The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist (2022) s01e01 Episode Script
The Fame Game
1
[birds chirping]
[phone ringing]
[unsettling music playing]
[Nick Prugo] My mother comes in my bedroom
with the phone in her hand, crying.
So she gives me the phone.
[Alexis Neiers] They rolled into the house
around 3:00 to 4:00 in the morning,
popped a Xanax,
thinking, you know, we're gonna have
to be up for makeup at 7:00.
And that didn't end up happening.
[indistinct police radio]
[knocking on door]
"I'm the detective in charge. We need you
to come outside with your hands up."
There was a SWAT team at my house.
[unsettling music continues]
[Nick] And that's when
the real shit hit the fan.
[intense music plays]
[reporter 1] Tell me about
these teenage suspects
and why there's such shock in Hollywood?
[Jim Moret] Nick Prugo and Alexis Neiers,
they were the two big names.
[reporter 2] They were members
of a burglary ring
that targeted Paris Hilton
Horrified, disgusted
by what they did to me.
[reporter 2] Orlando Bloom
Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you.
[reporter 2] and other A-list stars.
It was like they went shopping
in my closet.
[intense music continues]
Residential burglary,
possession of multiple firearms,
and a large amount of narcotics.
[reporter 3] Who planned the whole thing?
After they got arrested,
it was a great story.
It was getting started.
[reporter 2] The alleged thieves
are now getting their own taste of fame.
[laughing]
We wanted to be our own celebrity.
At the time, reality television mixed
with social media democratized fame.
[reporter 2]
Neiers is now filming a reality TV show
about her wild Hollywood lifestyle.
You lied!
- Stop! Stop it!
- You lied!
The reaction was real,
but the setup was fake.
If you'd written it as a script,
no one would believe it.
And yet a movie was made.
Consumption and celebrity are celebrated
in a film called The Bling Ring.
Emma Watson is one of its stars.
[man] Action!
[narrator] Even the lead investigator
in the case is appearing in the movie.
I'm really looking forward
to my day in court.
The court cases were huge.
The defendants want to be famous.
The attorneys want to be famous.
The police wanted to be famous.
It's like a fucked-up LA Greek tragedy.
[Moret] Hollywood is the only place
this could happen.
[intense music ends]
I'm feeling like I have, like,
a lot of regrets right now.
- [director] About doing this?
- Mm-hmm.
[atmospheric music playing]
[reporter] Let's turn to The Bling Ring,
that gang of youths charged
with breaking into the homes
of Hollywood's rich and famous.
How did they pull off
such an audacious string of capers?
[narrator] Every once in a while,
there's a crime that goes beyond
even the importance of the facts.
How they did this is very impressive.
But the big question is,
why they would do something like this?
[clapper] Nick, take one, mark.
[clack]
[Nick] Hi, I'm Nick.
[Alexis] And I'm Alexis.
[Nick] I know you want to get
to the crimes, but before we get there,
we've gotta do the backstory.
This is where I grew up.
It's called the San Fernando Valley,
and it's quite literally
in the shadow of Hollywood.
Here's a flashy realtor to explain.
LA, it's the greatest place in the world.
They don't call it "La La Land"
for nothing. [laughs]
["Million Bucks" by Maino
feat. Swizz Beatz playing]
[Josh] You got the beach.
You got the sun, the fun,
beautiful people,
the cars, the supermodels.
You might just get that shot to be
in a movie one day and become a celebrity.
If you can get there.
I think I might give away
A million bucks ♪
I think I might give away
A brand-new truck ♪
'Cause I feel good
Yeah, I feel good 'cause I feel good ♪
Hey, I think I might take you
On a shoppin' spree ♪
You in the club
Goddamn all drinks on me ♪
People spend their entire life,
chasing their dream in LA.
It's ruthless.
My enemies ain't here, they gone away ♪
I feel good, everything is okay ♪
[Josh] LA is a place
of the have and have-nots.
ain't no bread in the hood ♪
Look what they did
They sendin' feds in the hood ♪
[Josh] People who maybe
didn't make it in LA live in the Valley.
[ding]
Once you've crossed that mountain,
that is people
that can't afford to be on this side.
["Million Bucks" continues playing]
It's almost a sense of normalcy.
[music fades]
[whirring]
[mischievous music playing]
[Nick] I grew up
in Granada Hills in the Valley
with my mother and my father.
And my sister's
three years younger than me.
It's a nice little suburban area.
We had a ranch-style home,
one story
Just a very, like, average,
you know, little life.
I guess it's just more suburban
than the other side.
[mischievous music soars]
[reporters shouting indistinctly]
[screaming and cheering]
[Nick] Being interested in that world
of the fame and the celebrity,
I really wanted
to make an attempt at acting.
I did several things.
I was on Zoey 101 doing extra work,
which was like Britney Spears'
sister's show at the time.
You're going behind the scenes
with the cast of Zoey 101.
I was on Nickelodeon. And that was cool.
I mean, driving to set there
and I felt famous, I guess,
or what I thought
being famous would feel like.
It wasn't the acting
I was enjoying, per se,
it was the experience
of the cameras and the attention.
It wasn't the actual craft of acting,
which is, you know, strange
if I wanted to be an actor, right?
Um
[director] Did you want to be famous?
No, that wasn't, like [chuckles]
That wasn't the goal. It was
It was deeper than that.
Um
[exhales softly]
[birds chirping]
[Alexis] Okay, that's Nick's background
out of the way.
Now, over to me.
I grew up with all of this.
Like, the cameras and the lights,
and on the sets of major sitcoms.
["I'll Be There For You"
by The Rembrandts playing]
[Alexis] My dad was a director
of photography on the show Friends.
And I remember thinking it was so cool
every time they'd put up
the sign for a laugh. [laughs]
[David Schwimmer] What we have here,
is a difference of opinion.
[audience laughs]
[Alexis] I remember
running around stage to stage
and being in the makeup rooms
of major Hollywood celebrities.
[upbeat music playing]
[Andrea Arlington]
I was a model for many years.
I started modeling lingerie
as early as 16.
I did, um, a lot of work for Playboy.
I started playing
some sexy role on this sitcom.
And that's where I met Michael,
who is Alexis's father.
[Alexis] He liked being married to
the most beautiful woman in the room.
And then after that,
it was probably the way
that they liked to drink and party.
My mom had been using cocaine
at that point for many years.
But when she was having kids,
my mom was kind of ready to grow up,
and my dad was not.
[Andrea] The girls came home
one Sunday afternoon,
and they had their fingernails painted.
And I said,
"Where did you get your nails painted?"
And Alexis said to me, "Amy painted them."
"We had dinner at her house,
and it was just like we were a family."
And I was like, "Who's Amy?"
[inhales]
So, my marriage was over.
[Gabbie Neiers] I remember my mom
hysterically crying in the bathroom.
[exhales] And I just think that's
because her whole life fell apart.
[Alexis] After the divorce,
we probably moved nine times.
I was, like, a needy, broken,
damaged kid at that point,
and I was really angry.
[birds chirping]
Everything was good
up until puberty. [laughs]
[mischievous music plays]
[Nick] Everything's going haywire.
You start breaking out.
And I was confused
because, like, when I was younger,
I would think I had crushes on girls.
I started feeling this way towards guys,
which I thought would disappoint my dad.
I started becoming
way more self-conscious.
I was, you know, going on these auditions,
and it was becoming more and more
of something I would dread.
I'd be in a room full of people that
I thought were gonna be better than me,
look better, had more talent than me.
Was having such anxiety
that I stopped acting.
And then, to make matters worse
[rock music playing]
[Nick] when I was 15,
we moved to Calabasas.
It's, like, nothing like
the rest of the Valley.
Welcome to Calabasas,
known for its rural settings
and mountainous views,
and stunning Mediterranean
and French-style houses.
Calabasas is known
for its celebrity enclave.
You're gonna see stars like Justin Bieber,
The Weeknd, Selena Gomez, Drake.
If you live in Calabasas, you're a winner.
[Nick] But we were on the bottom end
of, like, wealth in Calabasas.
Going to school,
you would literally see Mercedes,
Range Rovers, Porsches, BMWs.
My mom was dropping me off in a Honda.
You know? You feel like you're
sticking out, and not in a good way.
[Romy Baral] I just remember
this kid with, like a hat. Um
Just really shy.
He's not comfortable being himself.
[Nick] At that time in my life,
my self-esteem just tanked.
Then it kind of changed when I met Rachel.
[clicking]
[Nick]
Rachel was just everything I wasn't:
super confident,
super popular, super pretty.
She seemed to know
the good-looking people, the right people.
She kind of took a shine to me.
She brought me out of my shell.
[rock music playing]
[Romy] I feel like she had
a huge impact on him,
into clothing, fashion,
really into, like, that fast life.
Someone I just wouldn't be friends with.
[Nick] She was interested
in entertainment and celebrity,
and I think we kind of bonded
over that kind of stuff.
She was going to all the parties.
This was awesome for me, you know.
[Romy] I feel like if there was no Rachel,
there'd be no Nick.
Them together was, like, a bad match.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Nick] One night, Rachel and I
were leaving a party in the Valley.
And Rachel went over to a car.
Pulled on this door handle,
probably joking, and it opened.
She was just so carefree
and just so nonchalant.
I was terrified.
I thought we were gonna get caught,
like, in trouble,
like it definitely was scary.
[suspenseful music continues]
[ding]
[Nick] So, we ended up
with all these credit cards, you know.
- And the next day, we went shopping.
- [cash register dings]
[upbeat music playing]
[Lauren Messiah]
Welcome to Robertson Boulevard.
I'm Lauren Messiah.
I'll be your personal stylist for the day.
During that time, Paris Hilton, Audrina,
Lindsay Lohan,
if you are one of those little starlets,
you were shopping Robertson.
[Nick] Rachel definitely admired
Lindsay Lohan's style
and Audrina Patridge's style.
So, like, people that she would see on TV.
It wasn't like we were obsessed
with these celebrities as much it was,
the stuff they had.
[upbeat music continues]
[ding]
[Lauren] When people
buy designer clothing,
they're looking for entry
into this coveted inner circle.
You're wearing a little piece of success.
[ding]
[Lauren] You're wearing
a little piece of "I made it."
[Nick]
So, I've always been the type of person
to kind of do whatever I had
to get what I wanted.
But I never thought in my wildest dreams
that it would reach the level
of criminality that it did.
[tense music playing]
[Nick] I was raised to never steal.
I mean, that was
I was not raised to steal.
I had never stolen.
But with Rachel,
I'd never known a friendship like that.
It gave me that confidence,
and I didn't want to give that up.
So, every time we'd be leaving a party,
we'd be doing this thing,
what we called "checking cars."
I would drive, Rachel would hang out
my passenger window,
and we would just go along cars
on the street, and she pulled the door.
It was always the wealthy communities
and the really expensive cars
that seemed to be unlocked.
She'd search the car in, like,
under 30 seconds.
You get pretty good at it after a while.
[tense music continues]
[Nick] One night, like usual,
we were in Calabasas checking cars.
Um, and Rachel opened the door.
There was nothing in the car but the keys.
So, Rachel's like,
"I'm gonna take the car."
I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
She's like, "Yeah, I need a car."
I'm like, "Okay."
["Infinity Guitars"
by Sleigh Bells playing]
Deaf chords, dead ends ♪
Sling set can't meet their demands ♪
Dumb whores, best friends ♪
Infinity guitars, go 'head ♪
I mean, now we're boosting cars.
Obviously, that's grand theft felony,
you know, that's insane.
[shutter clicks]
[Nick] Especially being 16.
But Rachel just made
everything seem more fine than it was.
[director] How did you get away
with taking that car?
[Nick] So, the one thing about Calabasas,
every car there is new,
and before they gave everyone
numbered plates,
they just had the dealer's name on them.
We would steal new plates
that matched the car,
put them on my new car.
So, cops can't read the plates.
We drove around everywhere,
we showed up in school in that thing.
We felt like we were such hot shit.
Infinity guitars, go 'head ♪
It made me just feel like who I was.
It felt like it was like
a reflection of me, you know.
It was a great feeling.
I was feeling great, to be honest.
I'm sorry, do you mind if I pee?
- [director] Of course.
- I'm sorry.
[mischievous music playing]
[Alexis] Hey. Me again.
So, while Nick was having the time
of his life creating his new image,
my mom was racking up
thousands of dollars in debt
attempting to maintain hers.
[Gabbie] My mom had a cellulite machine
that costs, like, $30,000.
We have a different facial
Red Infrared light machines.
Everything was around beauty
and weight loss.
[Andrea] We were spending money
that we didn't have.
We had no income, and
um
we ended up having to file bankruptcy.
[Gabbie] She didn't have the ability
to go and make the money
that we needed
to live the lifestyle that we had.
Although she did find many little jobs,
it was nothing that was gonna
support our household.
[Alexis] My mom ended up deciding
that she wanted to become a minister.
And we started to attend this church
called the Church of Religious Science,
which sounds like a cult, but it's not.
[Andrea] This was not your typical church.
It's about how we can use
our thoughts and emotions
to create the life we want for ourselves.
It's kind of like a cross
between Buddhism and witchcraft.
So, the movie The Secret
is based on these principles.
[woman] Out of my greatest despair,
was to come the greatest gift.
I'd been given a glimpse
of a great secret.
[Gabbie] My mom grounded me for a whole
summer because I got drunk when I was 12.
And the only thing I was allowed to watch
was The Secret on repeat.
Great punishment. Learned a lot. [laughs]
There's truth to it, but it's just
It's like capitalism at its finest,
and it makes me wanna barf.
Do you know, this secret
gives you everything you want.
Happiness, health, and wealth.
You can have, do, or be anything you want.
[Andrea] So, the movie The Secret
is all about using this Law of Attraction.
The vision board is a way of activating
the Law of Attraction in your life.
It is setting cause in your life
to help you demonstrate the effect
you want out in the world.
[Alexis]
My mom really dove into that church,
specifically,
because she wanted to believe
that she could think away her problems.
[director] I noticed you've got
a million-dollar bill there.
[Andrea]
I do have a million-dollar bill there.
Money is simply a physical demonstration
of the energy of freedom and abundance.
Yeah.
[playful music]
[Alexis] One morning, my mom is like,
"Girls, come in the kitchen
and, you know, meet with me."
This is an affirmation
that the girls asked me to write
for all of us
to work in the entertainment industry.
Um, an affirmation is like a mantra
that you repeat daily,
and it is so that you
can attract what you want in your life.
So, here's how it goes:
"My chief aim in life
is to continually strive
to express greater and greater portions
of my potential as a professional"
Every morning,
we would get together in a corny circle,
and we'd hold hands, and we'd say it.
"as a direct result
of my dedication to excellence
as someone who works
in the entertainment industry"
She really wanted that for us.
She wanted us to be successful.
She wanted us
to have a career like she did.
"that I am a self-reliant
and successful professional
working in the entertainment industry
and giving back to humanity
and our planet."
I remember feeling like,
"Okay, let's give this a shot."
You know?
I mean, this was at a time
when it was getting easier to get on TV.
[sinuous orchestral music playing]
[Perez] Hollywood changed so much
from the Golden Era of cinema
to the new era of reality television.
It used to be, you know,
you could never see a celebrity.
But over the years
[garbled] celebrities became
a lot more accessible.
[upbeat music playing]
What's up, y'all?
Big Snoop D-O-double-G.
I wanna welcome you all
to my house, The Dogg House.
- I loved Cribs.
- I liked Cribs too.
You could go in their homes
and see, like, how they lived
and their cars and their big kitchens
and pools and fancy houses and
Celebrities were usually very guarded
and you couldn't come into their homes,
and now celebrities were allowing
people into their homes.
[rock music playing]
Here we go, we got the shoes.
We got the clothes, the jumpsuits.
Look at that.
The Cribs show opened up
so much more to everybody
with what they can see.
You don't have to idolize the celebrity
from afar, you can get close.
[crowd cheering]
The Osbourne show was the first
true celeb reality show.
What do you want to do with my gun?
Under the bed?
[Sharon] Wherever you want to put it.
You felt like you knew them.
You were in their living room, kitchen.
You were going to bed with them.
Which you never got before
with old Hollywood.
It really helped him
get a whole new audience.
[man] Ozzy!
[Perez] And the whole family.
It made them all stars.
[man] Sharon!
[Moret] Reality television shifted fame.
It wasn't to be famous
for being a great athlete
or a writer or an actor.
It was just being famous.
Look at Paris Hilton.
Paris going out partying
and getting into trouble,
that is what brought her
to the attention of the TV producers.
- Hello.
- I'm Paris.
- Glad to meet you.
- Do you get used to the smell?
Oh yes.
The whole idea was the socialite
that goes to the small town
and then tries to, like,
slum it like the rest of them.
It made for great reality TV.
[man] Turn it around. Have you ever
clocked in anywhere before?
- No.
- Have you ever had a real job?
- No.
- Okay.
[Amber] Reality TV took away the rules.
Now, anyone can be famous.
[Nick] That time in, like, society,
that's what was just
being shoved down our throats, you know?
So, what are you supposed
to kind of want or, you know, go after?
[birds chirping]
[Nick] We were spending
as much as we were stealing.
But we, like, kind of cleaned out LA.
Like, we ran out of neighborhoods.
When the money ran out,
we needed another score.
[atmospheric music playing]
[Nick] Rachel and I are in my room,
and I see this posting
from an old friend that I hadn't
spoken to in probably a year.
Hey guys, what's up?
Welcome to another episode of The Weekly
Announcements with me, Eden Shizzle.
Around this time, I was always on Myspace.
Those who don't know what Myspace is,
it's basically what Facebook is,
but not.
I happened to post
that I was going to Jamaica for 11 days.
[click]
Rachel and I
look at each other, like, "Huh."
"What can we do with this information?"
We drive to his house.
It's a wealthy area. It's a quiet street.
[tense music playing]
[Nick] You know, it looked
pretty easy to get in and out.
We checked the doors, windows.
We realized that nobody was really there.
The door in the back
was just open, unlocked.
It was like, you know, that angel on
one shoulder and the devil on the other.
This was different than stealing cars.
This felt more personal.
Um
But, you know
[mischievous music playing]
[Nick, laughing]
I kept listening to the devil.
Nothing that bad
had happened to us as of yet.
And there was seemingly no consequences.
So, we decide,
there's no nice way of saying it,
to rob his house.
[mischievous music rising]
We knew what we were doing
was obviously criminal.
This felt like
we could potentially be caught.
Because I felt like somebody
is coming home at any moment.
You know, I just
It's not a good feeling.
You know, we just went
from room to room, together.
We were really coming up with nothing.
And then Rachel went
to this person's parents' bedroom.
I hear, like, you know,
an "Eek" of excitement.
- [ding]
- [Nick laughs]
We got this nice chunk of change.
It was like the high
of your first job, your first paycheck.
Because we were putting
a lot of hours into doing this.
[car engine starts]
[Eden] We came home and all of a sudden,
I hear a gut-wrenching scream
coming out of my parents' room.
And I find out that 30 to 40,000 dollars
went missing from their safe box.
Not "$8,000."
And I go straight back to Myspace
to post a bulletin about how mad I am.
This whole situation just made me
lose a lot of trust in a lot of people.
[Nick] I would never have had
that information to commit the burglary
had it not been for Myspace.
The new technology that had just come out,
that just made it so easy.
And we were just getting started.
[click]
[intriguing music playing]
[Alexis] So, while Nick was faking
the celebrity lifestyle through crime,
I was trying to make it
in Hollywood for real.
Which brings me to my best friend, Tess.
[man] Hey, Tess and Lexi,
what's up, ladies? How you doing?
- Hi.
- Hi.
[Alexis] Tess has been in my life
since I was a toddler.
I feel like we were kindred souls
because we had both been through
a lot in our early childhoods.
Later on, in my teenage years,
Tess needed a place to go.
And she asked my mom
if she could move in with us.
[Andrea] She said to me, "Mom,"
because she used to call me "Mom,"
"Please, can I come and live with you?"
And I said, "Yes."
Tess became very close to us,
just like a sister to us.
[Alexis] After Tess had moved in,
my mom kind of noticed that we were just
smoking pot and doing drugs all the time.
And so, my mom was, kind of, like,
"Okay, girls, you need to start working."
"What do you want to do?"
[Andrea] Tess and Alexis were
extraordinarily beautiful young girls.
They also had the Law of Attraction
working for them.
And that's really helpful, energetically.
And the girls made up this beautiful plan
that they were going
to become successful as models.
My mom was like, "Maybe you
should get into pinup modeling."
[director] That was their idea?
To become models?
Yes, it was their idea. Mm-hmm.
[sniffles] Yeah.
[Gabbie] My mom really pushed it,
and they were just willing to do it
because it allowed them to go out to LA
and have fun.
[rock music playing]
[Alexis] When we were 16, my mom drove us
to downtown LA to get fake IDs,
and we started going out and working jobs.
I teach Pilates, and pole dancing,
and I'm a pointe ballerina and an actress.
Before you show up to shoots,
you often don't know
what you're getting involved with.
But now that I have daughters,
I just can't even imagine
subjecting them to that.
It's everything I had been doing
my entire life from the time I was 14,
using my looks and my personality
to earn money.
And they started to have some success.
["Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon"
by Marilyn Manson playing]
[Alexis] Tess and I booked this gig
for a Marilyn Manson music video.
Marilyn Manson music videos
were always dark and gothic,
so we were nervous about what to expect.
We were hired as,
like, background dancers.
Behind that sheet he's in,
we're like, essentially naked,
pressing our bodies against the thing.
And I'm, like, 17.
I had brought like an eight-ball of coke.
We'd been drinking pretty heavily.
It was like a party all night long.
I liked the rush and the excitement.
It was unlike anything
that I had experienced.
And I remember just thinking
to myself, like, "Wow."
Like, "If I can just party like that
and get paid, we are golden."
"This is all that I need
for the rest of my life, is this."
You sell your soul to the devil, right?
[clicking]
[keyboard keys clacking]
[Alexis] I mean, sex sells.
And at this time,
it was selling like never before.
You're, like, obsessed.
You always film me.
[Alexis] After Paris Hilton's boyfriend
released the infamous sex tape.
- [man exhales]
- [laughs]
The concept of scandal
is a complicated one.
Paris's sex tape being released
was a huge deal.
[man] What are you doing, Paris?
[Perez]
Because it got her a lot of attention.
[man, laughing] Beautiful beast.
[Alexis]
A celebrity in such a private video
had rarely been seen before.
I remember specifically thinking,
"Well, that's the end of her career."
Because a generation ago,
it would've been the end of her career.
But with this generation,
somehow it only ignited her career.
[intense music playing]
[Alexis] Now, you can have
a sex tape scandal in Hollywood
and turn it into
a multimillion-dollar enterprise.
Look at the Kardashians.
[paparazzi chattering]
[Alexis] Had Kim not had a sex tape,
they wouldn't be worth hundreds
of millions of dollars, that family.
[Moret] Kim Kardashian looked
at Paris Hilton as creating the blueprint
for how to make a scandal
into something positive.
[Alexis] Who cares if she partook
in creating her own scandal
in order to become famous?
If they did, that's pretty genius.
[Moret] This was success.
Attention equals success.
It wasn't about being likable,
it was about being known.
[Perez] Paris's sex tape
had a great impact on her career.
She became an A-list star.
[Nick] Okay, it's the moment
you've all been waiting for.
Thanks for bearing with me.
Rachel and I were hanging out
in my room one afternoon.
We were mulling about ideas of, you know,
what our next big score was going to be.
You know, Rachel and I,
collectively, had this idea,
you know, hey, a celebrity
would be an excellent mark to hit.
So, I started cruising
the celebrity gossip websites.
Saw that Paris Hilton
was gonna be in Miami.
And that's when we got the idea
to rob Paris.
We had already seen
into Paris Hilton's life so much,
so it didn't seem like much more
of a step to enter her house.
The personality that she gave off
on her reality show is a ditzy blonde,
so we thought she would be more prone
to maybe leaving something unlocked.
So, I went to work trying to find out
where her house was.
I just happened upon this website.
It literally was like a treasure trove
of celebrity addresses.
I mean, anyone you could imagine,
and of course, Paris Hilton's was there.
[keyboard keys clacking]
[laughing] Beverly Hills,
the best of the best. Nothing better.
That's, "Hey, I made it!"
That's the endgame.
Your neighbor could be Tom Cruise,
David Beckham, Larry King.
I mean, the biggest names
in entertainment,
and, of course, Paris Hilton.
I mean, you're talking about
guard-gated communities.
The allure of them
is having the best security in town.
If somebody really wanted to get
into anywhere in this town,
you might have to climb over
some mountains, but you could get there.
[thrilling music playing]
Want to break into a celebrity home?
Here's how you do it.
Step one, pull up Google Maps,
and look at the terrain of the area.
That technology was like a gift from God.
I mean, it was vital in our operation.
Next is access.
To avoid those guards,
use the adjacent neighborhood trails.
We parked our car, got out,
walked up the fire road
like we were hiking,
just like normal unsuspecting teenagers.
At the end of the trail,
there's a fence. You'll have to scale it.
Once you're over the fence,
you're going to be close to Paris's.
It's the one with the pink Bentley.
Rachel led the way because I was
a little scared chickenshit.
Approach with caution,
and remember, act like you belong.
We were super kind of excited that,
like, we were at Paris Hilton's house.
It wasn't like a stalkery kind of way,
it was more of like a geeky fan way,
but, hey, we're also
going to rob you, you know?
Approach the front door confidently
[doorbell rings]
and ring the doorbell a few times.
Rachel, being ballsy Rachel,
tried the door
and it it opened.
Welcome to my beauty space, come in.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Nick] Once you walk through those doors,
it was like you entered
a whole new world of Paris.
It didn't feel like,
you know, like a home.
It felt like, probably, a really nice
Hilton Hotel, you know.
It was just vast amounts
of extravagance, everywhere.
It was like nothing I had ever seen.
- Oh my God.
- I know, right?
[Nick] You can see in the movie,
they were allowed to film
inside of Paris Hilton's actual house.
It's her nightclub room.
[Nick] It was weird, 'cause there were
so many photographs of her.
It was almost like a museum to herself.
[Natalie] Holy shit.
They're too casual
walking through the house.
Rachel and I were
a little more cat burglar-like. [chuckles]
Just like in the film, we mainly
focused our time in the closets
where we assumed there would be the stuff
we were there looking for.
We weren't there to,
you know, steal her waffle maker.
These are Alexander McQueen.
[Nick] The movie doesn't really capture
how much adrenaline
was really pumping through our bodies.
[thrilling music playing]
[Nick] This is accurate though.
So many clothes, dresses, lingerie,
all with tags on it, so much stuff.
It was almost like
we were at a high-end store,
ready to, you know,
as Rachel coined it, "Go shopping."
We assumed that a lot
of Paris's clothes were gifted to her
by designers and stores.
So, we didn't feel like anything
was being stolen, per se, from Paris,
it was being stolen
from the people that gave this to her.
There were purses open
with cash sticking out,
just like crumpled up 100s and 50s,
spare change from a night out, you know.
In her bedroom is a safe
that was just open.
Inside the safe, was a ton of jewelry.
I didn't feel like there was a victim,
this woman's worth millions of dollars.
We didn't think she would even notice.
[ding]
We so far had gotten away with it.
So, we were on cloud nine riding this high
and then we went and partied, you know?
[atmospheric music playing]
[Nick] Clubbing in LA,
the one requirement
is a bunch of hot girls to one guy.
But Rachel never really wanted
to go to the clubs.
That was not really her scene.
[Alexis] Tess and I were
spending time clubbing, you know,
getting let into
whatever club we wanted to
because we had connections with people
who were already in the industry.
[Nick] I met Tess
through a friend at school,
who I'd met through Rachel.
Introduced me to Alexis Neiers.
She was really beautiful.
She seemed like
she really wanted to be famous.
Like, she really had a dream to,
you know, be a star.
[Alexis] Tess said he's a stylist.
I didn't think twice about it
because, at that time,
we were hanging out with lots of stylists.
I was more than excited to tag along
with Tess and Alexis to these clubs.
[Alexis] We didn't go to clubs
unless it was the best night.
They were very much so, like, A-list.
[Nick] I felt important.
I was wearing these nice clothes
and these nice accessories
and I was with these hot girls.
I mean, it really made you feel
like some sort of celebrity.
So, I wanted to be able
to secure the friendship.
So, it was like, "Oh, I got this,"
or "I'll pay for this,"
or "No big deal," you know?
[Alexis] We went out
a couple of times with Nick.
You know, nothing
stuck out.
And I had a fun time.
[Nick] With all these burglaries,
there were a lot of,
I guess, little things
that I could bring to the table that
I'm sure, Alexis, you know, fancied. Um
It was amazing, I mean, I was 18,
I'm in the exclusive clubs,
but that started draining my money.
So, once, you know, we needed more,
we would just go back to "work."
[rock music playing]
[Nick] After the burglary of Paris's,
we monitored the gossip sites.
So, when there was nothing from Paris,
we realized, "Oh, we could probably
go back and do this again."
This was the time when Paris was clubbing
all the time. She was always out.
At the same time it was a risk
because she was still in town.
So, Rachel and I drove my car up there,
hiked through the mountain,
approached her house.
We tried the door,
but it was locked.
So, now we were like,
"Fuck. What are we gonna do?"
I don't know why,
Rachel looks under the mat,
and there's a fucking key.
Like, really? You know?
So, Rachel puts it in the lock,
opens the door,
and we're inside again,
and now even better yet, we have a key
to access this whenever we want.
[suspenseful music playing]
Between the months
of October and December,
we, you know,
went maybe four or five times,
and one time we took my friend, Courtney.
Each time we would find designer purses
with the cash crumbled up.
We knew we'd always find a few grand.
Rachel would always take a couple clothes,
some jewelry.
We found a nice bag of coke one time,
which was great for us
'cause we were doing drugs.
Her coke was like,
I mean, like, Scarface coke.
That was the best coke I'd ever done,
I mean, just pure, like, "Fuck!" You know?
After we got back to my car,
we just drove around
smoking fucking cigarettes
and blasting music.
You know?
[director] Was that a good night?
Yeah! Fuck yeah, it was a good night!
We were doing Paris Hilton's coke.
Who the fuck can say that?
So, you know, we were constantly
going to Paris's house,
and it was like our personal ATM, really.
I mean, we kind of knew
we'd always find a few grand.
And eventually we finally reached a point
where there were no more money
in these purses.
So, after that, we knew
there was all that jewelry in her safe.
But we didn't want to take the jewelry
and do the big robbery
'cause once her safe was
completely emptied, she's gonna report it.
It's definitely gonna be news.
So, we enlisted Courtney's coworker,
Roy Lopez.
Our thinking was,
if someone was to get caught,
it wouldn't have been us,
it would have been Roy.
I drew a map of exactly
how to get there up the fire road.
"Here's the key."
Roy Lopez went,
cleaned it out,
and then literally the next day
it was on the news.
It was a huge story.
In the news this morning,
Los Angeles Police investigating
a burglary at the home of Paris Hilton.
Paris Hilton is said to be distraught
after a burglar ransacked her LA bedroom.
Taking approximately
two million dollars in jewelry.
[reporter 1]
Two million dollars in jewelry.
[reporter 2] Two million in jewelry.
[clamoring]
[reporter 3] Paris, what would you say
to the burglar if you had a chance?
[Paris]
They're a bunch of dirty rotten thieves.
[director]
Were you worried about getting caught?
Um
I wasn't worried,
just because somebody else had done it,
and we really couldn't be connected
or blamed at that point.
Me and Rachel were already
picking out our Porsches.
But we didn't really see
much of anything from it.
Roy Lopez wasn't sophisticated enough
to actually sell this stuff.
But even though
we had burned Paris Hilton's house,
we lived in Los Angeles.
There were hundreds
of other celebrities to pick from.
[enthralling music playing]
[buzzing]
[police siren blaring]
[reporter] Tonight, could these teens be
at the heart of a Hollywood crime spree?
[closing theme music playing]
[birds chirping]
[phone ringing]
[unsettling music playing]
[Nick Prugo] My mother comes in my bedroom
with the phone in her hand, crying.
So she gives me the phone.
[Alexis Neiers] They rolled into the house
around 3:00 to 4:00 in the morning,
popped a Xanax,
thinking, you know, we're gonna have
to be up for makeup at 7:00.
And that didn't end up happening.
[indistinct police radio]
[knocking on door]
"I'm the detective in charge. We need you
to come outside with your hands up."
There was a SWAT team at my house.
[unsettling music continues]
[Nick] And that's when
the real shit hit the fan.
[intense music plays]
[reporter 1] Tell me about
these teenage suspects
and why there's such shock in Hollywood?
[Jim Moret] Nick Prugo and Alexis Neiers,
they were the two big names.
[reporter 2] They were members
of a burglary ring
that targeted Paris Hilton
Horrified, disgusted
by what they did to me.
[reporter 2] Orlando Bloom
Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you.
[reporter 2] and other A-list stars.
It was like they went shopping
in my closet.
[intense music continues]
Residential burglary,
possession of multiple firearms,
and a large amount of narcotics.
[reporter 3] Who planned the whole thing?
After they got arrested,
it was a great story.
It was getting started.
[reporter 2] The alleged thieves
are now getting their own taste of fame.
[laughing]
We wanted to be our own celebrity.
At the time, reality television mixed
with social media democratized fame.
[reporter 2]
Neiers is now filming a reality TV show
about her wild Hollywood lifestyle.
You lied!
- Stop! Stop it!
- You lied!
The reaction was real,
but the setup was fake.
If you'd written it as a script,
no one would believe it.
And yet a movie was made.
Consumption and celebrity are celebrated
in a film called The Bling Ring.
Emma Watson is one of its stars.
[man] Action!
[narrator] Even the lead investigator
in the case is appearing in the movie.
I'm really looking forward
to my day in court.
The court cases were huge.
The defendants want to be famous.
The attorneys want to be famous.
The police wanted to be famous.
It's like a fucked-up LA Greek tragedy.
[Moret] Hollywood is the only place
this could happen.
[intense music ends]
I'm feeling like I have, like,
a lot of regrets right now.
- [director] About doing this?
- Mm-hmm.
[atmospheric music playing]
[reporter] Let's turn to The Bling Ring,
that gang of youths charged
with breaking into the homes
of Hollywood's rich and famous.
How did they pull off
such an audacious string of capers?
[narrator] Every once in a while,
there's a crime that goes beyond
even the importance of the facts.
How they did this is very impressive.
But the big question is,
why they would do something like this?
[clapper] Nick, take one, mark.
[clack]
[Nick] Hi, I'm Nick.
[Alexis] And I'm Alexis.
[Nick] I know you want to get
to the crimes, but before we get there,
we've gotta do the backstory.
This is where I grew up.
It's called the San Fernando Valley,
and it's quite literally
in the shadow of Hollywood.
Here's a flashy realtor to explain.
LA, it's the greatest place in the world.
They don't call it "La La Land"
for nothing. [laughs]
["Million Bucks" by Maino
feat. Swizz Beatz playing]
[Josh] You got the beach.
You got the sun, the fun,
beautiful people,
the cars, the supermodels.
You might just get that shot to be
in a movie one day and become a celebrity.
If you can get there.
I think I might give away
A million bucks ♪
I think I might give away
A brand-new truck ♪
'Cause I feel good
Yeah, I feel good 'cause I feel good ♪
Hey, I think I might take you
On a shoppin' spree ♪
You in the club
Goddamn all drinks on me ♪
People spend their entire life,
chasing their dream in LA.
It's ruthless.
My enemies ain't here, they gone away ♪
I feel good, everything is okay ♪
[Josh] LA is a place
of the have and have-nots.
ain't no bread in the hood ♪
Look what they did
They sendin' feds in the hood ♪
[Josh] People who maybe
didn't make it in LA live in the Valley.
[ding]
Once you've crossed that mountain,
that is people
that can't afford to be on this side.
["Million Bucks" continues playing]
It's almost a sense of normalcy.
[music fades]
[whirring]
[mischievous music playing]
[Nick] I grew up
in Granada Hills in the Valley
with my mother and my father.
And my sister's
three years younger than me.
It's a nice little suburban area.
We had a ranch-style home,
one story
Just a very, like, average,
you know, little life.
I guess it's just more suburban
than the other side.
[mischievous music soars]
[reporters shouting indistinctly]
[screaming and cheering]
[Nick] Being interested in that world
of the fame and the celebrity,
I really wanted
to make an attempt at acting.
I did several things.
I was on Zoey 101 doing extra work,
which was like Britney Spears'
sister's show at the time.
You're going behind the scenes
with the cast of Zoey 101.
I was on Nickelodeon. And that was cool.
I mean, driving to set there
and I felt famous, I guess,
or what I thought
being famous would feel like.
It wasn't the acting
I was enjoying, per se,
it was the experience
of the cameras and the attention.
It wasn't the actual craft of acting,
which is, you know, strange
if I wanted to be an actor, right?
Um
[director] Did you want to be famous?
No, that wasn't, like [chuckles]
That wasn't the goal. It was
It was deeper than that.
Um
[exhales softly]
[birds chirping]
[Alexis] Okay, that's Nick's background
out of the way.
Now, over to me.
I grew up with all of this.
Like, the cameras and the lights,
and on the sets of major sitcoms.
["I'll Be There For You"
by The Rembrandts playing]
[Alexis] My dad was a director
of photography on the show Friends.
And I remember thinking it was so cool
every time they'd put up
the sign for a laugh. [laughs]
[David Schwimmer] What we have here,
is a difference of opinion.
[audience laughs]
[Alexis] I remember
running around stage to stage
and being in the makeup rooms
of major Hollywood celebrities.
[upbeat music playing]
[Andrea Arlington]
I was a model for many years.
I started modeling lingerie
as early as 16.
I did, um, a lot of work for Playboy.
I started playing
some sexy role on this sitcom.
And that's where I met Michael,
who is Alexis's father.
[Alexis] He liked being married to
the most beautiful woman in the room.
And then after that,
it was probably the way
that they liked to drink and party.
My mom had been using cocaine
at that point for many years.
But when she was having kids,
my mom was kind of ready to grow up,
and my dad was not.
[Andrea] The girls came home
one Sunday afternoon,
and they had their fingernails painted.
And I said,
"Where did you get your nails painted?"
And Alexis said to me, "Amy painted them."
"We had dinner at her house,
and it was just like we were a family."
And I was like, "Who's Amy?"
[inhales]
So, my marriage was over.
[Gabbie Neiers] I remember my mom
hysterically crying in the bathroom.
[exhales] And I just think that's
because her whole life fell apart.
[Alexis] After the divorce,
we probably moved nine times.
I was, like, a needy, broken,
damaged kid at that point,
and I was really angry.
[birds chirping]
Everything was good
up until puberty. [laughs]
[mischievous music plays]
[Nick] Everything's going haywire.
You start breaking out.
And I was confused
because, like, when I was younger,
I would think I had crushes on girls.
I started feeling this way towards guys,
which I thought would disappoint my dad.
I started becoming
way more self-conscious.
I was, you know, going on these auditions,
and it was becoming more and more
of something I would dread.
I'd be in a room full of people that
I thought were gonna be better than me,
look better, had more talent than me.
Was having such anxiety
that I stopped acting.
And then, to make matters worse
[rock music playing]
[Nick] when I was 15,
we moved to Calabasas.
It's, like, nothing like
the rest of the Valley.
Welcome to Calabasas,
known for its rural settings
and mountainous views,
and stunning Mediterranean
and French-style houses.
Calabasas is known
for its celebrity enclave.
You're gonna see stars like Justin Bieber,
The Weeknd, Selena Gomez, Drake.
If you live in Calabasas, you're a winner.
[Nick] But we were on the bottom end
of, like, wealth in Calabasas.
Going to school,
you would literally see Mercedes,
Range Rovers, Porsches, BMWs.
My mom was dropping me off in a Honda.
You know? You feel like you're
sticking out, and not in a good way.
[Romy Baral] I just remember
this kid with, like a hat. Um
Just really shy.
He's not comfortable being himself.
[Nick] At that time in my life,
my self-esteem just tanked.
Then it kind of changed when I met Rachel.
[clicking]
[Nick]
Rachel was just everything I wasn't:
super confident,
super popular, super pretty.
She seemed to know
the good-looking people, the right people.
She kind of took a shine to me.
She brought me out of my shell.
[rock music playing]
[Romy] I feel like she had
a huge impact on him,
into clothing, fashion,
really into, like, that fast life.
Someone I just wouldn't be friends with.
[Nick] She was interested
in entertainment and celebrity,
and I think we kind of bonded
over that kind of stuff.
She was going to all the parties.
This was awesome for me, you know.
[Romy] I feel like if there was no Rachel,
there'd be no Nick.
Them together was, like, a bad match.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Nick] One night, Rachel and I
were leaving a party in the Valley.
And Rachel went over to a car.
Pulled on this door handle,
probably joking, and it opened.
She was just so carefree
and just so nonchalant.
I was terrified.
I thought we were gonna get caught,
like, in trouble,
like it definitely was scary.
[suspenseful music continues]
[ding]
[Nick] So, we ended up
with all these credit cards, you know.
- And the next day, we went shopping.
- [cash register dings]
[upbeat music playing]
[Lauren Messiah]
Welcome to Robertson Boulevard.
I'm Lauren Messiah.
I'll be your personal stylist for the day.
During that time, Paris Hilton, Audrina,
Lindsay Lohan,
if you are one of those little starlets,
you were shopping Robertson.
[Nick] Rachel definitely admired
Lindsay Lohan's style
and Audrina Patridge's style.
So, like, people that she would see on TV.
It wasn't like we were obsessed
with these celebrities as much it was,
the stuff they had.
[upbeat music continues]
[ding]
[Lauren] When people
buy designer clothing,
they're looking for entry
into this coveted inner circle.
You're wearing a little piece of success.
[ding]
[Lauren] You're wearing
a little piece of "I made it."
[Nick]
So, I've always been the type of person
to kind of do whatever I had
to get what I wanted.
But I never thought in my wildest dreams
that it would reach the level
of criminality that it did.
[tense music playing]
[Nick] I was raised to never steal.
I mean, that was
I was not raised to steal.
I had never stolen.
But with Rachel,
I'd never known a friendship like that.
It gave me that confidence,
and I didn't want to give that up.
So, every time we'd be leaving a party,
we'd be doing this thing,
what we called "checking cars."
I would drive, Rachel would hang out
my passenger window,
and we would just go along cars
on the street, and she pulled the door.
It was always the wealthy communities
and the really expensive cars
that seemed to be unlocked.
She'd search the car in, like,
under 30 seconds.
You get pretty good at it after a while.
[tense music continues]
[Nick] One night, like usual,
we were in Calabasas checking cars.
Um, and Rachel opened the door.
There was nothing in the car but the keys.
So, Rachel's like,
"I'm gonna take the car."
I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
She's like, "Yeah, I need a car."
I'm like, "Okay."
["Infinity Guitars"
by Sleigh Bells playing]
Deaf chords, dead ends ♪
Sling set can't meet their demands ♪
Dumb whores, best friends ♪
Infinity guitars, go 'head ♪
I mean, now we're boosting cars.
Obviously, that's grand theft felony,
you know, that's insane.
[shutter clicks]
[Nick] Especially being 16.
But Rachel just made
everything seem more fine than it was.
[director] How did you get away
with taking that car?
[Nick] So, the one thing about Calabasas,
every car there is new,
and before they gave everyone
numbered plates,
they just had the dealer's name on them.
We would steal new plates
that matched the car,
put them on my new car.
So, cops can't read the plates.
We drove around everywhere,
we showed up in school in that thing.
We felt like we were such hot shit.
Infinity guitars, go 'head ♪
It made me just feel like who I was.
It felt like it was like
a reflection of me, you know.
It was a great feeling.
I was feeling great, to be honest.
I'm sorry, do you mind if I pee?
- [director] Of course.
- I'm sorry.
[mischievous music playing]
[Alexis] Hey. Me again.
So, while Nick was having the time
of his life creating his new image,
my mom was racking up
thousands of dollars in debt
attempting to maintain hers.
[Gabbie] My mom had a cellulite machine
that costs, like, $30,000.
We have a different facial
Red Infrared light machines.
Everything was around beauty
and weight loss.
[Andrea] We were spending money
that we didn't have.
We had no income, and
um
we ended up having to file bankruptcy.
[Gabbie] She didn't have the ability
to go and make the money
that we needed
to live the lifestyle that we had.
Although she did find many little jobs,
it was nothing that was gonna
support our household.
[Alexis] My mom ended up deciding
that she wanted to become a minister.
And we started to attend this church
called the Church of Religious Science,
which sounds like a cult, but it's not.
[Andrea] This was not your typical church.
It's about how we can use
our thoughts and emotions
to create the life we want for ourselves.
It's kind of like a cross
between Buddhism and witchcraft.
So, the movie The Secret
is based on these principles.
[woman] Out of my greatest despair,
was to come the greatest gift.
I'd been given a glimpse
of a great secret.
[Gabbie] My mom grounded me for a whole
summer because I got drunk when I was 12.
And the only thing I was allowed to watch
was The Secret on repeat.
Great punishment. Learned a lot. [laughs]
There's truth to it, but it's just
It's like capitalism at its finest,
and it makes me wanna barf.
Do you know, this secret
gives you everything you want.
Happiness, health, and wealth.
You can have, do, or be anything you want.
[Andrea] So, the movie The Secret
is all about using this Law of Attraction.
The vision board is a way of activating
the Law of Attraction in your life.
It is setting cause in your life
to help you demonstrate the effect
you want out in the world.
[Alexis]
My mom really dove into that church,
specifically,
because she wanted to believe
that she could think away her problems.
[director] I noticed you've got
a million-dollar bill there.
[Andrea]
I do have a million-dollar bill there.
Money is simply a physical demonstration
of the energy of freedom and abundance.
Yeah.
[playful music]
[Alexis] One morning, my mom is like,
"Girls, come in the kitchen
and, you know, meet with me."
This is an affirmation
that the girls asked me to write
for all of us
to work in the entertainment industry.
Um, an affirmation is like a mantra
that you repeat daily,
and it is so that you
can attract what you want in your life.
So, here's how it goes:
"My chief aim in life
is to continually strive
to express greater and greater portions
of my potential as a professional"
Every morning,
we would get together in a corny circle,
and we'd hold hands, and we'd say it.
"as a direct result
of my dedication to excellence
as someone who works
in the entertainment industry"
She really wanted that for us.
She wanted us to be successful.
She wanted us
to have a career like she did.
"that I am a self-reliant
and successful professional
working in the entertainment industry
and giving back to humanity
and our planet."
I remember feeling like,
"Okay, let's give this a shot."
You know?
I mean, this was at a time
when it was getting easier to get on TV.
[sinuous orchestral music playing]
[Perez] Hollywood changed so much
from the Golden Era of cinema
to the new era of reality television.
It used to be, you know,
you could never see a celebrity.
But over the years
[garbled] celebrities became
a lot more accessible.
[upbeat music playing]
What's up, y'all?
Big Snoop D-O-double-G.
I wanna welcome you all
to my house, The Dogg House.
- I loved Cribs.
- I liked Cribs too.
You could go in their homes
and see, like, how they lived
and their cars and their big kitchens
and pools and fancy houses and
Celebrities were usually very guarded
and you couldn't come into their homes,
and now celebrities were allowing
people into their homes.
[rock music playing]
Here we go, we got the shoes.
We got the clothes, the jumpsuits.
Look at that.
The Cribs show opened up
so much more to everybody
with what they can see.
You don't have to idolize the celebrity
from afar, you can get close.
[crowd cheering]
The Osbourne show was the first
true celeb reality show.
What do you want to do with my gun?
Under the bed?
[Sharon] Wherever you want to put it.
You felt like you knew them.
You were in their living room, kitchen.
You were going to bed with them.
Which you never got before
with old Hollywood.
It really helped him
get a whole new audience.
[man] Ozzy!
[Perez] And the whole family.
It made them all stars.
[man] Sharon!
[Moret] Reality television shifted fame.
It wasn't to be famous
for being a great athlete
or a writer or an actor.
It was just being famous.
Look at Paris Hilton.
Paris going out partying
and getting into trouble,
that is what brought her
to the attention of the TV producers.
- Hello.
- I'm Paris.
- Glad to meet you.
- Do you get used to the smell?
Oh yes.
The whole idea was the socialite
that goes to the small town
and then tries to, like,
slum it like the rest of them.
It made for great reality TV.
[man] Turn it around. Have you ever
clocked in anywhere before?
- No.
- Have you ever had a real job?
- No.
- Okay.
[Amber] Reality TV took away the rules.
Now, anyone can be famous.
[Nick] That time in, like, society,
that's what was just
being shoved down our throats, you know?
So, what are you supposed
to kind of want or, you know, go after?
[birds chirping]
[Nick] We were spending
as much as we were stealing.
But we, like, kind of cleaned out LA.
Like, we ran out of neighborhoods.
When the money ran out,
we needed another score.
[atmospheric music playing]
[Nick] Rachel and I are in my room,
and I see this posting
from an old friend that I hadn't
spoken to in probably a year.
Hey guys, what's up?
Welcome to another episode of The Weekly
Announcements with me, Eden Shizzle.
Around this time, I was always on Myspace.
Those who don't know what Myspace is,
it's basically what Facebook is,
but not.
I happened to post
that I was going to Jamaica for 11 days.
[click]
Rachel and I
look at each other, like, "Huh."
"What can we do with this information?"
We drive to his house.
It's a wealthy area. It's a quiet street.
[tense music playing]
[Nick] You know, it looked
pretty easy to get in and out.
We checked the doors, windows.
We realized that nobody was really there.
The door in the back
was just open, unlocked.
It was like, you know, that angel on
one shoulder and the devil on the other.
This was different than stealing cars.
This felt more personal.
Um
But, you know
[mischievous music playing]
[Nick, laughing]
I kept listening to the devil.
Nothing that bad
had happened to us as of yet.
And there was seemingly no consequences.
So, we decide,
there's no nice way of saying it,
to rob his house.
[mischievous music rising]
We knew what we were doing
was obviously criminal.
This felt like
we could potentially be caught.
Because I felt like somebody
is coming home at any moment.
You know, I just
It's not a good feeling.
You know, we just went
from room to room, together.
We were really coming up with nothing.
And then Rachel went
to this person's parents' bedroom.
I hear, like, you know,
an "Eek" of excitement.
- [ding]
- [Nick laughs]
We got this nice chunk of change.
It was like the high
of your first job, your first paycheck.
Because we were putting
a lot of hours into doing this.
[car engine starts]
[Eden] We came home and all of a sudden,
I hear a gut-wrenching scream
coming out of my parents' room.
And I find out that 30 to 40,000 dollars
went missing from their safe box.
Not "$8,000."
And I go straight back to Myspace
to post a bulletin about how mad I am.
This whole situation just made me
lose a lot of trust in a lot of people.
[Nick] I would never have had
that information to commit the burglary
had it not been for Myspace.
The new technology that had just come out,
that just made it so easy.
And we were just getting started.
[click]
[intriguing music playing]
[Alexis] So, while Nick was faking
the celebrity lifestyle through crime,
I was trying to make it
in Hollywood for real.
Which brings me to my best friend, Tess.
[man] Hey, Tess and Lexi,
what's up, ladies? How you doing?
- Hi.
- Hi.
[Alexis] Tess has been in my life
since I was a toddler.
I feel like we were kindred souls
because we had both been through
a lot in our early childhoods.
Later on, in my teenage years,
Tess needed a place to go.
And she asked my mom
if she could move in with us.
[Andrea] She said to me, "Mom,"
because she used to call me "Mom,"
"Please, can I come and live with you?"
And I said, "Yes."
Tess became very close to us,
just like a sister to us.
[Alexis] After Tess had moved in,
my mom kind of noticed that we were just
smoking pot and doing drugs all the time.
And so, my mom was, kind of, like,
"Okay, girls, you need to start working."
"What do you want to do?"
[Andrea] Tess and Alexis were
extraordinarily beautiful young girls.
They also had the Law of Attraction
working for them.
And that's really helpful, energetically.
And the girls made up this beautiful plan
that they were going
to become successful as models.
My mom was like, "Maybe you
should get into pinup modeling."
[director] That was their idea?
To become models?
Yes, it was their idea. Mm-hmm.
[sniffles] Yeah.
[Gabbie] My mom really pushed it,
and they were just willing to do it
because it allowed them to go out to LA
and have fun.
[rock music playing]
[Alexis] When we were 16, my mom drove us
to downtown LA to get fake IDs,
and we started going out and working jobs.
I teach Pilates, and pole dancing,
and I'm a pointe ballerina and an actress.
Before you show up to shoots,
you often don't know
what you're getting involved with.
But now that I have daughters,
I just can't even imagine
subjecting them to that.
It's everything I had been doing
my entire life from the time I was 14,
using my looks and my personality
to earn money.
And they started to have some success.
["Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon"
by Marilyn Manson playing]
[Alexis] Tess and I booked this gig
for a Marilyn Manson music video.
Marilyn Manson music videos
were always dark and gothic,
so we were nervous about what to expect.
We were hired as,
like, background dancers.
Behind that sheet he's in,
we're like, essentially naked,
pressing our bodies against the thing.
And I'm, like, 17.
I had brought like an eight-ball of coke.
We'd been drinking pretty heavily.
It was like a party all night long.
I liked the rush and the excitement.
It was unlike anything
that I had experienced.
And I remember just thinking
to myself, like, "Wow."
Like, "If I can just party like that
and get paid, we are golden."
"This is all that I need
for the rest of my life, is this."
You sell your soul to the devil, right?
[clicking]
[keyboard keys clacking]
[Alexis] I mean, sex sells.
And at this time,
it was selling like never before.
You're, like, obsessed.
You always film me.
[Alexis] After Paris Hilton's boyfriend
released the infamous sex tape.
- [man exhales]
- [laughs]
The concept of scandal
is a complicated one.
Paris's sex tape being released
was a huge deal.
[man] What are you doing, Paris?
[Perez]
Because it got her a lot of attention.
[man, laughing] Beautiful beast.
[Alexis]
A celebrity in such a private video
had rarely been seen before.
I remember specifically thinking,
"Well, that's the end of her career."
Because a generation ago,
it would've been the end of her career.
But with this generation,
somehow it only ignited her career.
[intense music playing]
[Alexis] Now, you can have
a sex tape scandal in Hollywood
and turn it into
a multimillion-dollar enterprise.
Look at the Kardashians.
[paparazzi chattering]
[Alexis] Had Kim not had a sex tape,
they wouldn't be worth hundreds
of millions of dollars, that family.
[Moret] Kim Kardashian looked
at Paris Hilton as creating the blueprint
for how to make a scandal
into something positive.
[Alexis] Who cares if she partook
in creating her own scandal
in order to become famous?
If they did, that's pretty genius.
[Moret] This was success.
Attention equals success.
It wasn't about being likable,
it was about being known.
[Perez] Paris's sex tape
had a great impact on her career.
She became an A-list star.
[Nick] Okay, it's the moment
you've all been waiting for.
Thanks for bearing with me.
Rachel and I were hanging out
in my room one afternoon.
We were mulling about ideas of, you know,
what our next big score was going to be.
You know, Rachel and I,
collectively, had this idea,
you know, hey, a celebrity
would be an excellent mark to hit.
So, I started cruising
the celebrity gossip websites.
Saw that Paris Hilton
was gonna be in Miami.
And that's when we got the idea
to rob Paris.
We had already seen
into Paris Hilton's life so much,
so it didn't seem like much more
of a step to enter her house.
The personality that she gave off
on her reality show is a ditzy blonde,
so we thought she would be more prone
to maybe leaving something unlocked.
So, I went to work trying to find out
where her house was.
I just happened upon this website.
It literally was like a treasure trove
of celebrity addresses.
I mean, anyone you could imagine,
and of course, Paris Hilton's was there.
[keyboard keys clacking]
[laughing] Beverly Hills,
the best of the best. Nothing better.
That's, "Hey, I made it!"
That's the endgame.
Your neighbor could be Tom Cruise,
David Beckham, Larry King.
I mean, the biggest names
in entertainment,
and, of course, Paris Hilton.
I mean, you're talking about
guard-gated communities.
The allure of them
is having the best security in town.
If somebody really wanted to get
into anywhere in this town,
you might have to climb over
some mountains, but you could get there.
[thrilling music playing]
Want to break into a celebrity home?
Here's how you do it.
Step one, pull up Google Maps,
and look at the terrain of the area.
That technology was like a gift from God.
I mean, it was vital in our operation.
Next is access.
To avoid those guards,
use the adjacent neighborhood trails.
We parked our car, got out,
walked up the fire road
like we were hiking,
just like normal unsuspecting teenagers.
At the end of the trail,
there's a fence. You'll have to scale it.
Once you're over the fence,
you're going to be close to Paris's.
It's the one with the pink Bentley.
Rachel led the way because I was
a little scared chickenshit.
Approach with caution,
and remember, act like you belong.
We were super kind of excited that,
like, we were at Paris Hilton's house.
It wasn't like a stalkery kind of way,
it was more of like a geeky fan way,
but, hey, we're also
going to rob you, you know?
Approach the front door confidently
[doorbell rings]
and ring the doorbell a few times.
Rachel, being ballsy Rachel,
tried the door
and it it opened.
Welcome to my beauty space, come in.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Nick] Once you walk through those doors,
it was like you entered
a whole new world of Paris.
It didn't feel like,
you know, like a home.
It felt like, probably, a really nice
Hilton Hotel, you know.
It was just vast amounts
of extravagance, everywhere.
It was like nothing I had ever seen.
- Oh my God.
- I know, right?
[Nick] You can see in the movie,
they were allowed to film
inside of Paris Hilton's actual house.
It's her nightclub room.
[Nick] It was weird, 'cause there were
so many photographs of her.
It was almost like a museum to herself.
[Natalie] Holy shit.
They're too casual
walking through the house.
Rachel and I were
a little more cat burglar-like. [chuckles]
Just like in the film, we mainly
focused our time in the closets
where we assumed there would be the stuff
we were there looking for.
We weren't there to,
you know, steal her waffle maker.
These are Alexander McQueen.
[Nick] The movie doesn't really capture
how much adrenaline
was really pumping through our bodies.
[thrilling music playing]
[Nick] This is accurate though.
So many clothes, dresses, lingerie,
all with tags on it, so much stuff.
It was almost like
we were at a high-end store,
ready to, you know,
as Rachel coined it, "Go shopping."
We assumed that a lot
of Paris's clothes were gifted to her
by designers and stores.
So, we didn't feel like anything
was being stolen, per se, from Paris,
it was being stolen
from the people that gave this to her.
There were purses open
with cash sticking out,
just like crumpled up 100s and 50s,
spare change from a night out, you know.
In her bedroom is a safe
that was just open.
Inside the safe, was a ton of jewelry.
I didn't feel like there was a victim,
this woman's worth millions of dollars.
We didn't think she would even notice.
[ding]
We so far had gotten away with it.
So, we were on cloud nine riding this high
and then we went and partied, you know?
[atmospheric music playing]
[Nick] Clubbing in LA,
the one requirement
is a bunch of hot girls to one guy.
But Rachel never really wanted
to go to the clubs.
That was not really her scene.
[Alexis] Tess and I were
spending time clubbing, you know,
getting let into
whatever club we wanted to
because we had connections with people
who were already in the industry.
[Nick] I met Tess
through a friend at school,
who I'd met through Rachel.
Introduced me to Alexis Neiers.
She was really beautiful.
She seemed like
she really wanted to be famous.
Like, she really had a dream to,
you know, be a star.
[Alexis] Tess said he's a stylist.
I didn't think twice about it
because, at that time,
we were hanging out with lots of stylists.
I was more than excited to tag along
with Tess and Alexis to these clubs.
[Alexis] We didn't go to clubs
unless it was the best night.
They were very much so, like, A-list.
[Nick] I felt important.
I was wearing these nice clothes
and these nice accessories
and I was with these hot girls.
I mean, it really made you feel
like some sort of celebrity.
So, I wanted to be able
to secure the friendship.
So, it was like, "Oh, I got this,"
or "I'll pay for this,"
or "No big deal," you know?
[Alexis] We went out
a couple of times with Nick.
You know, nothing
stuck out.
And I had a fun time.
[Nick] With all these burglaries,
there were a lot of,
I guess, little things
that I could bring to the table that
I'm sure, Alexis, you know, fancied. Um
It was amazing, I mean, I was 18,
I'm in the exclusive clubs,
but that started draining my money.
So, once, you know, we needed more,
we would just go back to "work."
[rock music playing]
[Nick] After the burglary of Paris's,
we monitored the gossip sites.
So, when there was nothing from Paris,
we realized, "Oh, we could probably
go back and do this again."
This was the time when Paris was clubbing
all the time. She was always out.
At the same time it was a risk
because she was still in town.
So, Rachel and I drove my car up there,
hiked through the mountain,
approached her house.
We tried the door,
but it was locked.
So, now we were like,
"Fuck. What are we gonna do?"
I don't know why,
Rachel looks under the mat,
and there's a fucking key.
Like, really? You know?
So, Rachel puts it in the lock,
opens the door,
and we're inside again,
and now even better yet, we have a key
to access this whenever we want.
[suspenseful music playing]
Between the months
of October and December,
we, you know,
went maybe four or five times,
and one time we took my friend, Courtney.
Each time we would find designer purses
with the cash crumbled up.
We knew we'd always find a few grand.
Rachel would always take a couple clothes,
some jewelry.
We found a nice bag of coke one time,
which was great for us
'cause we were doing drugs.
Her coke was like,
I mean, like, Scarface coke.
That was the best coke I'd ever done,
I mean, just pure, like, "Fuck!" You know?
After we got back to my car,
we just drove around
smoking fucking cigarettes
and blasting music.
You know?
[director] Was that a good night?
Yeah! Fuck yeah, it was a good night!
We were doing Paris Hilton's coke.
Who the fuck can say that?
So, you know, we were constantly
going to Paris's house,
and it was like our personal ATM, really.
I mean, we kind of knew
we'd always find a few grand.
And eventually we finally reached a point
where there were no more money
in these purses.
So, after that, we knew
there was all that jewelry in her safe.
But we didn't want to take the jewelry
and do the big robbery
'cause once her safe was
completely emptied, she's gonna report it.
It's definitely gonna be news.
So, we enlisted Courtney's coworker,
Roy Lopez.
Our thinking was,
if someone was to get caught,
it wouldn't have been us,
it would have been Roy.
I drew a map of exactly
how to get there up the fire road.
"Here's the key."
Roy Lopez went,
cleaned it out,
and then literally the next day
it was on the news.
It was a huge story.
In the news this morning,
Los Angeles Police investigating
a burglary at the home of Paris Hilton.
Paris Hilton is said to be distraught
after a burglar ransacked her LA bedroom.
Taking approximately
two million dollars in jewelry.
[reporter 1]
Two million dollars in jewelry.
[reporter 2] Two million in jewelry.
[clamoring]
[reporter 3] Paris, what would you say
to the burglar if you had a chance?
[Paris]
They're a bunch of dirty rotten thieves.
[director]
Were you worried about getting caught?
Um
I wasn't worried,
just because somebody else had done it,
and we really couldn't be connected
or blamed at that point.
Me and Rachel were already
picking out our Porsches.
But we didn't really see
much of anything from it.
Roy Lopez wasn't sophisticated enough
to actually sell this stuff.
But even though
we had burned Paris Hilton's house,
we lived in Los Angeles.
There were hundreds
of other celebrities to pick from.
[enthralling music playing]
[buzzing]
[police siren blaring]
[reporter] Tonight, could these teens be
at the heart of a Hollywood crime spree?
[closing theme music playing]