The Bling Ring Stole Millions From LA's Elite. Where Are They Now?
On the night of the 2009 Academy Awards, Audrina Partridge returned to her Hollywood home, only to discover that a suitcase of brand new clothes and many other possessions had been stolen. “After my house was broken into, I was the most terrified I’ve ever been in my entire life, Patridge says in the new Netflix documentary, The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist. "I was thinking they’re going to kill me." Patridge, apparently, was so worried the burglars were still in the house that she locked herself into a closet and called for help to arrive.
Now, you may not remember their names, but if you were conscious during the 2000s, you definitely heard of a group of precocious wild teenagers called the Bling Ring, who were arrested for robbing the homes of celebrities—Patridge included. Even though the crimes and lives of this gang of burglars were well-documented in Alexis Neiers' 2010 reality show, Pretty Wild, a 2010 Vanity Fair feature called "The Suspect Wore Louboutins," and in Sofia Coppola's adaptation of the events in 2013's The Bling Ring, we're once again recalling the late aughts. The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist promises to shed new light on this old story, this time letting Bling Ring members Alexis Neiers and Nick Prugo tell their own perspective of the events, including a different account of the Patridge burglary.
Unless you were living under a rock (without Internet!) in 2009, you probably heard about the string of burglaries that struck the Hollywood elite. The homes of stars such as Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Orlando Bloom were broken into and robbed, the amount of stolen items totaling millions of dollars. The perpetrators were young teenagers, barely out of high school. Prugo, who started stealing valuables with his friend, Rachel Lee, described himself as a poor member of the well to-do families in his hometown of Calabasas, California. Lee declined to comment or participate in the documentary.
Neiers and Prugo describe themselves as young, impressionable, lost kids, who were clinging to an escape from lives that they felt weren't good enough for them. The more The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist tried to contextualize the lives and the actions of Neiers and Prugo, the more confusing the documentary gets. The two even have opposing thoughts about who was the face of The Bling Ring. Prugo even says that it bothers him that Neiers was considered the leader of their group to the public. Prugo mentions that he was also unhappy with the actor, Israel Broussard, who portrayed him in The Bling Ring film adaptation. When asked who he thought should have played him, he responded: "Like a super young Tom Cruise?"
After watching the documentary, you may find yourself asking: where are these people now? Although spending three hours with these people might be more than enough for some viewers, here's what we could find about what the Bling Ring is up to now. Lee, the supposed leader of the Bling Ring, has been living mostly off the radar, avoiding publicity and talking to the press. Lee was sentenced to four years in state prison, but ended up serving 16 months for her connection with the robberies. She is still working and living in California.
Prugo was the first of the group to be arrested and confess to the robberies. Prugo pled no contest to the burglaries at Lindsay Lohan and Audrina Patridge's home and served one year of his two-year sentence in jail. He is applying for a rehabilitation certification and a pardon from the Governor. Also, Prugo is now married to his husband of five years, and runs an online business with him. Neiers pled no contest to a felony charge, serving 32 days in county jail for the burglary of Orlando Bloom's home. She was then sentenced to a year in residential rehab for her drug addiction. Neiers has now been sober for eleven years, and is busy raising her two children, spending time advocating for people struggling substance abuse.
If you're still hungry for more Bling Ring content, you're going to have to sit down and pop on the Sofia Coppola movie again—because there likely aren't any more details to be uncovered about these former teenage thieves.
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