Someone born in 2004, the year Laguna Beach first aired, is now old enough to drink legally. In that same period of time, Kristin Cavallari, the show’s then-17-year-old protagonist, has made a career out of sharing her life with the world. But there’s one thing she has kept out of the spotlight until now: Kristin Cavallari the mom.

The early aughts were a revolutionary time for reality TV. To put things in perspective, the first season of any Real Housewives franchise wouldn’t air for another two years after Laguna began. This means Cavallari and her signature bleach-blond hair are a very specific kind of reality star: one who was around before the advent of social media, and perhaps better off because of it. For Cavallari, Laguna Beach was just the beginning. Next came a spinoff, The Hills, which tracked members of Laguna’s high school clique in the “real world.” Then came Very Cavallari, another spinoff that honed in on her life in Nashville, her Uncommon James jewelry brand, and her relationship with her now ex-husband Jay Cutler. Cavallari has since expanded Uncommon James into a beauty line, Uncommon Beauty—also a spinoff, if you will—and started Let’s Be Honest with Kristin Cavallari, a weekly podcast.

Now she’s back on TV for the first time in five years with Honestly Cavallari: The Headline Tour, an E! reality series that documents a slate of live podcast shows she did with special guests across the country over a week in March 2025. There are villains, there are attractive men, and there is drama. It’s not Cavallari’s first reality rodeo—it’s her fourth, if you do the math—but the experience marked a number of firsts nonetheless. Her first time on tour, her first time performing live, and also the first time her kids, Camden, 12, Jaxson, 11, and Saylor, 9, were on TV alongside her.

“I don't want people to be like, Oh, all of a sudden she’s putting her kids out everywhere,” Cavallari says over Zoom, sitting in the bright, airy living room that’s become the signature backdrop of her podcast recordings. “They were on the podcast, and they were in a couple scenes on the show, and now I’ll pull back. You’re not going to see them anymore, besides the occasional post on Instagram.”

Ahead of The Headline Tour’s final episode, we caught up with Cavallari about her latest TV era—and the choice to do it with her children.

SELF: What was it like having your kids around cameras and entering a world that’s been a huge part of your life for more than 20 years?

Kristin Cavallari: I always said that I wanted my kids to be old enough to make the decision about whether to be on social media for themselves. I didn’t want to make it for them, because a lot of people don’t want their lives out there. But a couple of years ago, they really started asking me to post them. I slowly started to just post Camden, my oldest, at first. But when you’ve got three kids and the oldest starts doing something, the other ones just sort of naturally are right behind. It’s like how I’ve said in my perfect world, all of my kids would’ve waited to get a cell phone until age 12. Camden got one for his 12th birthday, and then Jaxon got one, and then Saylor got one, and it just kind of is what it is.

With the show, I asked my kids if they had any interest in filming with me and they all were really excited about the possibility. I knew that it would only be two or three days with the kids in Nashville before we went on the road, so it would be really quick. I’ve said I would never do a reality show that’s just about our family. I stand by that. I still want my kids to be kids. This was a way for them to get to experience this with me. Reality TV was this thing that they could never be a part of for so long. Maybe, in a way, that made them want to be part of it even more.

They ended up enjoying it—we got to have these little moments together, which were really fun. You even see it on the show. Camden’s excited to have a microphone on, which I think is just hilarious. But it’s also a nice way to let the audience see that side of me because no one’s ever seen that part of my life—and it’s the biggest part of my life. Even to just give a glimpse into that world shows people that I am a present mom. I’m very much involved in my kids’ lives, and the reality is that the only reason I was able to do a podcast tour was because they were in Hawaii with their dad for spring break. I would never normally leave my kids for a week. So it was important for people to see that side of my life too.

If one of your kids wanted to go into reality TV or create their own content on social media, what would you say?

I think it would depend on the type of content. My oldest, Cam, was really into football and baseball cards, and was selling them on social media for a while. That wasn’t him putting his face out there, so I was cool with that. He’s also into Tuttio e-bikes, and he does a lot with that right now too. Again, I’m totally fine with that. I think if it was one of them being like, “I want to have my own show on YouTube,” I don't know, because they haven’t asked that. If they did, I wouldn’t be promoting it for them. My kids are always asking me to tag them on Instagram, and I never will just because I don’t want to invite that into their lives. But I don’t know—I think it’s hard to say no to something like that when that's the world that we live in now. Especially if I’ve made my life public, it’s hard to tell my kids that they can’t. I would stop them from doing a reality show until they’re 18. But if it’s from your phone and not really invasive and not really them putting themselves out there, I’m all for that.

Do they know a lot about your career on reality TV?

As they've gotten older they’ve learned what Laguna Beach and The Hills are, and they've seen clips of even Very Cavallari on social media. Obviously it's their mom and their dad, so of course they're going to watch it. They're interested in it. So it's been an ongoing conversation. With tabloids, my kids have come to me after seeing some articles and been like, this didn't happen. I'm like, I know. And it actually becomes a great opportunity where we can have a conversation about how the internet is not always real and how you have to take the tabloid world with a grain of salt. So on one hand, I actually think it's opened up that communication, which has been a good thing. I love that they trust me. That's always been the most important thing to me, and I would never want to break that or damage that in any way whatsoever. They know I would never do anything to hurt them, or that’s not in their best interest.

Has being in the limelight affected your mental health over the years?

Laguna Beach was pre–social media, but I would go online and read the chat rooms. People destroyed me on the internet. That was really difficult at age 17, and I was really down about that. I felt like everybody hated me. I think I learned really early on that other people's opinions actually have nothing to do with me. But for a lot of years, while I could say that out loud, I didn't actually believe it. Getting to a place of not taking that stuff personally has been the biggest thing for me. People my whole career have either loved me or hated me, and the people who hate me are very vocal about it. The people who love me are too, but people love to hate me.

I stopped reading Instagram comments six years ago, and that changed my life. The less I see, the better it is for my mental health because, well, of course it’s not normal to have people telling you how awful you are every day. It's also not normal to have people praising you every day. I just think the comments and people's opinions have nothing to do with me. Ultimately, I don't need to know it.

How do you translate that message to your kids? What have you taught them about how to live with social media?

That's probably what I hate the most about social media with my kids—that anyone can say anything to them, and I know how that feels. If someone were to say something negative to one of my kids, it would wreck me. But that's why we have to have these conversations. Jaxson loves to read my comments, and I'm always like, Jaxson, don't read my comments. He finds it fascinating because of the crazy stuff that people say. So while it’s been difficult for me, they've seen firsthand just how ridiculous and outrageous some of this stuff is. I'm hoping that's actually helping them now with learning to navigate the social media world.

What do you hope your kids can learn from your time on Laguna Beach and The Hills?

Well, there's a lot of things in my life that I'm like, yeah, don't do this. I don't regret anything because ultimately it's made me who I am today. I've made a lot of mistakes, but I've learned a lot and I've grown a lot from them. I don't think shielding kids from falling on their face is the move. I think in order to build confidence, you have to fall on your face because that's ultimately how you trust yourself and know that you can count on yourself.

The most important thing I want my kids to learn is that it’s the worst thing to blame other people. Any time you fall on your face, you have to ask yourself, What did I do to contribute to this? How did I get here? I can think of a couple different times in my life where I've gotten myself into a mess, and for a while I blamed other people. It wasn't until I figured out my role in it that I actually took my power back.

It’s funny you say that, because I loved how you started the show saying this tour was you taking the narrative back from the media and the headlines.

Well, that was my goal, and then at the end of it I was like, all I did was create more bullshit headlines. I've been going behind the headlines for two years on my podcast, and I have moments where I'm like, yeah, that felt great, and I'm really happy I cleared that up. But then I have other moments where I just feel really accessible and exposed. And while I can clear it up with my audience who listens to my podcast every week, it doesn't actually help in the press. If anything, it's just made more headlines and they've just taken more out of context.

In this industry, unfortunately, you can't really win. And I have to just get really comfortable with consistently being misunderstood. I mean, I have been for 21 years. It's not like all of a sudden that's going to change. My audience with my podcast knows me now, and I think The Headline Tour is a great glimpse into who I really am. But having notoriety, everyone is misunderstood. It just sort of is what it is.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Related:

• Hoda Kotb Is Ready for Her ‘Joy’ Era
• Olivia Munn on Her Surrogacy: ‘I Needed to Go This Route’
• Keke Palmer Is Here to Help

Get more of SELF’s great service journalism delivered right to your inbox.