Yahoo Finance Brody Jenner Was 'So Stoked' When MTV Canceled The Hills: New Beginnings
Brody Jenner wasn't too bent out of shape over The Hills: New Beginnings' cancellation.
The MTV revival — which revisited the cast of MTV's early 2000s hit The Hills — was canceled in January after two seasons. But the 38-year-old DJ exclusively confessed to PEOPLE that he was actually excited to hear word of the show's sudden demise.
"I was so stoked," says Jenner, who is gearing up to launch a new The Hills rewatch podcast. "To be honest, yeah. It just wasn't the same experience. It was very stressful. There was a lot of manipulation involved. It was just a lot."
Jenner says a lot of factors prevented New Beginnings from recapturing the magic of the OG Hills centered on Laguna Beach star Lauren Conrad.
"I was at a completely different point in my life and what I was sold on, on the show in general, was not what they were producing," he explains. "They had told us in the beginning that, 'Hey, we're going to do a new Hills, and we want you guys to be on, but we're going to hire a new, younger cast.' They said that they were going to hire the new, younger cast like they're doing now when they originally grabbed us. I was like, 'Oh, that's great.' They're going to hire a new, younger cast, 'You guys will come in as the OGs. It's not going to be focused and centered around you guys.'"
Michael Tullberg/Getty
Adds Jenner, "That's not what happened."
"We went in to do the show and it was just like, 'Nope, it's only you guys,'" he says. "We had offered them a bunch of different younger people. I offered Brandon [Thomas] Lee, who was great for the show. I had a bunch of people that I kind of gave them and they just didn't take them. They're like, 'No.'"
Jeff Riedel The Hills: New Beginnings cast
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The Mamitas founder says there "was so much pressure put on us to drive [the] storyline," but it was difficult to pull off since they weren't the same twenty-somethings taking on L.A.
"I'm like, 'Dude, I'm f---ing 37 years old. I don't go out to nightclubs every night and go hunting for chicks in nightclubs. That's just not me anymore,'" he adds. "So that was kind of a bummer, because we needed a younger cast to be on there. I didn't mind coming in and out and filming and living our authentic lives of where we were at, at that moment, but everything else felt very forced and pushed."
MTV did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment on Jenner's remarks.
Kast Media
Of course, not all of Jenner's memories from his days on The Hills are bad. In fact, he is teaming up with former costars Audrina Patridge and Frankie Delgado to relive the good ole days through the podcast Was It Real? The Hills Rewatch.
While revisiting all six seasons of the iconic show, the trio will take fans behind the scenes and share insight into what really went down. Producers, fellow series alumni and even some celebrity fans will join them along the way.
"That was a fun time. When you're in the moment when you're filming, I feel like sometimes you are just living your life and you don't really get to step back and take it in, and realize how special it is, what you guys are doing, because you're living it," Jenner explains of the project launching with Kast Media. "But as you get older, you can look back and you realize what an incredible time that was in our lives and be able to have that all on film. To have these memories of that time in our life is awesome."
No topic is off limits — but Jenner says listeners shouldn't expect the trio to rewatch The Hills: New Beginnings for the podcast.
"We don't need to talk about the new seasons," he says. "That s--- was so whack."
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The first two episodes of Was It Real? The Hills Rewatch premiere on July 12.
