A new documentary is examining the Bling Ring from the POV of their alleged ringleader, Rachel Lee. The most naughty oughties of crime sprees, the Bling Ring was documented on the reality show Pretty Wild and dramatized in the 2013 Sofia Coppola movie. “I don’t resonate with that Hollywood version, at all,” Lee said in The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring. “But I could see how it was quite entertaining for the world to see the story that way.” The new HBO film by Erin Lee Carr puts the exploits of the Bling Ring in the context of TMZ, The Simple Life, and Cribs (props to whoever secured the footage of Mariah Carey’s iconic episode). Much of the original crime coverage focused on Alexis Neiers — the star of Pretty Wild who had a meltdown about the coverage she got in Vanity Fair by Nancy Jo Sales. The story was framed as a tale of materialism gone wild, the ugly product of our celebrity-obsessed society. But The Ringleader emphasizes how these crimes came from something more eternal that 2000’s logomania: a toxic teenage friendship.
Bonnie and Clyde
Lee was kicked out of Calabasas High School and sent to Indian Hills High School (the local alternative school) after she and a friend stole a pair of Uggs from a fellow student. This is where she met fellow bling ringer Nick Prugo. Prugo and Lee bonded over their outsider status in Calabasas. He wasn’t straight and she wasn’t white, and both felt like those were requirements to be accepted in that community. Lee described the relationship as “super pure, at first.” Prugo taught Lee how to contour. She says he also was the one to show her Celebrity Address Aerials, the website the Bling Ring used to case houses to rob.
As more kids got added to the Bling Ring, the initial bond between Prugo and Lee was strained. Lee said she felt threatened by the friendship between Prugo and Neiers, especially because Neiers was a blue-eyed model. However, “When we were stealing, we were still on each other’s team,” she said. “We were still Bonnie and Clyde.”
Chasing a High
In The Ringleader, Lee said she first tried Xanax at age 14. She said the drug was a “catalyst” for her later behavior. “It took away my emotion,” she said. “And because I didn’t care. I could act the way that I always wanted to.” How did she always want to act? Like her heroes in the Oceans and Fast & Furious movies. Stealing was another way to chase a high, the elation of not getting caught being almost more important than the haul.
In the Vanity Fair story, Lee is portrayed as calm and collected compared to the more jumpy Prugo. It’s possible she was just xanned out. Lee said she was abusing Xanax throughout the Bling Ring era: “I always had at least one bar on me.”
“The Vortex of Fame”
The Ringleader explores how Brett Goodkin, the detective assigned to the Bling Ring case, made over $12,000 acting as a consultant on Sofia Coppola’s movie. Goodkin even makes a cameo in the film, as Emma Watson’s arresting officer. Goodkin’s involvement with the film was uncovered by the L.A. Times, and the DA said the conflict of interest shredded his credibility. She called it part of the “vortex of fame.”
Lee had the longest sentence of any Bling Ring member, and she argued in the doc that this was a miscarriage of justice. The members of the Bling Ring that were sentenced after Goodkin’s conflict of interest was uncovered got much lighter sentences. “How can I be the ringleader when I never even met Roy [Lopez] in person?” she asked. “How can I be the ringleader when me and Alexis weren’t even really friends?”
Who Was the Mastermind?
Lee kept quiet during the trial, as her defense attorney mother cautioned her that anything she said could be used against her. In the press, her silence was also used against her. Prugo, especially, characterized Lee as the mastermind and instigator of the crimes. Lee said the burglaries were more of folie à deux. They were also an escalation of previous smaller crimes, like checking to see if cars were unlocked. Lee traces the Bling Ring exploits to how as a latchkey kid, Lee would “snoop” through her mom’s stuff. “That part of me has always been inside of me,” she said.
