‘Princes’: royal flush

THE short-lived Fox show “The Princes of Malibu” was nothing more than a speck of reality-TV stardust, vivid only as it expired. But the story that took place around the show has proved much more resonant. For its starring family, the show triggered a shift so profound that the “real life” that inspired it is now more elusive than ever. “You take a modicum of truth and expand upon it until it’s not recognizable as the truth, which is pretty much an accurate description of what we did,” said lyricist and actress Linda Thompson, speaking from Villa Casablanca, the 22-acre Malibu estate where her family was filmed for the show. “What is reality? I’m still struggling with that one.”

Indeed, the boundaries between real and manufactured experience have never been more blurred than they are today, as unscripted TV continues along its voracious path through pop culture. And when an engineered melodrama is set in the moneyed canyons of Malibu, true perspective is so ambiguous it makes an acid flashback seem lucid. Here, in the city’s isolated enclaves -- where Britney Spears and Dick Van Dyke are neighbors, where nearly every home is as fortified as the Pentagon, where an entire economy is driven solely by the pampering of the rich -- lies a sort of parallel universe.

The usual controls that curb excess, define identity and cultivate meaning don’t exist here. It’s a gilded but disorienting existence. Kids like Thompson’s sons, Brody and Brandon Jenner, are raised so tantalizingly close to the icon status of their rock star/movie mogul/celebrity guru parents that if they haven’t earned their own stars by age 25, they’re labeled near-failures. No wonder it’s hard to resist the lure of reality TV, a seeming shortcut to fame that grows increasingly legitimate.

Like so many Hollywood couples with exorbitant wealth, a circle of famous friends and demi-celebrity of their own, Thompson and composer David Foster lived relatively quiet lives. Then Thompson’s sons dropped out of college, eager but unqualified for their own slice of fame, and a family friend saw opportunity in their decadent lifestyle. A little stage-managed notoriety seemed like a good idea, something for Brandon and Brody to call their own.

Then the first two episodes of “The Princes of Malibu” aired, and suddenly 4.5-million viewers were privy to the screaming tantrums Foster directed at his two stepsons, Thompson’s seeming obliviousness to the family’s disintegration, and the perverse self-indulgence of Brandon and Brody. Much, if not all, of the chaos was engineered by show producers -- all in the name of the semi-staged, sitcom-style silliness of reality TV -- but everyone agrees the simmering hostility within the family was genuine.

The day after the show’s July 10 premiere, Thompson filed for divorce. Eleven days later, “Princes” was canceled. Instead of an exuberant Us Weekly cover, the family found itself the subject of snarky reports in the New York Post’s Page Six, which had Foster blowing up at a crew from the syndicated show “The Insider.” Then came the National Enquirer, in which that ambitious family friend -- Brody’s best pal and show co-creator, Spencer Pratt -- said this clan made “the Osbournes look cuddly.”

This level of public intimacy with the wealthy used to be rare; the melodrama of the rich was accessible primarily in novels. Now, however, there’s an entire industry devoted solely to the intersection of celebrity and wealth, documenting their possessions, their love lives and their breakdowns. And if the saga of “The Princes of Malibu” and its sorry aftermath show anything, it’s that when the reality-TV crews are invited in, the rich and famous have no more control over their TV images than the low-lifes on “Cops” or the couples on “Temptation Island.”

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Made for TV?

THE case of “Princes” started in summer 2004 with Pratt, a USC film and political science student who had known the family since his teen years at Santa Monica’s elite Crossroads School and seen enough mischief at Villa Casablanca to convince him that they could produce “a wild, fun party show.” What could be more TV? The carefree Malibu lifestyle of two over-privileged, model-handsome young men; Foster’s Grammy wins and star clients; their lush canyon compound; some healthy father-son conflict, offset by Thompson’s unshakable charm. There was even an Elvis Presley link: Thompson dated the King in the years before he died.

And just like that, Brody, 21, an aspiring actor, and his brother Brandon, 24, a striving musician, would use reality TV to transform their borrowed celebrity into fame of their own, just as Paris Hilton and Kelly Osbourne had done before them. Of course, at the heart of this story was always the unsettling possibility that Brandon and Brody would mature without direction or purpose; that their lives would become an endless string of days in which to celebrate their affluence and nothing more; that maybe Foster was right, perhaps they could use a little discipline, a little work ethic.

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Moment of clarity

“I didn’t ask for this life,” Brandon says plaintively during the show’s pilot episode, in a moment of almost poignant clarity. “It was not a question before I was born. This is my situation, and I’m doing the best that I can.”

The sons’ only claim to fame appeared to be as the progeny of decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner, their mother’s first husband, who, according to Brandon, has never been an intimate part of their lives. (Thompson began dating Foster when the boys were toddlers. The couple married in 1991.)

To help save their sons from the born-rich syndrome, Foster and Thompson invited public scrutiny into their fractured domestic scene. Thompson, it turned out, had planned to file for divorce after Christmas 2004 when Pratt approached them with the reality-TV idea. But she waited, then joined everyone else during a whirlwind shoot in March in feigning a warped sort of togetherness to make the show happen.

Even their living arrangement was faked. During the show’s filming, they sold the Malibu compound to software mogul Larry Ellison for more than $20 million. The couple didn’t make public the sale until the “Princes” premiere months later. Now Linda lives there as a tenant; Foster won’t say where he’s staying. The boys, meanwhile, didn’t even live at Villa Casablanca in the first place. They share another family home nearby.

Ultimately, the play-acting didn’t pay off as they’d hoped. Instead of being revered for their glamorous lifestyle, Brandon and Brody are stuck justifying it. Beyond that, their reality-TV experience hasn’t yielded much. “Princes,” which premiered on Fox in the cherished slot after “The Simpsons,” now airs on the unrated Fox Reality Network between episodes of “Love Cruise” and “Last Comic Standing.” The brothers got a Guess ad campaign and write-ups in Star and Celebrity Living magazines to go with the mixed TV reviews of their show.

Brandon is now focused on his real passion: music. He has recorded an album on his own record label, independent of Foster, and is touring the country with his band Big Dume. Brody is developing another reality-based show, Thompson says, and biding his time surfing, playing drums in his own band, taking acting classes and auditioning for roles.

Thompson is struggling against bitterness, convinced that on national TV her sons were seen unfairly as “slovenly slackers.” She is determined to debunk the myths perpetuated by the reality show.

She even agreed to be photographed for this story if the shoot included her sons, but the family’s publicity firm, Rogers and Cowan, said Brandon and Brody were unavailable.

Foster, for his part, declined to be interviewed, saying only in a statement that the show “exaggerated” what he called “a very real family dynamic.”

Show producers say they never intended “Princes” to be taken too seriously. They did what any TV producer would do: They used the tension between Foster and his stepsons as a plot device -- the sons were the spoiled playboys and Foster was the embittered stepfather with the money -- then underlined it with outrageous stunts.

In one episode, Foster bricks up the bedrooms of Brandon and Brody after repeatedly threatening to kick them out. In another, the young men raise income by hosting a drive-in movie on Foster’s immaculate front lawn, one of many stunts that prompted off-camera complaints from neighbors.

In some ways, says Brant Pinvidic, vice president of development for GRB Productions, which produced the show, these antics simply manifested the enormity of the real-life family battle that had raged for years. They were, Pinvidic says, a cathartic outlet for the sons and Foster. For example, Foster wouldn’t have towed his stepson’s car without major family backlash. In the show, he towed the car to Arizona.

“It was meant to play funny,” Pinvidic said. “The show is about cause and reaction.... Make the jokes. People laugh. See how it goes.”

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Moving on

BRODY’S best friend, Pratt, like Brody himself, is still hustling to turn the experience into a Hollywood success. Pratt said the show helped him to secure a reality-TV agent at the Endeavor Agency, but when asked why the firm didn’t have him listed as a client, he said he didn’t want to be typecast as a reality-show producer. He wants to produce feature films, he says, and is shopping a comedy script. Pratt heads back to USC film school this week.

Whatever his career aims, Pratt’s perspective as the outsider looking in on a bizarre family not only inspired the TV show, but also has informed the most recent tabloid reports on the “Princes” fallout. “I was the only one who knew the [family] dynamic because I was living there while they were filming,” he said, speaking on his cellphone while driving down Pacific Coast Highway. Of the family’s melodrama, Pratt repeatedly said that it’s “out of a movie.”

In summer 2004, before Pratt recognized the entertainment value of Brody and Brandon, he spent weeks filming a pro surfer. But that guy just didn’t have the material to land the Fox TV reality show Pratt hoped to produce. Then Pratt turned his camera on the bikini-clad babes, the pool parties and Foster’s fiery outbursts at Villa Casablanca and he just knew he had a hit.

“The dynamic was so out of this world,” he said.

Late last year, Pratt left college to shoot the family full time, and Brody and Brandon agreed to help him. (All three are credited as show creators.) At Foster’s recommendation, they took the idea to GRB Productions, which produced “Growing Up Gotti,” the A&E; reality show about mafia don John Gotti’s daughter Victoria and her three sons. By March, the GRB Productions crews were filming “Princes.”

Incredibly, beyond the twisted logic of reality TV as family therapy, beyond the showbiz spectacle of it all, the Jenner-Foster-Thompson clan preserved a certain humanity. Thompson and Foster set aside their acrimonious split to appear loving on camera, even sharing a hot tub and a fireside slow dance, for the sake of their sons’ careers. Brandon said he held out hope the show might mend their relationship.

Brody declined to be interviewed, but his mother passed on a comment. “ Thompson said he told her “it was a great experience” as he headed out the door with surfboard in hand, “but I really want to move on.”

Brandon remains philosophical and unapologetic about the whole ordeal. He says Foster has always been an angry pessimist with a short fuse but added that he is the only father they have ever known, and all things considered, they have a good relationship. He even justifies his stepfather’s irascible nature.

“It’s always come down to my mom as the final say,” Brandon said. “He was never able to have that control, so he’s looked for smaller ways to feel [it].”

Foster, in his statement, wished Thompson the best.

“The end of every relationship has three sides,” he wrote, “his, hers and the truth.”