Even Brandon Thomas Lee Gets Ghosted Sometimes
@Faran Krentcil
“Okay, wait. I’m kind of obsessed with him.”
That’s the response among women aged 20—40 whenever I bring up Brandon Thomas Lee, a model and star of The Hills reboot. They always sound a bit embarrassed, a bit giggly, a bit on the same guilty-pleasure page as when you play “Pieces of Me”by Ashlee Simpson from your desk at work and everyone (still) knows the words. But the obsession is there—and so are tons of questions.
“Have you met him?” asks a fellow writer, age 28, mouth agape. She’s just done a feature on Adam Brody, but somehow, Mr. Lee rates higher on her “Shut up!” radar.
“Did you sleep with him?” grins a college friend, age 36, because she knows me too well, and also not at all. (The answer is, absolutely not! We have only spoken by phone.)
“What’s his deal?” sighs a model, age 19, backstage in London. “He’s so… interesting.”
But Brandon Thomas Lee should have very little intrigue going for him. He posts daily life updates on Instagram. He’s bluntly transparent in tabloid sound bytes. He plays himself on MTV’s broadcast from The Upside-Down, The Hills: New Beginnings. And yet, the 23-year-old (and son of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee) is still a weird mystery—a reality star who doesn’t need the fame, a model who doesn’t walk the runways, a guidance counselor of Fuck Bois and Yo Bros who’s ten years younger than the dudes he advises like a Malibu Yoda.
The good news is Mr. Lee is not particularly shy and I am not especially tactful. When his agent connected us during New York Fashion Week, I herded the questions I’d heard from friends, editors, and acquaintances and asked them myself.
You’re 23. The people on The Hills are my age. How are you more sane, more calm, and more thoughtful than the dudes 10 years older than you?
I definitely know where you’re coming from. There are a lot of big personalities on the show. I feel like I’m the dad. And I’m the youngest.
But spiritually, are you the oldest?
Probably. Honestly, I think growing up the way I did and living in LA, kind of seeing what LA and the spotlight and all these different things can do to you, as well as going through meeting people that are just in it for the wrong reasons, doing all this stuff—you get exposed to a lot at a young age in LA. Me more than a lot of people. I have a really good bullshit filter more than anything.
Does a good bullshit filter count for anything when it comes to reality TV?
That’s a good question. I knew going into [The Hills] that with all the other people, there was a lot of baggage. I was like, “I’m younger. I know Frankie and Brody, but everyone else… I’ve only met them a few times. Am I going to fit in with these people? I guess I just have to be myself, and if it works, cool. If not, they can cut me out…” But it’s nerve-racking [because] MTV can cut the show any way they want. You can make anyone look bad when there’s hours and hours of footage. Although, some people make it a lot easier to look bad…
How so?
I think on reality TV, so many people try to put on a character. They hide behind that, and it becomes… like a block. They end up screwing themselves, to a certain extent.
You’ve said publicly that you want to be an actor. A huge one. Are you worried being on The Hills is going to negate your credibility as an artist?
I think it’s all in the work, you know? It’s 2019. It’s a different era. A lot of actors don’t have this mystery around them anymore. Brad and Leo, nobody knows what they’re actually like, you know? But The Rock, Mark Wahlberg, they share everything about their lives on social media. How is The Hills any different? It’s a big platform, and I’m serious about building my platform as me, not my parents’ kid. Before The Hills, nobody knew what I was like. Why not let them know I don’t have a chip on my shoulder; I’m calm; I show up on time; I’m not crazy or entitled? More than anything, I wanted the separation. I wanted people to see me for me and not my parents. This is the way.
At the same time, it’s pretty cool how open you are about your relationship with your mom. Did you ask her to come on the show?
I didn’t even have to. Look, if I jumped off a bridge, my mom would come too. She’ll do anything for me. But that conversation we had [on The Hills] was very natural—I wanted to show her my new house! I wanted to catch her up on my life. And she’s such an angel. She’s so funny. I love watching that scene of us, because she’s so funny!
If my mom asked me, on national TV, when I was getting married, it would not be funny.
Awww, but one of the things I love about my mom is that she’s a hopeless romantic. She’s nuts, because of her life. But come on, every mom in the world wants you to be happy; she wants to be a grandma. She wants to have little babies running around everywhere. She knows I’m gonna have the cutest babies ever. But she’s gonna have to wait… even though I swear, I’m a hopeless romantic, too.
You are not.
I so am! Even though it might not seem like it, with all the stuff that’s happened to me, and around me, in the past year.
Yeah, speaking of that—want to give me some relationship advice?
Absolutely. Let’s do it.
Okay, let’s say I just got divorced and then I started dating a celebrity and making out with her on Instagram.
Which celebrity?
Oh, I don’t know, let’s just say I divorced my husband and started dating Miley Cyrus.
Oh man!
Is that a good idea or a bad idea, in your opinion?
Honesty, I don’t even know what you should do in that situation. I think people are gonna do what people are gonna do. Whatever makes them happy, or what they think makes them happy, they should do it. If they’re [falling in love] just for fame, I’d be so upset. If they’re trying to make themselves look edgy by suddenly getting together with another [woman], that’s awful. But pop stars are human, too. You can fall in love with them, too! If they’re pretending [to fall in love] for the pics, I’d be furious. If they’re having a nice time and doing good in their lives, I feel like you just have to put the ego aside and say, “Good for you. Be happy.” Just because you’re dating someone famous doesn’t mean you don’t genuinely love that person. But if you start dating someone famous because you like being on TV, and you’d like to stay on TV… that’s gross.
Are you speaking from personal experience?
Sure. I grew up inside the fame bubble. And trust me, if you’re trying to make a name for yourself, and you want to be Famous, quotation marks capital “F” Famous, and you just want to be the [person] who just dates famous girls and guys… I mean, how boring. How long can you keep that up? What kind of a future does that look like? In these days unfortunately, you might build an empire out of it. But it’s social climbing, and I don’t think it’s very sexy, if you will, to use people to advance yourself.
What do you think is sexy? Especially, and I’m sorry if this sounds weird, but growing up with a mom who was literally a sex symbol?
That’s such a good question because I don’t know! I feel like there’s no sex symbols anymore. We don’t have them. There’s no rock stars; there’s no sex symbols. Nobody’s jumping on cars getting sprayed with water. This lifestyle doesn’t exist anymore because you’d just get in trouble. People perceive it different ways. It’s too risky. Now, when everyone knows everything about each other, it feels like being mysterious is sexy. For me, I want to be like, “Wait, who the fuck are you? Why don’t you have any followers on Instagram?” That makes me really interested.
‘You can make anyone look bad when there’s hours and hours of footage. Although, some people make it a lot easier to look bad…’
What’s your most-used app?
Definitely Instagram, sadly. I don’t post that much anymore, but I check in with my friends. I like to observe everyone else’s chaos. I just watch from a distance from my house… but I will say, stalking people you like on Instagram? That is so dangerous. Don’t do it. Then you get jealous, then they see you watching them, and then maybe they get jealous? It’s not great. If I’m going out with someone and she gets weird with me, maybe I’ll be like, “What the fuck is going on?” and check her Instagram. But aside from that, I really try to avoid it.
Do you mean, like, when a girl is ghosting you?
Yeah, exactly.
You do not get ghosted!
Of course I do! So many times! I swear, girls ghost me. It’s frustrating, because sometimes people are crazy. I’m like, “Fuck, are you ghosting me? I thought you were cool! If you don’t want to hang out with me, just tell me!” It’s awful.
Okay, but do you ghost people?
Of course. I’ve ghosted plenty of people. Not just girls. If you’re weird, I don’t like it. If you send me a mean message, nobody needs that. It’s immature, and it’s clearly coming from a bad place. I’ll mute you or block you if you get weird with me.
As an Old Millennial, I need you to define the term “get weird with me.”
[Laughing] Oh, you know what I mean! Like, sketchy! If someone’s kissing my ass or being fake or asking weird questions. If you do that, you’re gone. And my advice to anyone would be, if someone seems fake to you, they’re gone. You don’t need that in your life. Nothing good ever comes of it.
What are you reading right now? Besides DMs!
Scripts. I’m lucky that people have been sending me possible projects to read, and I’m doing a movie right now—Blackjack, the true story of this street-ball player named Jackie Ryan from Brooklyn—with David Arquette and Michael Rappaport and Ashley Greene. It’s such an amazing project, but it’s set in the ‘90s, so I’m listening to ’90s hip hop because a lot is used in the movie. I know all the West Coast stuff, but the East Coast music isn’t as familiar to me, and I’m getting really into it… and because it’s set in the ’90s, I have a mullet and a mustache.
Oh man…
Yeah, I’m going there. So I’ve been reading my lines over and over, because my memory is so weird. Whatever the last thing I read is? That’s what I remember. In terms of books, they’re hard for me because I’m so visual. I like reading scripts because I can see them in my head. With books—you know, my mom made me read The Old Man and The Sea when I was a kid, and I think it set the bar too high. I didn’t like reading anything else after that.
How old were you when you read Hemingway? Like eleven?
No. I was six.
