The story of the Bling Ring, the Hollywood thieves who inspired a movie and Sabrina Carpenter’s latest music video

Sabrina Carpenter directs the heist. The Espresso singer, along with actresses Margaret Qualley and Madelyn Cline, breaks into a Hollywood mansion to steal jewelry, clothes, and even a Grammy. This is the plot of the music video for House Tour, one of the tracks from Carpenter’s latest album Man’s Best Friend. Music videos produced by the pop singer have become popular for including actresses and movie references: in Taste, featuring Jenna Ortega, she hides clues to Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Kill Bill; Tears features Colman Domingo and is inspired by The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And in her latest video, which she released in early April, she references Sofia Coppola’s film The Bling Ring. The latter is based on a true story popularized by a Vanity Fair article titled “The Suspects Wore Louboutins”: between 2008 and 2009, a group of wealthy, fame-obsessed young people burglarized the homes of celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel Bilson, Brian Austin Green, Megan Fox, and Orlando Bloom.

What was peculiar about these robberies was that the perpetrators weren’t after money, but rather the celebrities’ luxury belongings to later flaunt them on social media. Nick Prugo, Rachel Lee, Alexis Neiers, Diana Tamayo, and Courtney Ames were the members of the Bling Ring, 18- and 19-year-olds old who were accused of stealing more than $3 million worth of clothing, shoes, handbags, jewelry, and other luxury items.

Their modus operandi was actually quite simple: they would look up celebrities’ addresses on the website celebrityaddressaerial.com — which at the time provided that information — monitor the media to ensure they weren’t home, and then simply break into their residences. Their first victim was Paris Hilton. They chose her because they thought she was “a dumb blonde.” They broke into her house — using the key the hotel heiress left under a doormat — about four times, and Hilton didn’t realize what was happening until they stole jewelry worth $2 million.

One of the biggest robberies occurred on July 13, 2009, when the Bling Ring targeted Orlando Bloom’s house. They had seen on TMZ that the actor was in New York filming a movie, so the gang arrived in the Audi A4 of Rachel Lee, the alleged mastermind, and stole nearly $500,000 worth of Rolex watches, Louis Vuitton handbags, clothing, and artwork. Just like in Carpenter’s music video, they took their time and enjoyed themselves while committing their crimes: they drank alcohol, took the drugs that celebrities kept in their homes, and even used the bathroom.

The final victim was Lindsay Lohan, who was Rachel Lee’s “ultimate fashion icon,” according to her friend Nick Prugo in the Vanity Fair article. Three days after the break-in at the actress’s house, TMZ released surveillance footage captured by security cameras, and the police began investigating, so the gang decided to stop.

The Bling Ring would likely have gotten away with it, but Prugo broke down after seeing the robbery videos on social media and confessed to the authorities. According to the Los Angeles Police Department report, which Vanity Fair obtained at the time, Prugo said that Lee was “the driving force” behind the gang of thieves and that her motivation “was based on her desire to own the designer wardrobes of the Hollywood celebrities she admired.” “Miranda Kerr, a Victoria’s Secret model, was dating Orlando Bloom, and Rachel wanted Victoria’s Secret model clothes,” he said.

After his confession, police went to the homes of the other members to search for stolen belongings. At Lee’s house, they found a coat belonging to Lohan and topless photos of Hilton. At Alexis Neiers’s, they located a Marc Jacobs handbag that belonged to Rachel Bilson and a Chanel necklace that belonged to Lohan. According to the LAPD report, the Bling Ring burglarized Bilson’s house six times and stole approximately $130,000 worth of valuables, which they later tried to sell on Venice Beach, one of Los Angeles’ most famous beaches.

In September 2009, Prugo was charged and served one year of a two-year prison sentence. Shortly afterward, Lee was apprehended and charged with three counts of burglary. She served 16 months of her four-year sentence in state prison. In October of that year, the rest were arrested: Alexis Neiers, Diana Tamayo, and Courtney Ames. Neiers served 32 days in jail for the burglary at Bloom’s house. Tamayo served part of her sentence in the county jail, where Lindsay Lohan was also incarcerated, and completed 60 days of community service. Ames received three years of probation and two months of community service.

Although their primary motivation was to achieve fame, after serving their sentences most members of the gang chose to stay out of the spotlight. Nothing more was heard of them until 2022 when Nick Prugo and Alexis Neier starred in the Netflix documentary The Real Bling Ring: Hollywood Heist. In it, Prugo revealed that he married Per Norgo in 2017, that they started an online business, and that he had applied for a certificate of rehabilitation and a pardon from the governor.

Alexis Neiers is the only one who has continued down the path to fame. Before her arrest, she had already been filming a reality show on E! called Pretty Wild, a program about aspiring teen celebrities and models. In late 2025, she collaborated with a vintage design store to release T-shirts with the slogans “Pretty Wild” and “Six-inch Louboutin,” referencing the show and the headline of the Vanity Fair article that first reported on and detailed the case. After getting married, Neiers changed her last name to that of her then-husband and is now Alexis Haines. She is a mother, has been sober for 15 years, has 112,000 followers on Instagram, and hosts a podcast called Recovering from Reality.

Rachel Lee, the leader of the gang, didn’t give her side of the story until 2023, in the HBO documentary The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring. In it, she explained that her obsession with fame, her insecurities, and drug use led her to commit the robberies. She also pointed to the media and some victims — like Paris Hilton, who appeared in and lent her house for Sofia Coppola’s film — for fueling the drama and making it seem like “a cool story.” She now works as a stylist in a Los Angeles hair salon.

Courtney Ames and Diana Tamayo remain out of the public eye — like Nick Prugo, they don’t even have social media profiles, at least not public ones. In 2016, Ames attempted to legally change her name, but it’s unknown whether the judge approved her request. She studied psychology, public speaking, and child development at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, California, according to US Weekly. The last known information about Tamayo came in 2018, when a source close to her told the same publication that she was a personal trainer and happily married.

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