by Carina Adly MacKenzieStephanie Pratt made her debut on "The Hills" as "She-Pratt," shrieking at Lauren Conrad at Les Deux.
Now that the show is coming to an end, her true colors have been revealed -- this season, she's been happy, low-drama, and sober. We're genuinely going to miss her after the show airs its final episode on Tuesday, July 13.
Or will we? Rumors have swirled that Steph is headed to Whitney Port's spin off, "The City," to continue her quest to be a handbag designer.
"No, I'm not going to be on 'The City' next season!" Stephanie says. "I need to address that on Twitter right after I talk to you."
Stephanie and "The City" star Roxy Olin have a rocky history. Pratt's not particularly forthcoming about the girl she once called her "soulmate," but she does acknowledge that she felt betrayed when Roxy joined "The City" instead of "The Hills."
On July 5, updates appeared on Stephanie's Twitter account about how she was done being a doormat, and that after three years of "taking crap," she was finished. "When all these rumors about me joining 'The City' started, my friend Danny thought it was hilarious, and he took over my Twitter," Stephanie laughs. "He was like 'Let's go tell Roxy she'd better watch out!' and he hacked my Twitter and started posting all this stuff. I just deleted all that. It's been a rough night."
Pratt has no plans to do another reality show right now. "I'm not going to miss the stress and the pressure. It's not like I watch the episodes and think 'Oh, I look great!' I tear myself apart all the time. So it'll be nice to not see myself on TV. I'm sick of seeing myself on TV."
That's not to say there won't be things she will miss about doing the show. "I'll miss going to film at cafes with my best friend Lo [Bosworth]," she says. "The cast has the best time. I never get through a scene, I just laugh the whole time, and I'm always like 'Wait, what was my line? What were we supposed to be talking about?' We enjoy each other so much and we have so many inside jokes. We'll wink at the camera guys, and we can hear the producers in Video Village laughing, and we'll be like 'Pipe down peanut gallery!'"The cast just got back from a trip to Costa Rica, where they filmed the landmark 100th episode of the series. When we ask if they had a good time down there, Stephanie cracks up. "God, no! It was terrible. We'd be sweating profusely, so bugs would die on your arm. They'd drown in your sweat, so you'd just have bugs stuck on you. It was the gnarliest thing ever. It was horrifying. I really missed Lo, she was getting her tonsils out. The boys fought the entire time. 'I'm the better surfer!' 'No I'm the better surfer!' It's like 'Who can jump off the higher rock?' Please."
A few years ago, dead bugs and testosterone contests would've been the least of Stephanie's worries. We all remember her crying after arguments with Brody Jenner, getting into screaming matches with Conrad, and working out her issues with eating disorders and substance abuse in front of the world. "It's amazing, the full circle we've come," she says. "My first year on the show, it was really hard. I was like breaking down all the time. Now, I couldn't be happier."
After her initial appearance on the show, where she and Conrad nearly got into that catfight at a bar, Stephanie was shocked to see Conrad walk into her marketing class at FIDM.
"Everyone thinks I was cast on the show, but it was actually random that we happened to be in the same class. They asked me if they could film me and then eventually I got a contract, but it wasn't set up like that." Conrad wasn't exactly Stephanie's ideal study-buddy. "Oh, it was horrific. She was the last person I wanted to see walk into my class."Now, Stephanie counts Conrad as one of her best friends. "I just spent Fourth of July at Lauren's house in Laguna Beach," she says. "I drove down on Saturday and spent the whole weekend with her and Lo. Dieter [Schmitz] from 'Laguna Beach' was there, Stephen [Colletti] was there, all her Laguna friends."
It's a reminder of just how long we've been watching these characters grow. While Stephanie has matured and warmed up over the years, her brother Spencer Pratt and his estranged wife Heidi Montag have taken a more worrying turn.
"We're still not speaking. It's been since September. It's been so long that I dont really know what he's thinking anymore," Stephanie says. Spencer's behavior has been erratic and, frankly, scary -- so is Stephanie worried about her big brother? "The only feeling that I strongly feel every day is just that I miss him."
Though Conrad and Port will return to "The Hills'" post-finale after-show, don't expect to see Spencer and Heidi on MTV any time soon. "They're not in the finale episode, no. I don't know if they're coming back to the after-show, but they weren't at the MTV Movie Awards, so I doubt it. I don't even know if they're together anymore."
She sounds genuinely sad when she sighs, "I'm his little sister. I should know that."
As for what Pratt is going to do with her life now that the show is over -- her handbags will be hitting stores this fall. Hear that, Kelly Cutrone?
