Now, a former reality television villain who lost his home in the Palisades fire is using his Hollywood savvy, social media skills and his innate rage to harness those emotions, emerging as an unexpected and polarizing contender in the mayor’s race.
Spencer Pratt of MTV’s reality soap “The Hills” has turned a sleepy citywide contest into a national story, outpacing his rivals in fundraising, putting in an assured debate performance and ranking near the top of voter surveys.
L.A. has never seen a mayoral candidate quite like Pratt, a scathing critic of City Hall who has depicted its streets as a dystopian hellscape menaced by drug-addicted zombies. He has vowed a scorched-earth policy for those who might block his vision for clearing away the unhoused.
Pratt has picked up campaign donations from Democratic Party megadonor Haim Saban and Universal Music Group Chairman and Chief Executive Lucian Grainge, one of the most powerful men in the music business. A registered Republican, he has won praise from media figures aligned with President Trump, including podcaster Joe Rogan and Fox News host Greg Gutfeld.
Trump himself offered words of support on Wednesday, saying: “I heard he’s a big MAGA person.”
Pratt has downplayed his party affiliation, pointing out that the mayor’s race is nonpartisan. He repeatedly declined to comment for this story, including when approached at a campaign event Wednesday.
“He’s an outsider candidate. He’s a celebrity candidate. He’s very clever, very strategic, and very skilled at social media,” said Republican strategist Kevin Spillane. “There aren’t many candidates that I’ve seen that are that skilled in a long time.”
Pratt regularly refers to Mayor Karen Bass, now seeking a second term, as trash, swapping her last name out for basura, Spanish for garbage. He has described supporters of Bass as “Bassholes” and backers of another mayoral contender, Councilmember Nithya Raman, as “Ramaniacs.”
Then there are Pratt’s appearances on the far-right outlet Infowars in 2009 and 2017 where he chatted up conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has claimed that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job and that the massacre of 20 schoolchildren at Sandy Hook was a hoax.
“He’s being brash, confrontational, sensational and operating beyond political norms — all things that Trump has done and continues to do,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant.
“That’s why I think there’s potential for him to unlock a constituency that wasn’t going to vote for a Rick Caruso,” he said, referring to the developer who lost to Bass in 2022.
Pratt, 42, launched himself into politics in the wake of the January 2025 Palisades fire, voicing his fury over an empty reservoir, broken-down fire trucks and the destruction of his own home. Like Trump, he comes into politics with wide name recognition, thanks to his time on reality TV.
But while Pratt’s in-your-face bluster might seem lifted from the president’s playbook, it is in fact part of a persona he began honing two decades ago. Now he’s attempting to transform himself again, into a credible candidate for public office.
Polls show that Pratt has a strong chance of finishing in the top-two in the June 2 primary. If no candidate wins a majority, those two compete in the Nov. 3 runoff.
Whether Pratt can win that is another question.
Although the mayor’s race is nonpartisan, L.A. remains a deep blue city, where 55% of registered voters are Democrats and less than 15% are Republicans. Voters haven’t elected a GOP mayor since 1997, when they gave a second term to Richard Riordan, who first won in the wake of the 1992 riots with the slogan “Tough Enough to Turn L.A. Around.”
Political consultants have taken note of the similarities between Pratt’s campaign and Trump’s take-no-prisoners approach. But some have doubts about Pratt’s prospects in a runoff, when midterm congressional elections will serve as a referendum on the president.
“Calling people names, saying outrageous things [where] everything’s a conspiracy — he’s modeling himself after Trump, and I don’t think that works in the city of L.A.,” said Democratic political strategist Garry South.
Pratt has focused much of his mayoral platform on improving public safety, addressing homelessness and stopping animal abuse on Skid Row.
He has called for a massive increase in the number of police officers, taking the force up to 12,500. He has vowed to ensure the city enforces its laws. He’s promising a “treatment first” approach to drug users living on the street.
Although critics have blasted his plans as impractical, his messages were welcomed by the scores of people who showed up Saturday for a campaign meet and greet in Sherman Oaks.
“I’ve been here for 20 years and this place has just deteriorated,” said Sherman Oaks resident Janet Sams, standing near a stack of Pratt lawn signs. “The crime, the homelessness, the inept political people that are in office, and just the feeling of being lied to.”
Son of the Palisades
Pratt was raised in affluent Pacific Palisades, attending Crossroads School, a pricey private academy in Santa Monica teeming with children of entertainment industry figures.
Former classmates described him as a charismatic and popular kid with a sense of humor. But that high-energy personality sometimes turned dark, classmates said, with Pratt making fun of his peers and talking down to staff members.
Nora Kletter, a freelance screenwriter who attended Crossroads, said she knew him as a bully.
“He was enormously disrespectful to a lot of the teachers and staff. It was kind of hard to watch,” said Kletter, who is voting for Raman. “I just remember this attitude of almost like, the teachers worked for us.”
At one after-school soccer game during Pratt’s senior year, Crossroads’ soccer coach benched him. Pratt began screaming at the coach. When a parent intervened, Pratt also screamed at the parent, according to three people who witnessed the incident, who asked to remain unnamed for fear of retaliation.
Pratt, in his new book “The Guy You Loved to Hate: Confessions from a Reality TV Villain,” wrote that the coach was punishing him for “ghosting a meeting the night before playoffs.” Pratt said he was kicked off the team and narrowly avoided expulsion from the school.
“Some people are born to keep the peace,” he said in his book. “I was here to disturb it.”
Sue Kohl, a longtime Palisades resident whose kids grew up with Pratt, said the teenage years should be viewed with some perspective.
“We all knew who our kids were with, and the good and the bad of what was going on,” said Kohl, who is president of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, speaking in her personal capacity. “They were 15. Right now, they’re adults, and I wouldn’t even think about those years.”
Trojan Years
Pratt enrolled at USC in 2003, hoping to “conquer Wall Street,” according to his memoir. But it was his interest in political science that left an impression on his teachers.
Politics and communications professor Dan Schnur, who had Pratt in class, described him as smart but also a “very unconventional” student.
“He was incredibly enthusiastic, and he ended up writing an excellent campaign strategy paper for his final,” said Schnur, a former strategist for GOP candidates.
In his memoir, Pratt said he grew less interested in classwork as he became intrigued by the moneymaking potential of reality television. After seeing the success of “The Osbournes,” the show about Ozzy Osbourne’s family, Pratt looked to produce his own version.
That led to “The Princes of Malibu,” a show he co-created with friends Brody and Brandon Jenner.
Fox canceled the series in 2005 after two episodes. But Pratt got a second shot at reality fame on the MTV show “The Hills,” rising to prominence as the boyfriend — now husband— of Heidi Montag.
The show ran for six seasons. It followed Lauren Conrad, star of “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County,” as she moved to Los Angeles and took an internship with Teen Vogue.
In a 2019 interview with The Times, Pratt said he muscled his way onto “The Hills” after learning that Sean Travis, a producer on “Princes of Malibu,” was working on the new series. Pratt said he called Travis and told him he intended to appear in it.
“He was like, ‘No, no, this is a set cast,’” Pratt said. “I was like, ‘Oh, no, no, I’ll see you in the club. They can’t keep me out of the club.’ I had just been on a show that I thought was going to be the rest of my life. This was a second opportunity.”
Villain on The Hills
As Montag’s troublemaker boyfriend, Pratt quickly became a master at stirring up drama, frequently at the expense of Conrad, Montag’s friend and roommate.
His machinations upset Conrad to the point where she declared him to be a “sucky person,” a moment that lives on in GIFs. According to his memoir, he spread what Conrad said were false rumors about her having a sex tape, telling a gossip blogger about its possible existence.
The incident delivered a dramatic onscreen ending to Conrad’s friendship with Montag. In his memoir, Pratt said he filmed an apology for the show, but only because MTV offered him payment for it.
Viewers loved to hate Pratt. As the show became more popular, the spotlight on its young stars grew more intense, fueling coverage in tabloids and entertainment magazines. Pratt married Montag, who was looking to become a pop singer.
With “The Hills” nearing an end, Pratt wrote in his memoir, he burned through money and grew paranoid about the couple’s personal safety, stockpiling guns and ammunition.
He became fascinated with crystals and their healing properties, he wrote. And he took an interest in Jones, the conspiracy theorist and radio and internet host.
Pratt went on air with Jones in 2009, telling him that Infowars is “the only thing anybody should be paying attention to” on Twitter. He talked about Jones’ theory that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack was “an inside job” and expressed alarm over a federal climate change bill.
“It’s mind-boggling that they’re trying to say there’s global warming right now and, you know, that the ice caps are melting and the polar bears are going to drown,” Pratt said. “When we all know, we’ve all seen footage of the polar bears swimming to new pieces of ice.”
Within a year, the Pratts decided to pursue a divorce — or, at least, a divorce filing. Pratt had been shopping the idea of a lifeguard movie and was determined to stay relevant, according to his memoir.
Heidi Pratt filed the paperwork in 2010, generating headlines for months, according to the memoir.
“The public saw chaos, betrayal, and divorce papers,” Pratt wrote in his book. “But behind the scenes? Heidi and I were still thick as thieves, scheming side by side, laughing at how easy it was to keep the world guessing and the checks coming in.”
Heidi Pratt eventually asked for the case to be dismissed.
The couple soon found other opportunities, appearing in “Celebrity Big Brother” in the U.K. Pratt finished his degree at USC. He voiced growing unhappiness with his reputation as one of the “most hated people in the known universe.”
Alex Baskin, executive producer of “The Hills: New Beginnings,” which aired from 2019 to 2021, said he believes Pratt didn’t realize the implications of his role as the show’s bad guy.
“Even if you create a persona, it’s an extension of yourself,” Baskin said. “And if you really say things that are related to that persona — whether or not it’s encouraged [by producers], and I’m sure it was, especially when it was working and it was entertaining — it’s going to stick.”
Pratt returned to “The Alex Jones Show” in 2017, when the host was under fire for falsely portraying the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut as a hoax. Standing with Heidi on a beach in Hawaii, Pratt quizzed Jones about whether his remarks had been unfairly edited.
“I know from watching you for years that you’re not like — I know people are gonna eat me alive for this, but — a bad guy,” Pratt said in a video interview. “But then people see this whole Sandy Hook spin that they have, and they’re like, ‘He doesn’t believe parents.’”
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Forged By Fire
Around 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 7, 2025, Pratt’s nanny burst through the door of his house in the Palisades, Pratt wrote in his memoir. A fire had started on a nearby hill.
Heidi took their two sons to the home of Pratt’s parents, also in the Palisades but closer to the ocean. “For their place to burn, the entire town would have to go up in flames,” he wrote.
Pratt stayed behind, waiting anxiously for two hours, saying he saw no air support overhead. When the fire approached his parents’ home nearby, Pratt realized it was time to go.
Pratt packed his BMW and called 911 one last time, begging dispatchers to send firefighters. They told him none were available, he wrote.
In the end, Pratt’s three-bedroom house and his parents’ home were two of the 6,845 structures destroyed by the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people.
Since then, Pratt has assailed Bass for being on a diplomatic trip to Ghana when the fire ignited, despite a forecast of dangerously high winds and “ critical fire conditions.” Bass has said that she wasn’t told of those warnings.
Businessman Jeremy Padawer, who also lost his home, said the disaster opened Pratt’s eyes to the “extreme lack of accountability” by the city.
“I think Spencer’s perspective was, ‘I’m going to turn this into not just an avocation but also a vocation,’” he said. “It was, ‘How can I dedicate my life to making this better?’”
Pratt sued the city, saying he held Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom responsible for the loss of his and his parents’ homes. He railed against the charity known as FireAid, saying it failed to provide proper relief to fire survivors. He joined Republican U.S. Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin in publicizing a federal inquiry into the fire.
“Spencer took that message to Washington and brought these two senators out here. They would have never been here without his advocacy,” said Kohl of the Pacific Palisades Community Council.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Campaign for Mayor
On Jan. 7, the first anniversary of the fire, Pratt launched his campaign, ratcheting up the pressure on Bass. Using social media, he put the spotlight on darkened streetlights, stripped of copper wire; homeless encampments lining city sidewalks; drug use in MacArthur Park.
In the wake of the fire, Pratt moved to his parents’ beach home in Carpinteria, in Santa Barbara County. After The Times asked about where he was living, Pratt posted a video saying he had placed an Airstream trailer onto his burned-out lot in the Palisades.
“This is where I live,” he said, standing in front of the trailer in a campaign video that Pratt titled “They Not Like Us.”
In the video, Pratt stood outside Raman’s Silver Lake home and the city-owned Getty House in Hancock Park, where Bass lives, contending both are far removed from the urban ills that beset other Angelenos.
TMZ later reported that Pratt had been staying at the pricey Hotel Bel-Air. Responding to that initial report, Pratt told TMZ that his security team wouldn’t allow him to live in the trailer because of threats he had received.
“I’m at a hotel because these psychopaths are messaging me every day they’re going to kill me,” Pratt said.
He has been using eye-catching images to spread his message, reposting an artificial intelligence- generated video that portrayed Bass as the Joker, the Batman villain. The spot depicted angry citizens throwing tomatoes that hit AI-generated images of Bass, Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Raman blasted Pratt as a MAGA Republican and a “mini-Trump.” Pratt has disputed that idea.
“I do not represent a party. I don’t have a campaign manager. I don’t have a campaign consultant. There’s no political party backing me,” he told NBC4.
Pratt’s campaign filings show connections to Republican consultants. His campaign received nearly $65,000 in services from Highland Political, a fundraising and consulting business founded by June Cutter, a onetime GOP state Assembly candidate and executive director of the California chapter of the nonprofit America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank.
Pratt also turned to the Republican consultants Tag Strategies, which helped his campaign with digital ads, copywriting and fundraising, according to campaign filings. Tag’s website shows many GOP clients, including Trump‘s 2020 campaign, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and an assortment of Republican U.S. senators.
Opinion polls suggest that Bass won’t win a majority vote in the primary, forcing her into a Nov. 3 runoff with either Raman or Pratt.
If it’s Pratt who makes the runoff, Democratic consultant South sees his surprising run coming to an end, given the city’s politics.
“If it’s down to a two-way choice with two names on the ballot, the notion that he could get 51% of the vote is pretty incredible to me,” he said.
Spillane said he too thinks Pratt is unlikely to win in a runoff. Still, he said, it’s possible some unforeseen event could occur that would allow Pratt to score an upset victory.
“Never say never in politics,” the GOP consultant said. “Xavier Becerra was supposed to land in the single digits, and now he is going to be the Democratic nominee for governor,” he said.
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