Audrina Patridge: Surviving an Abusive Relationship (FBF)
Audrina Patridge joins Call Her Daddy to discuss her memoir 'Choices: To the Hills and Back Again,' covering her time on The Hills, her abusive marriage to Corey, and her journey to healing. She candidly describes the emotional and physical abuse she endured, how she hid it from family and friends out of shame, and how faith and her daughter ultimately gave her the strength to leave. The conversation also touches on her relationships with castmates Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag, and her complicated dynamic with Justin Bobby.
Summary
The episode opens with host Alex Cooper welcoming Audrina Patridge to discuss her memoir. Audrina explains that the book was inspired by years of fan DMs asking how she got through difficult times, and she saw it as an opportunity to answer everything in one place and set the record straight on public misconceptions. She describes the writing process as emotionally grueling but ultimately therapeutic, crediting her ghostwriter Jen Schuster for pushing her to include the hardest parts.
Audrina recounts how she was discovered for The Hills after moving to LA, meeting two girls in an elevator, and being spotted by a producer while sunbathing at the pool. She describes Lauren Conrad as initially closed off but understandably so given her previous experiences being used by people. She portrays Heidi Montag as immediately warm and outgoing, and expresses genuine respect for Heidi and Spencer's enduring marriage. She reflects on the reality TV experience, noting that while it launched careers and platforms, the modern version is more damaging due to social media, death threats directed at 'villains,' and increasingly scripted storylines.
On Justin Bobby, Audrina clarifies that the show captured both his on-camera and off-camera sides — the latter being far more caring and emotionally present. She acknowledges that both she and Justin played immature games with each other and that producers actively tried to manufacture jealousy between them. She believes their relationship might have worked without the cameras and production interference.
The conversation then shifts to Corey, whom she initially found appealing because he seemed grounded and different from typical LA men. She describes a long pattern of infidelity she learned about through fan messages on Twitter, which Corey consistently gaslit her into dismissing. She details a controlling, paranoid dynamic where he accused her of cheating, monitored her movements, and caused escalating fights — while he was allegedly the one cheating. She found nude photos and sexual messages on his phone multiple times.
Audrina describes getting pregnant and hoping a child would stabilize things, but the abuse worsened after their daughter Kira was born. She recounts an incident where Corey left Kira, then only four or five months old, unattended while drinking with friends. She married Corey five months after giving birth, admitting she was in 'robot mode' — a learned performance skill from years on The Hills — and that her sister urged her the night before not to go through with it.
The physical abuse came to a head when Corey shoved her while she was holding Kira, triggering police involvement. She explains she delayed calling the police because she knew it would become public record and go straight to the tabloids, which it did. A restraining order followed after he continued to show up at her events and harass her. She describes the aftermath as a period of extreme emotional depletion, weight loss, and isolation, and credits her recovery to faith, attending church with Kira, and building a support community.
Audrina closes by emphasizing that abuse is not always physical — emotional and verbal abuse, such as being called names daily, can be equally devastating and take a long time to recover from. She says her standards for dating are now very high, that she won't introduce anyone to her daughter or inner circle until a relationship is truly solid, and that she is now in a genuinely happy and healed place.
Key Insights
- Audrina argues that Corey's obsessive accusations of her cheating were projection — each time he accused her, she would later discover he had actually been with other women during that period.
- Audrina describes developing a coping mechanism she calls 'robot mode,' a detached performance state originally learned from years of reality TV filming, which she unconsciously applied to get through her own wedding day.
- Audrina claims she deliberately hid the abuse from family and friends for years because she found it humiliating and wanted to maintain the appearance that her marriage could work, especially after having a child.
- Audrina contends that the police call was a calculated, irreversible decision — she knew the moment she made it, the marriage was definitively over and the story would become public record in the tabloids.
- Audrina argues that being told you are worthless every day causes you to internalize it as reality, which is why she says emotional abuse takes as long or longer to recover from than physical abuse.
- Audrina describes Justin Bobby as genuinely caring and emotionally present off-camera, and argues that producers deliberately manufactured jealousy between them to generate drama that didn't organically exist.
- Audrina claims she stayed in the abusive marriage partly because divorce was not normalized in her family culture — the expectation was to work through problems no matter what — making the decision to leave feel like a personal and familial failure.
- Audrina says her recovery was driven primarily by faith and weekly church attendance with her daughter, arguing that building a spiritual support community gave her the courage to pursue divorce when she felt too depleted to make the decision alone.
Topics
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