In the late 2000s, a string of robberies befell the rich and famous. Houses in and around Calabasas, California – the flashiest of the flashy neighborhoods, home to Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Will Smith, and many, many more – were being ransacked. Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, Rachel Bilson, Orlando Bloom, and Lindsay Lohan were all targeted in less than a year. When five suspects were arrested between September and October 2009, the media attention was prompt and insatiable: The suspects were all aged between 18 and 19. Some of them were high school classmates. All were teenagers.
Nick Prugo, Rachel Lee, Alexis Neiers, Diana Tamayo, and Courtney Ames became known as the Bling Ring, a nickname packed with all the flavors of a tabloid saga. While the case made its way through the legal system, it also became a pop culture oddity, many times analyzed, deconstructed, and put back together again. There was a Lifetime movie. There was a memorable Vanity Fair write-up by Nancy Jo Sales, titled “The Suspects Wore Louboutins.” Perhaps most notably, there was the 2013 Sofia Coppola movie The Bling Ring, based on Sales’s article, which dramatized the group’s story and even featured Hilton herself.
