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"Former reality star Lauren &amp;amp;#8220;L.C.&amp;amp;#8221; Conrad, 24, has been through more drama than most women twice her age: From age 18 until just last year, all of her breakups, makeups and more were chronicled on the MTV hits Laguna Beach and The Hills. Along the way, her BFFs Whitney Port and Lauren &amp;amp;#8220;Lo&amp;amp;#8221; Bosworth have been her rocks. &amp;amp;#8220;They&amp;amp;#8217;re my support system,&amp;amp;#8221; says Conrad. As her star has risen, they&amp;amp;#8217;ve helped her stay grounded, and boy, has she needed it. In April of last year, she secured a contract to design clothes for Kohl&amp;amp;#8217;s; months later her debut novel, L.A. Candy, shot to the top of the New York Times best-seller list; and now she has a second novel out, Sweet Little Lies. Just back from her book tour, Conrad sat poolside with Glamour in Los Angeles and opened up about the friendships that keep her real. GLAMOUR: It&amp;amp;#8217;s our Friends Issue, so let&amp;amp;#8217;s get right to it: What do yours mean to you? LAUREN CONRAD: Everything! There are six of us: Lo, who is my roommate; Whitney; my other roommate, Maura; Britton and Natania; and Jillian, whom I&amp;amp;#8217;ve known since kindergarten. When I&amp;amp;#8217;m upset they build me up, and if I&amp;amp;#8217;m getting a little too involved, they bring me back. GLAMOUR: Were Maura, Jillian and Natania on The Hills? LAUREN CONRAD: [In the] background. They didn&amp;amp;#8217;t really have an interest in it. They were behind the cameras eating cereal in the morning. GLAMOUR: Our readers on glamour.com had lots of questions for you. Mwk87 asks about your design career, &amp;amp;#8220;What is your advice to girls just heading out into the business world? How do you know and do what you love?&amp;amp;#8221; LAUREN CONRAD: I grew up always knowing what I wanted to do, and I&amp;amp;#8217;m starting to see how rare that is. All of my friends are just figuring it out. It&amp;amp;#8217;s a process of elimination until you find what you love. GLAMOUR: When The Hills ended, you had a lot of career choices. Why did you decide to go the book-writing route? LAUREN CONRAD: I had been thinking about it for a while. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve always been a creative person, loved to design [clothes], so this was a different&amp;amp;#8230;challenge. Going into it, I was still a little unsure of myself. GLAMOUR: What was the process like? Did you just sit down and start writing? LAUREN CONRAD: The editors at HarperCollins were so great. I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t realize that you had to do an overview, then a chapter outline. Then it comes down to filling in the blanks. GLAMOUR: Where do you usually write? LAUREN CONRAD: In bed. At night I can write for hours. GLAMOUR: How is the L.C. of today different from the one who moved to L.A. fresh out of high school? LAUREN CONRAD: I learned very fast that this is a business, not a playground. Your career affects a lot of other people&amp;amp;#8217;s careers&amp;amp;#8212;they depend on you to do your job. In Hollywood, you grow up quick. GLAMOUR: And you definitely had to; you endured a lot of criticism on The Hills. LAUREN CONRAD: It got to the point where I was afraid to go online. I lived without cable or Internet for an entire year. GLAMOUR: How did you turn it back on? LAUREN CONRAD: I finally realized that [gossip] wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t going to hurt me. I have my family and friends, and I get to do what I love. Is any of that taken away because one person called me ugly? No. GLAMOUR: Glamour.com reader ealebrun writes, &amp;amp;#8220;I want to know how fame affected her relationships. Does she [ever] wish she could blend in and go unnoticed?&amp;amp;#8221; LAUREN CONRAD: Lo and I had a strong enough friendship that we understood this was our job, and sometimes it was going to be silly, but at the end of the day, we loved each other. Whitney is a very understanding, levelheaded person, which is rare. So I never had a fight with her&amp;amp;#8212;but I did with everyone else on that show, about everything. GLAMOUR: The rest of the question was about whether you wish you could go incognito. Answer honestly! LAUREN CONRAD: I get very uncomfortable with people watching me. And I know that sounds silly because of the show, but we were filming with people that we&amp;amp;#8217;d known for years, and it was a job. [Now] when [I&amp;amp;#8217;m] in a movie theater and [I] can hear the whispers, it&amp;amp;#8217;s like that really bad dream where you go to school naked. You feel so self-conscious. GLAMOUR: You&amp;amp;#8217;re in a serious relationship now [with TV actor Kyle Howard]. How does this relationship differ from ones you&amp;amp;#8217;ve had in the past? LAUREN CONRAD: I don&amp;amp;#8217;t have to clear my movie dates with a filming crew. [Laughs.] As soon as I started doing the show, I never had a boyfriend off camera; it wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t allowed. So I had a rule: I would date someone for two weeks, and that was it. Anyway, the first two weeks are the best! GLAMOUR: You never got attached? LAUREN CONRAD: [If] they were willing to be on camera [so] quickly, I knew it wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t going to work out. And if they weren&amp;amp;#8217;t willing to, I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t have that relationship anyway. GLAMOUR: Let&amp;amp;#8217;s talk fashion and style. On glamour.com, SummerInTheCity says, &amp;amp;#8220;Lauren always looks put together. What [are] the staple pieces in her wardrobe?&amp;amp;#8221; LAUREN CONRAD: A sky-high black heel. Skinny jeans&amp;amp;#8212;mine are BDG from Urban Outfitters. They&amp;amp;#8217;re affordable and I go through them so quickly; I rip and stain and spill on them. I&amp;amp;#8217;m like a five-year-old! GLAMOUR: We got a million reader questions about your hair. Nikirollerblades asks, &amp;amp;#8220;Is it shampoo, conditioner, professionally done daily? I just want to know how she gets those perfect shiny waves.&amp;amp;#8221; LAUREN CONRAD: I use a different shampoo every day. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t use products&amp;amp;#8212;not even hairspray. GLAMOUR: Have you ever tried hair extensions, or is this all your own? LAUREN CONRAD: Well, I consider it mine because I own it. [Laughs.] But these are all extensions. I chopped all my hair off to my shoulders. I thought I was doing a chic bob. It was so bad. I have the taped-in ones, which are great because they lie flat when you pull your hair into a ponytail. I couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t do the individual ones; they felt like bugs! GLAMOUR: I love your honesty. On another topic, do you ever feel pressure to be super skinny? LAUREN CONRAD: I&amp;amp;#8217;ve never felt a push to be stick thin. I work out and eat healthy, so mostly it&amp;amp;#8217;s about being in shape and having energy. But about a year ago, I looked down and thought, I have cellulite. Where did that come from? I went through treatments; [my body] was like, It&amp;amp;#8217;s not going anywhere. Recently my boyfriend and I went to Cabo. We sat down on the beach, I took off my wrap and some woman pointed out a boat full of paparazzi. I was like, &amp;amp;#8220;There goes my tan.&amp;amp;#8221; GLAMOUR: You&amp;amp;#8217;re so successful so young. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? LAUREN CONRAD: I&amp;amp;#8217;ll be 34&amp;amp;#8212;so I probably won&amp;amp;#8217;t be clubbing. [Laughs.] I&amp;amp;#8217;d like to be doing something that makes me happy. Hopefully by then I&amp;amp;#8217;ll have settled down with someone. GLAMOUR: Kids? LAUREN CONRAD: Maybe. Being responsible for another human life terrifies me, because I kill plants. It&amp;amp;#8217;s crazy to me when people my age want kids. I feel like a kid myself! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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