“Laguna Beach ”Star“ ”Stephen Colletti Explains How an Indecent Incident Led His High School PTA Moving to Get MTV Thrown Off Campus
“Laguna Beach ”Star“ ”Stephen Colletti Explains How an Indecent Incident Led His High School PTA Moving to Get MTV Thrown Off Campus
Virginia ChamleeThu, April 9, 2026 at 7:40 PM UTC
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Stephen CollettiCredit: Michael Tullberg/Getty -
Stephen Colletti said Laguna Beach was originally set to film on campus before plans changed following the backlash tied to the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show
The fallout from Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson’s now-infamous performance led the school’s PTA to push MTV production off campus
The cast of the MTV series recently reunited more than 20 years after the show premiered
Stephen Colletti is recounting how an early aughts pop culture controversy shaped the beginnings of Laguna Beach — before cameras even fully started rolling.
Appearing on the Wednesday, April 8 episode of Teen Beat with Danielle Fishel, the 40-year-old reality star looked back on the show’s beginnings in 2004, revealing that MTV's production team originally planned to film scenes on campus at Laguna Beach High School.
But those plans quickly changed following the fallout from the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show involving Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson — a halftime show produced by MTV.
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Janet Jackson and Justin TimberlakeCredit: JEFF HAYNES/AFP via Getty
"Yeah, so they originally were gonna be on campus, but it was right at the time where MTV was in charge of the Super Bowl halftime shows," Colletti said. "And that year was the Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson infamous moment — the wardrobe malfunction. So that actually happened the week after they had met us, and then all the bad PR from that. PTA was like, 'Get these people off campus. We don't want MTV at our school.' So, they made a decision."
Jackson was the headliner that year, and Timberlake was the surprise guest. However, his surprise appearance quickly turned to shock when he infamously ripped off Jackson's top, exposing her bare breast on live television.
As a result of the incident, CBS was fined for indecent content, which, according to the FCC, "portrays sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that is patently offensive but does not meet the three-prong test for obscenity." The fine, however, was later voided.
The highly publicized halftime show sparked widespread backlash and intense media scrutiny, placing MTV under a microscope. According to Colletti, that negative attention directly impacted how the network was allowed to operate at the high school.
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"They were like, 'All right, we're not going to shoot them at school anymore, but we've already met everybody. We're still greenlit. Let's go ahead and do this thing,' " Colletti continued. "So we did not shoot — of course not on campus, but not 24/7, at all."
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Despite the sudden shift, production moved forward, ultimately shaping the show’s distinctive style — which largely followed students’ lives outside the classroom, from beach outings to house parties and personal relationships.
Colletti also reflected on what filming was actually like during that time, noting that the schedule was relatively manageable for the cast, who were still high school students.
"I felt like every other week, we would have some sort of schedule between Thursday and Sunday," he said.
He continued: "And you might shoot on a Thursday, Saturday, like two days a week. It was pretty relaxed. Yeah, it wasn't asking a lot of us at that age, and they were cautious of how much time that they used with us knowing that, you know, we still had school to go to and stuff. But it was also second semester senior year... we were checked out."
Laguna Beach, which premiered in 2004, went on to become a defining reality series of the early 2000s, launching the careers of several cast members, including Colletti himself, who went on to star in One Tree Hill.
The reality series ran for three seasons, with the cast coming together recently for The Reunion: Laguna Beach, which will stream on The Roku Channel on April 10.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
