti added that he wished he was given “more of a heads up” about his behavior.
“I was very blacked out drunk and drinking tequila and not myself. That is me literally at my worst there,” he continued, saying his mother raised him to respect women and never lay a finger on anyone. “This gets almost close to that, where I’m in your face calling you a slut and that is one of the harshest moments of my life. It’s incredibly mortifying that one of those moments for me is captured on camera and broadcast on TV.”
He then clarified that he does not believe “dancing on the bar is something you should not do” and admitted he “totally spiraled” in the moment.
“To say the things that I said to you and getting in your face the way I did, is something I’m also very sorry for,” he told Kristin. “I wish that did not happen and do feel that I should take ownership of what I did in that moment and I do feel — especially watching it back for the first time. in 18 years — I was out of control and definitely owe you an apology. So I am sorry for that.”
Cavallari appreciated the sentiment, telling him it “means a lot.” She added, “18 years later, I will take it. I get it, when you’re in that mode and feel your feelings, all you want to do is try to hurt somebody else or get your point across.”
She went on to say his behavior was “almost relatable,” telling him that “s— happens” and she knows “that wasn’t who you are.” Cavallari added, “Was it your best moment? No. But I don’t think you should be so hard on yourself,” before she clarified that she had no intention to make him jealous in that moment and was simply enjoying the single life.
“The other thing is, everyone dances on the f—ing bar in Cabo, okay?” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry, I know they tried to make it seem like it was just me. It wasn’t and it never has been. Everybody was on the bar in Cabo. Just want to clear that up.”
Listen to the full episode below:
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