Kristin Cavallari is no stranger to making news. Having been on TV since she was 17 on MTV’s Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, the reality star, now 38, decided to confront the media attention she receives by taking her truth to the people, live and in person. So in March she went on tour with her popular Let’s Be Honest podcast, hitting four cities in seven days. And, in a full-circle twist, she let E! film the shows for a reality series, her first since Very Cavallari ended in 2020. “I said a thousand times that I would never go back to reality TV, but this fit naturally into my life,” she says. She sees Honestly Cavallari: The Headline Tour (premiering June 4) as something of a personal reckoning. “I don’t like being in the headlines. It actually stresses me out. But that’s what this podcast tour was about,” Cavallari explains. “I’m taking the power back.”
When Very Cavallari wrapped five years ago, Cavallari was in a different place in her life. She was navigating a divorce from her then husband of nearly seven years, former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler, with whom she shares custody of their three children: sons Camden, 12, and Jaxon, 11, and daughter Saylor, 9. She’d also cut ties with her father after he “crossed the boundary with my kids,” she says, declining to go into further detail. “This might sound messed up to some people, but cutting my dad out is the best decision I’ve ever made. Life’s too short.”
Whether it be on her own podcast or via other social media avenues, Cavalari has been unabashedly candid about her dating life since she’s been single. “Probably too much so,” she says with a laugh. She’s spoken openly about her 13-year age gap with Montana Boyz TikToker Mark Estes, whom she dated for seven months in 2024, and on Bunnie Xo’s podcast Dumb Blonde, she revealed that country superstar Morgan Wallen “was good in bed.” But, says Cavallari, while everything she’s said is true, she has “others--- going on than who I’m dating. Headlines love to put me in this box that has to do with men and sex. And I get [the interest], but I’m a real person. It affects me. I think people’s idea of me is very different from who I actually am.” And that, she says, is a business owner—she launched lifestyle brand Uncommon James in 2017—and a “normal” mom. “I’m going to basketball practice and games like every other parent,” she says.
With the new show, Cavallari hopes to further address some of the misconceptions about her on her own terms. “I’m really happy that I did it because it was my favorite experience on a show, and truly the only show that I’ve done where I can say it was 100 percent authentic,” she says. In fact, she nearly quit the show on the third day of production when things began to feel contrived. “It started really taking a left turn, so I was like, ‘Listen, I’m not going to do the show if you guys are going to try to control this.’ It made everyone realize I don’t want them telling us what conversations to have. I’m not going to do it unless it’s real.” Cavallari credits age and experience for her ability to hold her ground. “When I was 17, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do whatever the hell you want, just put me on TV,” she says of her Laguna Beach days. “Whereas now, I’m more than happy to just stay at my house and not do any of this.”
Cavallari says she feels like an entirely new person after the last five years of personal growth. “My divorce and my dad really forced me to take a hard look in the mirror and do the work,” she admits. “I had to get very real with myself about the lack of self-love that I had, and then I had to build myself up again. I finally, for the first time in my life, do love myself. I love my life, and I’ve really worked hard to cultivate this peace and this happiness.”
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: STEPHANIE DIANI/NBCUNIVERSAL; JEFF SCHEAR/E! ENTERTAINMENT; COURTESY KRISTIN CAVALLARI; (THE HILLS) PHOTOFEST; (DWTS) ADAM TAYLOR/DISNEY/GETTY IMAGES