Rachel Bilson and Audrina Patridge are bonding over shared wounds.
In fact, The Hills alum and The O.C. actress recently realized they were both victims of The Bling Ring, a group of teens who burglarized a slew of celebrity homes between 2008 and 2009, and reflected on their shared experience.
"I had just gotten back from Australia—I cohosted the VMAs or something out there—so everything was still packed," Partridge recalled of her robbery, which took place during a 2009 Oscars party, on the Feb. 26 episode of Broad Ideas with Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen. "I got home changed and then I went to the party and I came home, and I was like, ‘Am I losing my mind? My suitcase is gone, my laptop. Everything is off my bed. What is going on?'"
And the reality star's theft—which is depicted in a scene of Sofia Coppola's 2013 film The Bling Ring—initially terrified her.
"Then I went in my closet and I called my sister and I was like, ‘OK, if I open my jewelry box and stuff is gone, someone is in my house or stole stuff,'" she continued. "I opened it, and everything is gone. That's when I locked myself in because I didn't know if they were still in the house. I was afraid to get off the phone so I had my brother-in-law call 911 while I was on speaker and then they sent the cops."
Meanwhile, Bilson was out of town for the five times the group—which included Rachel Lee, Nick Prugo, Alexis Neiers, Courtney Ames and Diana Tamayo—broke into her home, but she still feels scarred from the events.
While the 42-year-old had clothes, shoes, bags, and even her mother's engagement ring taken in her robberies, she recalled a detail Lee disclosed in an interview after the group was caught that affected her most: "Rachel who gave the interview—was like, ‘I got so comfortable, I pooped in her bathroom.' I was like, ‘That's almost the most offensive part.'"
The members of the Bling Ring stole a cumulative $3 million from celebrity homes, which included Patridge, Bilson, and others like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. The members—who were all between 18 and 19 years old at the time of their arrests—served various jail sentences for the crimes.
Neiers, who was sentenced to 180 days in a county jail as well as a three year probation, later went on to be a guest on Bilson's podcast in 2022 with her sister, Gabby Neiers, where Bilson also aired out her grievances surrounding the burglaries, but has ultimately forgiven them.
"I'm old enough and grown past it enough, you were a kid. Like, you want to talk about it—fine. I'm not gonna be like, ‘Oh, it's cool whatever,' but I wasn't going to give them a hard time either. It was kind of just like, ‘Sure, say your piece. That's fine,'" Bilson added on Feb. 26. "You were kids but it was so f--ked up. There's no way around that."