It has been four years since The Hills finale confirmed all of our speculation about the last few seasons of the show being scripted. Recently, Brody Jenner decided to further crush all of our hopes and dreams by revealing on his podcast that he and Lauren Conrad never actually dated.

We may have witnessed the pair’s adorable first date and many other cute more-than-friends-but-not-actually-together moments, but according to what Brody stated on his podcast, all of it was completely fake. I guess we should’ve seen this coming since everything else on that show was as close to “real” as Heidi’s season six face, but the on-screen chemistry between Brody and Lauren just seemed so genuine. MTV even went as far as to put Lauren in the alternate ending of The Hills finale episode, as if to suggest that she and Brody really were romantically involved but, now, it’s clear that it was all just for ratings. 

With all of this in mind, it begs the question was any of the show real? It’s obvious that the second Lauren left the show, the drama escalated a little too quickly to be authentic, but what about seasons one through four? The truth is, none of the drama and story line from the first few seasons was completely organic and raw. The producers manipulated the stars into situations that they normally wouldn’t put themselves in, which encouraged the screaming matches outside of clubs and mascara-filled tears from back-stabbing betrayals. A season five addition to the show, Kristen Cavallari, even revealed in an interview with The Huffington Post that the show’s predecessor, Laguna Beach, wasn’t even completely real. While she and LC did spend their final years of high school duking it out for the affection of heartthrob, Stephen Colletti, the petty cat fights may not have happened at all, let alone on camera, without the master-meddling of the MTV producers.

The truth behind the matter is that no top-rated reality show could be successful without at least a little bit of false advertising. Nothing in the media is ever completely as it seems, and that is just a sad fact of society. Even the Kardashians, a family so unconventional it seems near impossible that they would need to fake drama, have had some re-shoots and edits put into their show to amp up the story line and create unnecessary drama. 

The moral of the story is don’t take reality television too seriously. If you do, you’ll find yourself depressed over the fact that Lauren Conrad is getting married in a few weeks, and it’s not to Stephen Colletti or Brody Jenner. Yeah, I’m going to need a moment alone.