Coincidence or perfectly planned?
“The Bling Ring” premiered on Lifetime Monday night, three days after an accused member of the real life “Bling Ring” pleaded no contest to a burglary charge.
Rachel Lee, 21, a member of the “Bling Ring” pleaded no contest to the burglary charge on Friday. She is accused of breaking into reality TV star Audrina Patridge’s house, and taking $3 million worth of items from her pad. Lee is expected to be sentenced to four years in prison as part of a plea deal, according to reports.
It doesn’t look like there’s a connection with Lee’s court appearance and the premiere of the movie, but Lifetime did get a little lucky after pushing back the premiere date.
“The Bling Ring” was originally scheduled to air in August, but the network delayed the premiere so they could promote the movie for another month.
Although the movie is inspired by the true “Bling Ring” story, the names of the characters in the flick are different then the accused burglars.
The movie is centered around high school student Austin Butler, who like many kids his age is shy and wants to be liked by other students. He later meets up with Yin Chang, and the two start stealing from rich celebrities. Other friends decide to join in on the fun of robbing celebrities of millions of dollars worth of clothes and jewelry.
The real ring was arrested in 2009 and was accused of burglaries at homes of big time celebs like Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, Paris Hilton, Rachel Bilson, Brian Austin-Green and Megan Fox, and Ashley Tisdale.
They allegedly scoured the Internet, and used sites like TMZ and Twitter to find out where the celebrities lived, and to learn when they would be away from their homes.
The four other accused members of the ring—Nicholas Prugo, Courtney Leigh Ames, Diana Tamayo and Roy Lopez, Jr.—are scheduled to return to court in November for motions, the Los Angeles Times reported. They all have pleaded not guilty.
