Mischa Barton is about to go full circle.
In a manner of speaking.
The actress, of course, is best known for having starred as Marissa Cooper on the Fox sensation The OC back in 2003.
The success of The OC inspired MTV to create Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County… which eventually spun off into The Hills… which is about to be revived by the cable network…
… and which we’ve now learned will co-star Barton!
Set to premiere some time in 2019, The Hills: New Beginnings will reunite original cast members, alongside their kids, friends and a few new faces, chronicling follow their personal and professional lives while they reside in Los Angeles.
Barton will be making her reality television debut as a series regular on the highly-anticipated reboot.
She’ll be joining Heidi and Spencer Pratt, Brody Jenner, Audrina Patridge, Whitney Port, Jason Wahler, Stephanie Pratt, Justin Bobby and Frankie Delgado on the program.
Sadly, neither Lauren Conrad nor Kristin Cavallari will be coming back to the show that made them famous.
(“She’s in a different place in her life,” a source has said of Conrad, adding: “But she wants everyone to enjoy themselves. She wishes everyone the best.”)
Barton, meanwhile, ought to bring plenty of drama to New Beginnings.
She hasn’t really had a starring role of any kind since she was killed off The OC — yet she has found herself in a few difficult/trying/headline-making situation.
In January of 2017, for example, Barton was hospitalized for a mental evaluation after she neighbors witnessed her hanging over her backyard fence and rambling incoherently.
She said something at one point about her mother being a witch and something else at another point about the world coming to an end.
“Oh my God, it’s over! I feel it, and it’s angry!” she yelled while falling off said fence, according to witnesses.
Barton later issued a statement in which she thanked the professionals who came to her aid, and in which she said she had been drugged just prior to the incident.
“I would like to extend a big thanks of gratitude to the professionals at Cedars-Sinai for their great care of professionalism,” she said at the time, concluding:
“This is a lesson to all young women out there. Be aware of your surroundings.”
Just two months after this controversy engulfed Barton, she got swept up in a revenge porn scandal.
The actress went on record about an ex-boyfriend secretly filming the pair having sex and then blackmailing Barton with the release of their video.
A few weeks later, Barton appeared as a guest across from Dr. Phil and tried to clear up all the misperceptions of her out there.
“One of the biggest misconceptions is that I’m a spoiled rich girl,” she said.
“People find it convenient, they attach you to one particular thing. So I suppose that. And yeah, the fact that people think I’m crazy. That’s another good one.”
We’ll get to find out first-hand when The Hills hits the air again next year.
