Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Bling Ring - The Rachel Lee story

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

This is the story of Rachel Lee and The Bling Ring

It's the Paradise Podcast. I am your host, Ryan Michelle Bathay, with my husband Sterling. What's up? Join us here on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus, where we'll discuss each episode with the cast and crew of Paradise. I'll be getting all the secrets from Dan Fulglement, James Marsden, Shailene Woodley, Julian Nicholson, and Sterling Calbee Brown.

Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming. And stream Paradise on Kulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. So this 19 year old girl, she ends up robbing a bunch of celebrities. Now the girl, her name's Rachel, and Rachel lives a nice, comfortable, upper middle class life. But for some reason, this life is not enough for her. She wants more. And so one day, Rachel and her best friend, this guy, Nick, Nick's 18, Rachel and Nick, they decide, hey, let's cruise through some rich neighborhoods and break into some cars.

So they do this. and they get some decent stuff from it. But that's still not enough for Rachel. She still wants more. Now, they live in the Los Angeles area, in Calabasas. So they get this idea. They're like, hey, celebrities live around here. Why don't we rob some of their houses?

They probably got some good stuff. And we can look up where they live online. This is their plan. And so they go and they choose their first victim, Paris Hilton. All right, real quick. You know what everyone could use a little more of? Cash back. That's why I like using Upside.

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Upside and use my promo code, RWJ, and get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. Or just scan the QR code here to claim this offer. It's a good deal. And one night, Rachel and Nick, they make their way over to Paris Hilton's house. And they're kind of nervous because they have no idea what they're actually doing. And luckily, Paris isn't home. And when Rachel and Nick get to the door, they discover that breaking in is going to be really easy, because Paris actually left a key underneath the doormat. But even so, they don't even really need that key because Paris also left the door unlocked. Anyway, so they enter into the house, and they walk around and they go into her bedrooms and they go through all her things, and they

steal some designer bras and some bottles of gray goose and some cash from her safe, which Paris also left unlocked, and after that, they just leave and they get away. And the best part for Rachel and Nick is they don't get caught, because either Paris didn't report that she was robbed, or she just didn't notice. Either way, Rachel and Nick are like, hey, that was dope. We just got away with robbery. And Rachel even puts, like, Paris's spare key that they found on her own key ring. And later, they actually used this key to rob Paris's house four more times over the next few months. Now, of course, because Rachel and Nick are 18 and 19 years old, they can't keep this a secret from their friends. They got to flex.

So they go around and they start yapping to some of their homies and now some of them want in on this action. And so some of their friends start joining in here and there. And by now, Rachel and Nick, they're doing these robberies as often as they can, apparently stealing lots of luxury items and designer clothes that they wear when they're like out with their friends. But here's the thing, these guys aren't career cat burglars, so it doesn't take long before they start to get sloppy. And one night, they robbed Paris Hilton's house again for the fourth time. And one of the friends in Rachel's group, he steals almost $2 million worth of jewelry from her. And of course, this time Paris eventually notices and she reports it to the police.

And on another night, the group they actually break into this reality TV star's place, Audrina Partridge. And they take $43,000 worth of stuff, a laptop and some jewelry and stuff like that. But Aldrina Partridge catches them on security camera, and she posts that footage on her website. So that people will see the burglars and hopefully be able to identify them and turn them in. Once she posts this footage to her website, TMZ and the local news stations, they pick up this story. And they run the video for everyone to see. But lucky for Rachel, no one recognizes them. and no one comes forward to turn her in,

so the crew keeps going. And they rob Rachel Bilsen's house like six different times over two months, and they take over $130,000 in things. They rob Orlando Bloom's house, and they end up taking a half million dollars worth of art and Rolexes. So these guys are going strong,

and it seems like they might never get caught. Until, until the gang decides they're going to hit Lindsay Lowhan's house. And this is where they screw up. Because while they're there at Lindsay Lohan's house, stealing a ton of whatever Lindsay Lohan has in her house, security cameras catch them again. And I guess later, Lindsay Lohan notices all her shit is missing and she takes the security footage and she gives it to police.

And police, they release that footage to the public. So now there are two videos of Rachel and her friends circulating around for everyone to see. And of course, this story makes the news again and at some point the means The media starts referring to Rachel, Nick, and her friends as the bling ring, which is kind of a cool name. One of the crazy things about this story is when it hits the news and the public starts hearing about the bling ring, people are actually cheering them on. Like they're all rooting for them the thieves to succeed. Because during this time, celebrity hate feels like it's at an all-time high.

Like people see Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan on TV and they just see them as like spoiled little train wrecks, not as human beings who are having their privacy and their personal property violated. So it feels like the general public just has no sympathy for these people getting robbed. Anyway, once this second security video goes public, that's when people start recognizing them. And Rachel and Nick, they've bragged about these robberies at parties and in social settings so much that people start putting two and two together. And the Police, they start getting tons of tips from people. And police already had suspicions about Rachel and Nick just because of all the rumors that had been flying around.

Because they just couldn't keep their mouth shut about it. So anyway, bam, police go and they arrest Nick. Here's his mugshot. And he denies everything, but eventually he gives in and he snitches on everyone else in their crew. And bam, one by one, they all get arrested. Here's Rachel's mugshot. And here are other mugshots from other members of the bling ring. And poor Rachel, she's sentenced to four years in prison, and Nick is sentenced to two years in prison, and another guy gets three years, and another woman gets 180 days in jail, and three others get sentenced to probation.

So, shout out to keeping your door locked, I guess.