Former Real World' star Lacey Buehler runs Florida salon -- Whatever happened to . . . ?'

What has former Wellington resident Lacey Buehler done since she starred on MTV's "The Real World" in 2005?

The hipster hairdresser played the part of goody-two-shoes on the long-running reality show's season in Austin, Texas.

Three years later, she remains a bubbly, nose-ring-wearing, Christian virgin. And thanks to publicity fees, she now runs her own salon.

"It was definitely worth going," said Buehler, 27, who owns Lacey May Salon in Tallahassee, Fla. "It's been so long ago that all those stupid little fights have faded, and we just remember how much fun it was to not have jobs and a free schedule and live in a really cool city for free."

Buehler -- whose childhood church forbade rock music and women wearing pants -- graduated fourth in the Black River High School class of 1999. She studied elementary education at Covenant College, a Presbyterian school in Lookout Mountain, Ga., then decided to finance her education by becoming a hairdresser. When her roommate transferred to Florida State University, she followed to a job at the Green Peridot in Tal lahassee.

She applied to "The Real World" -- to be one of "seven strangers picked to live in a house, work together and have their lives taped," as the show's narration goes -- just for a break.

She doesn't regret it, despite the editing that made her good-girl personality look constantly grouchy.

She saved the $5,000 the show paid, plus money from speeches, bar appearances and MTV reunions, to open her salon in December 2006. She employs two other stylists -- including a former Miss Teen Florida. And she doesn't do perms.

Life has been too busy to go back to school, said Buehler, who recently broke up with her longtime boyfriend. She visits Ohio twice a year, to see her parents, who have moved to Medina.

She sees her former castmates, too, most recently in May on a birthday trip back to Austin.

They visited their friend Brad, who owned their favorite Austin bar and happened to star in ABC’s “The Bachelor” a few years back.

“It was a really disgusting cluster of reality-TV people,” Buehler said, laughing.

— Laura Johnston