Ten years after The Hills entered our lives, its most infamous cast member spoke to PCD2009 about everything from the staged candids, to the surgeries, and the person who really spread the sex tape rumor.
With it being the 10th anniversary of The Hills, I reached out to its greatest star - Spencer Pratt - for an interview. For nearly two hours last week we chatted on the phone about everything from Heidi’s headline-making music career to The Tape™. While most media outlets are busy getting the same responses about what scenes on the show were fake (let’s face it, pretty much all of them were), I decided to focus more on Speidi’s experiences in the limelight, which happened to be during the peak of modern celebrity obsession. After all, who better to talk about the fame game with than one of pop culture’s most infamous? So grab a drink, start playing some Natasha Bedingfield, and enjoy!
Who was the first celebrity you’ve ever met?
Meryl Streep. My childhood friend was Mamie Gummer and I didn’t realize her mom was famous until later.
Who was the rudest celebrity you’ve met, and the nicest?
Rudest was Tom Brady, nicest was Kanye West.
Was there anybody, celebrity-wise, that inspired Speidi and the phenomenon it became? Fame-game role models, inspirations, etc.?
Definitely Paris Hilton, she was running the media game when we entered, so if it was anything it was definitely Paris - she gets all the credit.
What was your first experience with celebrity/tabloid culture? And by that, I mean before Princes of Malibu, had you ever tried to get on a reality show, or hang out with a celebrity? I remember that photo of you and a wasted Mary-Kate Olsen (circa 2002), and I read you sold it for thousands.
I was always helping with Brody and Nicole Richie, that was the next ’stage’ - that was my next little svengali move, then Nicole did not like what I said in Details Magazine. I was taken out of context, they had been using the word ’bitch’ like it was a ’BFF word,’ so when I said in Details, “We’re going to be American heroes, we’re going to get this skinny bitch to eat!” I was really being genuine. Her and Paris were saying ’bitch’ this, ’bitch’ that, but when you read it in print it’s like “Oh, what an asshole,” but I was really saying “She’s too skinny, we gotta get her to eat, and we’re going to be fucking heroes in America.” That was annoying, because I was being genuine, I really wanted to get Nicole healthy at the time. She did need to eat.
Did Brody actually try to get Nicole to eat?
We definitely went and got like, protein powders, and went to the Malibu Vitamin Bar and loaded up on healthy protein stuff. We were ordering more food than Brody and I eat, so around us she was definitely eating more than she would’ve been eating without us, I can put money on that, and we were definitely always getting Jerry’s Deli delivered over to her condo, so I’d definitely say yes. If you hang out with me, you’re going to gain weight.
When you started appearing on reality TV, were you in it all for the money? Or did you aspire to be famous too, and money was just a bonus?
The fame part was so much fun - when you start going into restaurants and Wolfgang’s eating dinner with you and you’re like, “Oh my god, I was just in college eating Wolfgang pizza and now we’re ordering wine and talking about the smell!” The allure of the actual fame is so much fun, the money’s great, but if you were as famous right now as Lionel Messi, you wouldn’t even need the money ‘cause everyone is trying to buy you things and trying to give you things. The fame is almost more powerful than the money - if you’re loved. I can’t even imagine being loved. But even the hate and negativity was so much fun, since you’re cutting every line and getting all this free stuff and getting paid to go everywhere. I think I used to joke back in summer school when I was, like, 16 - my friends will tell me, I don’t remember this, but they tell me now: “You used to always say you were going to be on the cover of Us Weekly,” so I think I was always claiming I was about to be famous, and that always trips me out. And I already had a cancelled show, Princes of Malibu, so I felt the juice and it had a pull for me, so when we got to The Hills, that was like the mercenaries, just not playing around.
Do you get recognized in public often, and how do people treat you?
Pretty much every single place I go I get recognized, and people are always super positive. If it’s in a place that sells alcohol, everyone always wants to do a shot with me, which kind of gets annoying when I’m trying not to be drunk - which isn’t too often, but there are times I try not to be. But nowadays it’s awesome, there was definitely - back in the heyday - a lot more dirty looks, a lot of middle fingers from cars. Every now and then there was yelling, but nowadays I get a lot of, “You rock!” Most of the people that have actually recognized me say, “You were on that jungle show!” - which is so crazy to me. If I had known I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! was going to be what I was known for, I would have at least tried to stay in the jungle longer.
How did paparazzi find out where you guys were all the time? Did you tip them off/work out a deal?
Since I had already made a partnership with Pacific Coast News to sell those Mary-Kate photos, I had already had that relationship with them, so the second we were having paparazzi following us and taking our photo, I was like, “Woah! They’re selling these photos! I need to call my homebody James over at PCN and let’s get our own guys.” There’s obviously very clear stage-y ones, and James is from England. All the best sales at the time were in England, and in England they like 'em real cheesey - looking at the camera, smiling, doing ridiculous stuff. But we didn’t get that in America, where they’d be reselling also, that everybody would be like, “Oh, they’re so phony!” Which is ironic now because if you look at celebrities today, they smile at the paparazzi and they do all these ridiculous Instagram photos & outfits and they all dress up for Halloween - all the stuff that only Paris Hilton would do. Like I said, Paris was leading, I give her credit. That was only Paris, now it’s every famous person doing what used to be her game. So I think that’s always funny, we were known as ’famewhores,’ but that was just because James was having us do these cheesey over-the-top shots that the British audience loved for their ’rags’ - as they call them over there, I call them beautiful magazines here. So you can tell the difference between what was real and what was staged. We had a 50/50 partnership with [PCN] and we were making over a million dollars selling our paparazzi photos, so you start doing a lot of them and you’re like “This is the best gig ever!” But I mean, if we went to Robertson at the time, which is where Paris and everybody would hang out, those were all real paparazzi; or if we went driving around Hollywood, those were real paparazzi; or if you go on Rodeo, those were real paparazzi. We were stupid famous at the time, we were getting real paparazzi, but we tried to avoid them as much as possible because we wanted to make our own money and sell our own photos. And I learned that game - I won’t name his name - but my good friend is the photo editor at a major magazine and he told me about how Brad & Angelina set-up and partnered with a photo agency to sell their first photos when they were seen on that random beach in Africa when they first started dating. So when I heard that Brad & Angelina did this, I was like “Uhh, why don’t I copy the most famous superstars in the world that are rich & doing this?” So that’s who I jacked the whole ’stage game’ from, once I heard that’s what they did.
And on that topic, how often - from what you’ve seen - are celebrities truly stalked by the paparazzi, versus them complaining about it when they’ve really worked out a deal behind-the-scenes?
Every single one of those ’Who Wore It Better’ in every magazine is a set-up photo with the publicist, with the magazine, with the designer, they are getting paid to wear the dress, the publicist is giving kickbacks to the magazine. Yes, there’s - uh - Kristen Stewart I do not think - 'cause I talked to the guy that took that photo… you know, here’s what’s weird. Kristen Stewart knew they were following her when she kissed that director, she knew the paparazzi were following her. Maybe she thought she lost them, but I talked to that photographer who got the shot and he was like, “Dude, we’ve been sitting at her house all day.” Like, she’s a smart enough girl, and at that time when she had been famous also… there’s always those suspicious moments like - did Rob already cheat on her? Were they already breaking up, and she was like “I’m gonna light this fool up”? Who knows. My point is, even the shots you think are like, “Oh my god!” - these people know that they are getting followed. So maybe they thought they were really crafty and lost them - it’s so hard to lose these photographers, these guys drive like Jason Bourne, you know what I mean? And they switch cars. So, yes, there’s major stars that definitely, like for instance, I know because my sister’s kids go to the same school as Fergie’s kids, and my sister called me and she’s like, “What do I do about these photographers that wait out here for Fergie to pick up her kids?” So, you know, maybe that’s Fergie’s photographer, I don’t know, maybe. I know that, I would guess 90% of famous people, if they’re not in contact with their photographer individually, their publicist is, and they have like, “Yeah! I’m going here, heads up!” - and the publicist emails the photo agency they have. Here’s how you can always figure this out, if you were to take the time to look at certain celebrities, who their photo agencies that always gets their photos, and it seems like this recurring pattern, like, it looks like Kim K always works with Splash - maybe not, I’m throwing that name out there - or like if you saw Heidi & Spencer were always with PCN back in the day. So there are ways to figure out, but then a good publicist maybe works with three different agencies, and don’t have any exclusive deals. That’s why these publicists get paid 5-10k a month, to get these people in magazines. Obviously there’s photos out there that I know people do not want out, and if they did they’re insane. But what I used to think people wouldn’t want out, now what they put on their Snapchat and Instagram makes me question everything - like, you’re just trying to be so relatable with no makeup and looking fat, great, I guess so. The fame is so competitive now that the stakes have definitely changed in what people will do to get posts and mag shots. Short answer, I think that everyone is game, and playing the game as hard as they can. Maybe like, Sean Penn is trying to lose some photographers to go to dinner with a cartel leader, but even then… they got the paparazzi shots of him at the airport in Mexico! So it’s like, c'mon!
I’m assuming the paparazzi industry’s taken a turn since then, how bad is it right now?
Oh yeah, right now it’s in dire straits. Paparazzi agencies are letting go. They used to always have staff photographers that got salaries, and now they’re only using freelancers mainly and only keeping a few people on. The only reason these agencies are afloat is because they sell their backlog of photos - their archives. Now photos that you used to get $2K for are now maybe 300 bucks.
What celebrities did you hang out with on a regular basis back in the day? Who was in your circle that wasn’t on the show?
I only really hung out with Brody. I left college, we did that show together, and then we were like a team. We didn’t have anybody else really, we were just like a team hitting the town together. We had friends like Frankie - who was the guy that ran the clubs; we had Jared, who would buy all the bottles, but we didn’t have any famous people that we would hang out with. One time we did kick it a lot with Michael Buble, which is really funny. It was right when he moved here from Canada, and he was doing his first album with David Foster & David’s studio was at Brody’s Casablanca house, so we were always kicking it with this guy that was just a Canadian bar singer at the time. In reflection, that was the most famous person that we kicked it with.
You guys spent a lot of money and bought a lot of expensive things at the peak of the show’s popularity, do you guys still have all of that? The cars, clothes, etc.?
That was the dumbest thing we ever did. We gave away - easily - two million dollars in clothes, 'cause we were on that whole ’we already wore it once,’ so Heidi would always give her shoes to hair and makeup people after she’d wear them once. She one time gave a whole wardrobe to this store to resell for her and she didn’t even really collect the money because we weren’t worried about reselling clothes, it was just like - do whatever you want. And then I gave all of my clothes to my buddy at the time. I already bought maybe a whole Hermes desk, and chairs, everything that you can have Hermes we pretty much had. We have none of it now, so that’s frustrating. But the reality is, I wouldn’t want Heidi to wear any heels because I only like her to wear tennis shoes and be comfortable, because I heard for years, “Ow my feet!” I never want to hear that again, those shoes are tortuous for women. I don’t even think they look cool. I think sly sneakers or running shoes look way cooler. I hate wearing suits because heat rashes, I get all hot and itchy. I wouldn’t even wear any of this stuff, but it’s frustrating that I can’t just go look at it because I’m just stupid, so it’s annoying. We don’t go to any fancy events or red carpets, though. Heidi one time bought a $7K dress for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and she wore it a second time and Perez Hilton posted, like, ’Heidi Rewears Chloe Dress, Ew!“ - and that totally broke Heidi’s heart, so we were on the whole ’you should never wear things twice’ - which is the dumbest thing on the whole earth. Now we probably couldn’t even wear any of this stuff because it would all be considered vintage now.
What was your daily routine during the height of your fame?
We’d go to Cafe Vida in the Pacific Palisades and I’d get a chicken burrito, yam fries, and an iced tea every single day, and we’d usually go to Don Antonio’s for dinner. We went to a lot of movies, too. Heidi’s the only person that loves going to the movies as much as I do. We went to Cabo a lot also, but we were so busy. We were filming all day everyday - we didn’t have any free time. Any free time we had we would be in the recording studio, which is not a joke. We spent every waking extra minute driving to the Valley and going to Glenwood Studios - shoutout Kit!
How was your salary increased each season? And how often did you get bonuses for coerced scenes? And on that note, were bonuses given on a regular basis to the cast to encourage juicy scenes?
I don’t know about the other cast members, but I’m sure LC was getting bonuses up the wall. Heidi told me, when she was still friends with Lauren, that they would give her gifts of, like, Chanel bags and she saw all this designer stuff. The only gift we ever got from MTV - I’m not even kidding - was a little plastic bubblegum dispenser that said MTV on it that was, like, the size of a baseball. Everyone definitely had different deals. That’s why I was always acting so bananas, because I think we needed to get 6 million viewers to get that ratings bonus, which was at least a $100K bonus. That’s how the Jersey Shore got so rich - they were getting 6 to 8 million viewers, so they were getting ratings bonuses, like, every episode. In our contracts, maybe LC only needed to get 3 million, but I don’t think we ever got a ratings bonus. In Heidi’s first season, she only got paid $1,000 - for the whole season - and she really had to work at Bolthouse all day long & sit there for minimum wage, and they made her pay rent at whatever condo she had. She was totally effed. But that was the deal that LC’s manager & agent had set up for her, which she totally sabotaged. Like, ”Oh thanks, you hooked me up with your agent to get me $1K for 12 episodes on a TV show and I have to pay my own rent and I’m just a broke 17-and-a-half year old from Crested Butte Colorado.“ So when I came along, I was like: ”Yeah, you’re definitely firing LC’s agent, they clearly don’t care about you.“ And then we got a new lawyer - this guy Dan Black, who happened to be the lawyer for the co-executive producer of the show, who was also the executive producer on Princes of Malibu - so that’s how that all connected. So I got him and then the deals started going up. It went from Heidi getting paid $1K for the first season, and getting like $2K an episode on Season 2, to Season 3 - when we started cracking off - it probably went to 20 or 30k an episode, since by Season 6 it was like $125K an episode. But the way they screwed us is they would always say in our deals that we’d get paid more the next season, but what they would do is - instead of adding a new season - they would call it Season 3B and they would add another 12 episodes onto Season 3, when it should’ve stopped at 12, but went to like 25, so the money wouldn’t go up to what it should’ve been going up to, so they had us rigged.
Do you like how the show left out the ’fame’ element? Only briefly was the celebrity status of the cast members alluded to throughout the show - such as Lauren saying her alleged sex tape was being talked about on "blogs.”
Hell no! That was the only problem with the show. They should’ve kept all the music, all the glossy looks, all the editing and cuts and have the shit real. Like Jersey Shore, if it was fake I don’t know, it feels completely real. I watch clips of The Hills and it looks like just a bunch of bad acting from 12 different people - including myself - because they would edit all these weird lines that nobody would say & put it all together in this weird version of what Adam DiVello thought would look like this Melrose Place/Sex And The City script he was plagiarizing from all day long. If you’d add up Brody popping bottles, coming at the paparazzi, and LC covering her face like, “Oh, I don’t like being famous!” - it would’ve been incredible. Heidi and I spending 3 million dollars trying to make her Britney Spears, and every night spending 8 hours in these recording studios with Heidi crying all night long because we couldn’t get the cut right - and these producers all yelling and saying we owed them more money. There was so much more real drama, I don’t even know about everybody else, but I know we had so much real drama and if we wanted to make a reality show why are we not covering it. Okay, I get it, season 1 or 2, people weren’t famous enough, but by season 3 everyone was really famous. The Kardashians do it, and I love when they show paparazzi on the show!
This is random, but I tried reaching out to Max with no response - was that fight with Max Nash, the guy at Heidi’s work, real? I assumed he was a paid actor, since he later appeared on an E! reality show - Pretty Wild - with some members of The Bling Ring.
The producers told him to say that, and I wasn’t about to just let him get to talk shit to me. I was pretty hip to the script. He didn’t work [at Bolthouse], the producers brought him in for that little scene. That was Adam DiVello’s way to try to piss me off, and it worked.
In a 2015 interview with Complex, you said that Kim Kardashian was trying to get on the show, and even filmed a couple of scenes, was there anyone else that was desperate to be on the show?
Well, at first Lo was always desperate to be on the show. Once she realized it was a hit show - at the time her and LC hated each other and beefed out - and then all of a sudden Lo’s coming back out of the woodwork, like, “Hey girl! I’m moving back to Hollywood.” So Lo was the most desperate out of anyone. She came straight like the itsy bitsy spider down the water spout to get back in the game.
How do you honestly feel now that the Kardashian/Jenners are everywhere and filling that same spot Speidi used to have in the media? Do you have any resentment towards them, or do you wish them the best? Do you think they’re playing the 'game’ as well as you and Heidi did? And why do you think they’ve lasted so long?
I’m a huge fan, so it’s definitely frustrating that I’m not getting the huge checks and I’m not stupid famous still, but I definitely love watching the show - and Kim’s snapchat with Kanye is beyond incredible. You know, I would have no problem if I never had to see Kourtney or Khloe ever again, so I could easily do without those two. But Kim, Kendall, Kylie, Caitlyn, Kris, Scott AKA ’Lord’ - they’re phenomenal. I’m from the world where I always got, “What are you even famous for?” So I love when people still get that - “What are they even famous for?” - and make millions of dollars and get to fly around in jets and get the last laugh on haters, so I’m on Team ’Hahaha, they’re famous for being rich, idiots!“ I definitely don’t have any ill will, but obviously if it was between me and them I’d much rather me be famous than them, but I guess that’s obvious. They just have the edge on us 'cause there’s so many of them, so even though you feel like you get sick of hearing about them, it rotates who you’re hearing about. Like one week there’ll be something about Caitlyn, and another week it’ll be about Kylie or Tyga, so they do have the edge, where it was just Heidi and I, so it’s hard to come up with storylines and stunts when there’s just two of you. The equivalent would be Heidi and I playing doubles tennis, and they’re like a football team. There’s just so many more players on the field that it’s hard to compare, but I can’t speak on them since the difference is this: I would love to see their fame game if E! had cancelled their show after six seasons, so that’s the edge. If MTV was still airing The Hills, Heidi and I would be just as famous as them right now. The key is you have to be on TV, and that’s what I didn’t understand back in the day. I thought you could just be in tabloids or just be on social media, that’s what I didn’t understand. Your only fame is because you’re on a network that’s pumping you and putting you out there, so I’d love to see how famous [the Kardashians] are if E! stopped airing the show. Now let’s see what’s up! TV’s the power and that’s what nobody realizes that the networks have been around for ages. The reason Paris and Nicole are famous is because they were on FOX, which at the time was the biggest network there was, that’s why they were famous, they were getting to go on FOX and FOX commercials, but once you get unplugged - yeah you could be in tabloids - but even when tabloids were selling their most at their peak, it’s like a 1,500,000 circulation, where a hit show on FOX has like, 25 million people, and it’s right there on their couch, and it’s usually only 22 minutes or maybe 44 minutes, straight-up getting put on people’s brains versus ’Oh! I just turned that page so fast, there were 8 different celebrities in that Us Weekly” - like how much power does that really hold? That’s definitely the key, being on TV. That’s why all these scripted actors, once they’re not on a scripted show, you forget about them. The only reason why they were famous is because they were in your house for free. But the world’s different now, I’m older, I guess there’s people that are famous from the Internet, but here’s the thing - right now there could be a YouTube star that has, let’s say, 6 billion views - I don’t know how many YouTube people get - but right now if I walked into my coffee shop and that person was in there versus somebody that was on Love & Hip Hop on VH1, I would know who the Love & Hip Hop person that gets only 1 million or 2 million views, versus that 6 billion views on a YouTube channel - the power of actual television, like that’s why people are like “TV’s done! It’s the internet!” It’s like no, that’s not true, the TV will always be more powerful, because - you know - it’s got the ’juice.’ The networks are conglomerates, I can’t even explain it, but TV will always be more powerful than these social media platforms, which is unfortunate for me because I wish I could get more famous on Snapchat than having a FOX show, but that’s not the case.
If you could do it all over again, what would you have done differently?
I would’ve gone way harder. I would’ve done everything that I said about LC. It was true, I would’ve done it in front of paparazzi, and with, like, TMZ cameras in public streets. I would’ve just rolled up on her when she was filming and been like, “Why are you lying about this? Heidi didn’t do this. You’re a fucking liar!” And expose her right there without the power of the whole production team guarding her and making sure that she never came off wrong. I would’ve used the TMZ cameras to get the real truth, and the real story, and if The Hills wanted to follow it, whatever. I shouldn’t have sat back and let them just walk all over us. It’s one thing if you’re going to be the villain for saying all the real things and the truth. It’s another thing to be the villain for all the fake shit I just went along with. I would’ve gone way harder as a villain. I would’ve used the media, but the problem was I would’ve been kicked off the show. If I went and did that in front of their cameras, I think I could’ve pulled it off because it’s like, “What? I did it on the show.” I think I could’ve pulled that off a couple times, that would’ve been huge if I had rolled up on her and been like, “You know what you did, you lying little bitch! Don’t come up and punk my sweet little angel girlfriend!” Heidi’s too sweet, she’s from Crested Butte. Lauren had already played this game for years against Kristin Cavallari - who’s a killer, positive not a negative. Lauren was already a veteran. It’d be like Tom Brady going against some high school quarterback, with all due respect to Heidi. She was just too sweet for what she was up against. She had no idea the stakes, and I shouldn’t have sat back and let her get eaten alive. And Heidi had no money, so she was like, “Whatever. I came from no money, now I can buy dinner.” When I met Heidi, she lived off of top ramen. That’s what I would’ve done - got the real show on camera and make it so they couldn’t edit around it, 'cause if they would’ve edited it all weird, people would’ve seen it on TMZ and been like, “No, he said this, this & this, and the show didn’t show any of that.” When I think back, that’s the only way I could’ve played it legally and got the truth on a camera. Whether or not MTV would go along with it - because they were funding Lauren’s little bootleg clothing line at the time - who knows.
How much of fame is achieved by making calculated steps versus having characteristics that can’t be learned (people who are simply destined to be famous/have that 'it’ factor)? If fame was a recipe, what would be the ingredients?
If you’re going to really play the game right, you still need to have a connect. You’ve got to be on a TV show, if you want real fame you’ve got to be on a TV show or movie. I love YouTube people. I love Vine people, they’re all entertaining, but real fame - if you want to play the game - you need to be on a TV show or in a movie. If you have the best talent in the whole world, you can become famous without a TV show or a movie, but it’s hard especially now. There was a way more mapped-out formula when we did it because there wasn’t all these platforms. Now I feel like it’s easier and harder, because now it’s like you’re competing against the whole world. Everyday somebody’s trying to do something that’s entertaining, and to go viral. Before, only the people that wanted to be famous were trying to do things to be famous. Now my mom is trying to post things to get likes, c'mon, like, you’re competing against my mom! In 2007, there was definitely a formula. Maybe there is now, but I can’t name somebody that got famous just off a hustle, without a TV show or a movie. You better be real confident, with all due respect to my wife, that was the hardest part for her. When she was famous, haters really got to Heidi. Comments really hurt her feelings. It did not phase me. I actually, at the time, embraced it. Now I love rap songs that are like “If you don’t got haters, then you aint poppin’.” You better be self-secure if you want to be famous, everybody wants to take you down, especially once you get famous, then you’re really going to get the heat. So I would say you better be ready for a lot of negativity, and try not to take it personally.
What does it honestly feel like to be famous - or infamous, for that matter? Speidi was everywhere, so what went through your head during all of that? How did you feel each day as you and Heidi were broadcasted on every TV, every tabloid, and ripped apart on every gossip site?
Overwhelming, definitely. Like, there were definitely times I just paid people $200 cash to go down the street to get a burrito because I didn’t want to deal with - whatever. It definitely got to the point where it felt not even worth it. It got to that level where it’s like, this is a nightmare. When there’s super famous people that complain about, like, “being famous is so hard” - well, they do have 80 million dollars. Heidi and I didn’t have 80 million dollars. When you don’t have millions of dollars in the bank and you’re just spending it all, it doesn’t feel worth it. If I had $90 - $100 million, you give me Brad & Angelina money and I don’t know if I’d ever have a problem going to get my burrito. How to describe it? Super weird. It’s just weird when people think they know you, that’s the trippiest thing - that always drives me nuts. My own friends barely know me. So that was always annoying, the judgement of, like, “Ugh, I know exactly what’s he like.” But I get it, I feel like I know people through Snapchat now - now I get how people felt like they knew us. That was only 22 minutes a week and tabloids, but now with Snapchat I swear I’m like, “Oh, I could hang out with somebody and know everything about them and we could get along” - so I get that trippy feeling. Certain times it’s fun, like when we were in England walking on the side of the street and all the garbagemen would always honk at us and shout, “SPEIDI!” - and I’d think it was awesome. Fame is definitely addicting though, it’s definitely a rush.
You guys negotiated covers with tons of tabloids, Us Weekly for example - who proposed the stories? Were you guys tactful and creating your own 'storylines’ or did [insert magazine] create the storyline/angle and you guys just took the money?
In our power, we never got to make the cover lines. We were just taking checks and we’re like, “You can do whatever you want.” If you’re doing an Us Weekly cover with LC for instance, I bet her publicist and LC are literally typing the cover taglines, like “LC Tells All About Her Costars!” These type of things are very strategic: “Okay, she’ll do the cover but she won’t talk about this this or this - and we want to talk about her throwing barbecues with orange peels as the plates,” you know, all that shit. When you have more power, when you’re the narrator, the little Mary Tyler Moore, you’re definitely the one in the driver’s seat. With us, maybe if we had said we wanted to this, but we didn’t even care. It was like “Oh, you’re going to put us on the cover of a magazine, okay, thank you! Great! Use any photo!” Even if I looked fat, go for it.
Did you actually watch The Hills when it was airing? If not, have you watched it since then? Or would you rather just live in total ignorance of how you guys appeared on the show?
I have never watched one whole episode of The Hills. I’ve seen clips whenever Entertainment Tonight does a piece or whatever, but if we watched the show we would’ve quit. We were seeing the reaction and what people were saying. It was out of sight, out of mind. Let’s just take these checks. We didn’t have a choice. When we’d argue we didn’t want to do that, then they’d say, “Okay, well, that’s all we have for you on this episode” - and then you’re not going to get paid. So it was like: “Okay, what was the line?” It’s difficult to play hardball with people that can call your bluff.
Pick One: Les Deux or Hyde.
I never spent that much time at Hyde. Les Deux was probably the most fun, that was like the peak of everything. But I would say Area was more poppin’ for us. When Area first opened it was going off. But I liked Hyde, it was low-key, but I’m going with Les Deux. It did have a top secret floor that only the VIPs could go up to and it was like a whole separate secret hangout that people didn’t know was up there, that was cool I guess - a hidden floor.
What’s up with the flesh-colored beard? Why do you keep it?
The reason it started is when I used to shave and we’d film, they would always say: “Spencer, you’re too shiny.” So they’d always powder me up ‘cause they’d always say I was reflecting because I used to get a facial every week, so my skin was glowing and it was bad for the lights and the camera. So they’d always come in and have Heidi’s makeup artist powder me down, and when they would do that I would get the craziest underground deep zits - like out of a horror movie - and I was breaking out so much. So then once I stopped shaving and opening the pores, my lower chin area wouldn’t break out. Then I was like, “I don’t even care what I look like.” I hate zits more than anyone. So that’s how it started, and then when it became, like, a ‘thing’, I was like, the haters love it - flesh-colored beard - nobody else’s got it! It became like a costume almost. Now I’m growing it out for a show that we’re doing in January - that I can’t tell you the name of - but we’re doing another reality show and I want it to be the longest, wildest, flesh-colored beard to ever be on TV. It’s like a prop. My mom hates it, my dad hates it. Whenever I see them, they come at me with a razor, like: “Please, please trim it!” I love it because now when I train jiu jitsu, my one problem with jiu jitsu is when I touch my cheek against somebody’s dirty kimono and the jiu jitsu mats, I would get these zits again. But now the beard is, like, a shield from getting into my pores. I don’t think like, “Oh! It looks so cool!” I do it because I’d rather look stupid with a beard than look cool with zits. So i was like forget it, I’m going to look like a flesh-colored lumberjack.
Someone asked about your relationship with Heidi, and whether or not you’d consider it unhealthy. I know you’ve seen that “Speidi” documentary, so how do you feel about the way your relationship has been portrayed in the media? Do you think it’s unfairly maligned, or have there been points when you felt you’ve made mistakes?
Well, I think Heidi and I are both so similar, you know, and we both love spending money so much. If one of us had been like, “No, we shouldn’t do this” - we’d probably be in different positions - in that sense, when you’re both chasing similar things like that - that’d be unhealthy, our spending habits are one example.
What’s the status of Heidi’s music career? I remember you set up a page to raise money for new Heidi music last year, how’s that going? Or was that a joke?
Obviously we spent so much money getting those - what I call - ‘hit records,’ because I believe if any one of Heidi’s songs had, like, $70 million of marketing like Lady Gaga’s last album - and that still didn’t even work - like, if you put $70 million behind Body Language or Blackout, or any of these songs… Cathy Dennis, who wrote Toxic for Britney Spears, wrote, like, 4 of them. Those are hits. Unless we had, like I said, someone to sponsor us - one of these conglomerates that make stars - you know, it’s next to impossible. [The GoFundMe] was a joke, I was messing around, but if all of a sudden we got $5 million on there I would’ve been like, “Okay, we’re going back in the studio, we’re recording a hit, and I’m calling Tove Lo to write this shit for us and Max Martin - let’s go!”
Are there unreleased Heidi songs that you plan on releasing someday?
I don’t have access to them, I think her music producer that did Higher - his name is Theron Feemster - he probably has three, that I think that are incredible, that he probably lost because he has so many hard drives. But there are definitely three, in my opinion, smash hits. Theron produced, like, twenty of Michael Jackson’s most recent songs that aren’t even going to come out yet. Michael Jackson had him living in Las Vegas with him doing a secret album. There’s three songs that, Michael Jackson has as the guy he wanted to make his last album, he has three Heidi songs sitting there. I’m still trying to get the Higher files from him to put on Apple Music, but he ignores my texts because he’s still mad that I said that it’s his fault we got so much negativity on the Higher record.
And what’s your favorite Heidi song (other than Body Language since you rapped on that one)?
Probably Blackout because my memory of going to Cabo and filming the music video was so much fun. I don’t know, More is More, that was when I first heard - you know what, no, Fashion - let’s go with Fashion. It’s so annoying that I didn’t screengrab it, but there was this interview that RedOne did right when he was working with Lady Gaga, and he said that he was going to sign Heidi and that she was going to be the biggest star in the world, and they just cut Fashion, and blah blah blah blah. And then - I was there - he gets a screaming phone call from Lady Gaga - who was not Lady Gaga at the time, she was a girl named Stefani who was just a songwriter - and she said “That’s my song!” And he’s like, “You’re a songwriter, I’m a producer. I can put out whatever I want.” And we put [Fashion] out and she had the fashion show on The View and Heidi went along with it, and then we punked out because at the time our music lawyer was the same lawyer as RedOne’s - Peter Lopez - but Peter Lopez called me and he’s like, “Lady Gaga’s now going to be an artist and her label wants that song Fashion for this movie Confessions of a Shopaholic - Spencer, we need to pull that record from you.” And he was my lawyer for Princes of Malibu and he was my homie, so I was like, “Okay.” We should’ve said no, we had the legal right - we had a verbal handshake commitment with the producer - and he had the right to use her lyrics because she signed them off. If we were hard-hitting real Hollywood players, we would’ve battled Lady Gaga and got that song Fashion. I love that track, it was a RedOne banger - and he had just made Just Dance, the only reason Lady Gaga was a star.
Did you start the sex tape rumor? And if so, was the tape real?
It was not a rumor. Jason Wahler was reaching out to TMZ to try and sell it, and I definitely know that other people know this too. And I know for a fact that - Perez can deny it to this day because he wants to be all chill with LC - but Perez emailed Jason Wahler and said, “Is this true? Because I’m not going to run a story.” And I even saw the email where he wrote back to Perez: “Yes.” So right there it wasn’t me - Jason is who broke the story to TMZ and Perez. My mom tells me not to talk about this, but I’m so sick of people thinking that I made up some rumor about people I could care less about. If I was going to make up a rumor, it would’ve been so much better than that. You know what I mean? Kim and Paris just got famous off of sex tapes - sex tapes make you famous! Why would I try to make this girl famous? Trust me, I could come up with a better rumor about LC because I know way gnarlier things about her and Jason, at the time, that I never talked about and I still won’t talk about because it’s so heavy duty. But it’s like, if I was going to leak something to get back at somebody - that’s what I would’ve leaked man, and it would’ve been real because I know it for a fact. That’s the bottom line, if I was making up a rumor it would’ve been way better than ’Jason and LC have a sex tape’ - the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.
As for an October 2015 interview with Complex where it was stated that Spencer was the one who leaked the sex tape report, Spencer explained to me that he misinterpreted the question and meant to confirm the tape’s existence, not that he was the one who leaked the story.
What do you think about the state of reality shows and stars/celebrities of today versus when shows like Laguna Beach and The Hills were all the rage? What changed or hasn’t changed?
What’s changed with fame is that everybody is now their own paparazzi. You just turn your phone on, and make posts, and get into magazines. Like, if I’m Kate Hudson, and I want to put avocados on my eyes and act like I’m making a mess while eating macaroni and cheese and holding a bottle of wine and saying #bachelorette, I know I’m going to get in Us Weekly. Before it was way harder to figure out what to do to be in, ’Stars - They’re Just Like Us’ based off a real paparazzi photo. If you’re already famous, it’s like taking candy from a baby. If you give me Kate Hudson’s level of fame, I would be hanging out with Obama also. In reality shows, now what everyone thought we were so crazy for is like PG - it’s not even PG, it’s G-rated. What I was the worst guy for - “Get out of my car” - that’s G-rated compared to what goes down now on reality TV. It’s NC-17 level stakes and if you don’t bring that then the audience is like, “This is so boring!” People get arrested now, people overdose, people die - the stakes are so much more extreme. If you aired The Hills right now, I think people would think it’s on the Snapchat slow-motion filter.
Which one of your crystals is your favorite?
It’s weird, it’s one that I gave away to a charity before we left to Costa Rica. It’s a crystal that’s in my mind every day. It’s one of my biggest regrets ever. It was one of these huge smokey quartz, and when I say huge I mean at least 50lbs. It would fill a whole dining room table - a huge centerpiece. I gave it to some Us Weekly charity event when we were leaving, thinking we were going to leave for Costa Rica forever. I think about that crystal everyday, like, where is it? Who has it? It just haunts me, so it’s weird that my favorite crystal is the one I actually don’t have anymore. But smaller crystals that I do have? My tanzanite. I have a tanzanite that was a twin, but I carried it so much everyday for years that one day I left it in my pants and Heidi put it in the washing machine - and the twin means it’s a perfect mash, the shape of it it looks connected, so it looks like two exact pieces of tanzanite, and they’re like merged together. The top of the twin chipped off, so it’s kind of cool 'cause now you could see the inside of it, so I still love it, but that was my magical crystal because in all the books I read about tanzanite, that was the one all the shamans in Africa thought that was the most magical stone in the world. So I was like, “Oh, African shamans? This is magic!” I used to be a legit crystal expert, but then I was like, I need all my brain space back. So I used to be able to tell you every crystal, all their spiritual meanings, all their mathematical numbers, but my brain can only retain so much at this stage in the game.
How did you find out The Hills was ending?
I saw Jersey Shore. Once I saw that show on TV I was like, “Oh it’s game over, this shit is so entertaining!” Season 6 was not supposed to exist. Whatever we created in Season 5 got us a lifeline pickup that was not supposed to happen. And then they were even saying that if we can even get back up to 4 million viewers they would add a second half to 6, so that’s when I went full shaman-hippie-looney-tune, since all the producers kept saying, “All the editors love the crystals, bring more crystals, more tie-dye shirts, this is great!” So I was like fuck it, whatever it takes. And then by, like, Episode 3, I was at Charlie’s house. That was the day I famously put the crystal on my forehead. I was trying to calm down because right before that was filmed, this producer that they called ’The Collector’ [Sara Mast] - that Kristin Cavallari just told Us Weekly offered to bribe girls with Birkin bags to say that Kristin was a cokehead - that same producer said that I should punch my sister Stephanie in the face, just like Snookie just got punched that week on [Jersey Shore]. So then I called MTV and legal and I said I was going to tell everybody, so they talked to Us Weekly before me and said I threatened to kill a producer. They just got to the media first, while I’m dealing with lawyers and doing it, like, the politically correct way. The producers leaked to Us Weekly: “Spencer’s losing it, he threatened to kill a producer!” When really it was [Sara Mast] that got in my face, and she pretended to jerk off and bust a nut on my cheek and said: “You get paid so much, shut the fuck up.” She was literally trying to fight me.
What was the worst thing LC did off-camera?
Tell Heidi that if she kept filming with me, she’d be kicked off the show - when they were still friends and roommates, like, “Nah, you can’t film anymore” - before any rumors of any ’alleged’ sex tape. Once Brody stopped fake hooking up with LC, he was like, “Nah, I don’t wanna do this,” she was just over Brody and I. She was like, “We’re not double dating with them, you can’t hang out with them or you can’t be on my show.” She did that to a poor 18-year-old girl who just gave up her dreams in fashion school to be a reality star and BFF on a show - and you’re going to just tell her it’s either ’my’ way or you’re done? That to me is the coldest fricking… I don’t even want to say all the words that fit in that box.
One of my readers - who loves your Snapchat - asked if you would you ever consider getting a YouTube channel.
I love when it goes away, that’s why I don’t like Instagram because it doesn’t go away. I don’t think our audience is for YouTube. I don’t think I’d do anything interesting enough for YouTube. That’s why I like Snapchat. I don’t do anything interesting enough to last longer than 24 hours on any medium, in my opinion. But if there’s so many people that want to watch me eat burritos or something, I’m in. But I can’t get my name, I tried actually. Someone got YouTube.com/SpencerPratt back in 2007, it’s a bot or some asshole, and I can’t get it back, and YouTube won’t take accounts from people! I already had my lawyers research it, so that’s why I’m boycotting it. So you’re going to let a bot, that’s never posted one video, shit on my YouTube channel? Forget you Google!
Did you support or discourage Heidi’s surgeries?
It was only extreme after the fact. The way it was sold to us is, “Oh, I’m going to give you a half a million dollars worth of these minor little procedures,” and [Dr. Frank Ryan] name dropped ten A-list stars, and showed evidence of what he did to them and that it was all minor, and that you couldn’t even tell after the fact. We had so much going on at the time that it was just one more thing. It was like scheduling getting your nails done, that’s how much we thought about it. It was like, “Oh, I’m going to go on Wednesday and do this.” Lo and behold, nothing was minor. If he had done all of those things separately, then yeah - totally minor, fine, nobody would’ve ever noticed. We could’ve lied like every other famous person. But of course Heidi - so extreme - had to do everything in one day, “Let’s just get it all done so we could get back to life being famous!” All of those things, if she had done it one at a time and waited nine months before the next thing, no one would’ve ever noticed, but when you do all of it at once… The doctor did say: “Don’t go in public for seven months, all of this needs to calm down, your face is going to be swollen, everything’s going to look tight.” And we had that time off! But then [the producers] found out [the surgeries] happened and they were like, “No, you have to film!” Heidi talked to her mom, and she actually saw her before that first episode was filmed. Everything was chill and she’s like, “I’m not filming with you anymore mom, I don’t want to do this with you.” But Darlene was like, “No, it’s fine! I’m supportive!” She was totally on Heidi’s team, but at the time her family restaurant of 20 years was going bankrupt, and the producers gave her like $30K. They flew like, five producers in five days early, just drinking with Heidi’s mom, getting her all angry and mad - so they set Heidi up. By the time Heidi landed, the whole “Everything’s all good” - it’s not all good anymore. So that’s what happened, unfortunately. But people can paid off, which I’m sure they’re going to regret for the rest of their lives.
Should we ever expect a Speidi comeback, or are you and Heidi done with the game for good?
The game is done with us, obviously if a TV network wants to sponsor us, then we can come back. Like we talked about, if you have a TV network behind you, you can have a Robert Downey Jr. level comeback. If Marvel wants to put a billion dollars behind you, you can go from a felon & drug addict to now saving the planet. Give me a billion dollar back budget, and I guarantee you Speidi could take the game back. We’re like racecar drivers with no car and no tracks.
And on the subject of comebacks, which one of your '00s tabloid peers do you want to return to the spotlight? Paris or Nicole? Lindsay or Mischa?
I think Brody Jenner still hasn’t had his real shot and I think that they’re making the wrong show around him and not showing the real Brody Jenner, so obviously I’m biased, I’m going to name him first. On a bigger level, I thought Lindsay was going to pull it off with that Oprah reality show but she just blew that so hard, she just makes me so mad. How can you not film after you’ve made that deal? So that pissed me off and showed me she’s just going to marry some Russian billionaire and live on a yacht happily ever after. Paris? I loved [The World According To Paris], I don’t know why anyone else didn’t. I loved that show, Heidi and I didn’t miss an episode of that. I think Mischa Barton just got lucky with her role, you know, I don’t think her actual personality would warrant a comeback, I never heard an interview or heard her talk on a show. Sean Stewart, he could’ve, but they didn’t put him enough on that Stewarts & Hamiltons, he’s beyond entertaining.
Do you have any plans now or in the future to pursue a job that relates to your degree, or work any jobs outside of reality TV?
I definitely always wanted to work at the White House ‘cause my favorite show was 24, and I’d always watch how they would get the president and his advisors in the oval office and be like, “Okay, I think we should do this Mr. President.” I always wanted to be that guy that’s behind the scenes, that gets to go hang out in all the secret bunkers, that goes with the president to Area 51 - so that was always my dream, but then I accepted, like, these people go to Harvard or they go to Yale Law School. I’m on the JV team of manipulation and they’re on a pro-level, higher than I can even comprehend. But yeah, I definitely always wanted to work in the White House, and work for the president, and come up with the plans to leak stories and manipulate, etc. That and work for the CIA, obviously.
Have you run into any of your former costars (aside from the principal cast) since the show ended?
We ran into Corey - Audrina’s boyfriend - at Brody’s house about a year ago. I’d never met him because we never filmed together, so it was super random, funny, and awkward all at the same time - OH MY GOD YEAH - the creator! This was the craziest story ever. Since I was going to USC to get my degree, [Heidi and I] were at Staples buying supplies and I was walking back - and we hadn’t seen him since 2010 - and I see him, and I’m like, “Oh my god, there’s Adam DiVello!” He was coming out of the bathroom. The guy wasn’t even shopping there, he was just using the Staples bathroom, which is so damn funny. I rolled up to him right as he was coming out of the bathroom and I think he actually thought I was going to stab him - he probably had a heart attack because we were in the back, so it was like a nobody-would’ve-heard-him-scream type of situation. And I think, if he didn’t already poop in that bathroom, he definitely pooped in his pants. He was like, “What are you guys doing here? Are you following me?” I was like, “No, what are you doing here? I’m buying school supplies.” And he’s like: “Oh, I stopped to use their bathroom, so how are you guys?” To this day I regret not unloading him and just letting him have all of my opinions on him, but I was the bigger person & just kept it civil and polite, but I think if we had a second run-in I would have a few things to say to him still - even though Marriage Bootcamp’s Jim & Elizabeth helped me let go my anger towards him. I would probably have to tell him that he should thank Jim & Elizabeth for helping rid me of my anger.
Have you and Heidi ever been approached to appear on Made in Chelsea with Stephanie?
Yeah, we actually filmed a scene on Made in Chelsea with her and Lucy, but it was was when they were in L.A. for the summer and the production team wasn’t used to filming in L.A. so one of the team members left their crew van unlocked and all the cameras and footage were stolen. We might be going to the South of France to go film for the summer season, possibly.
And this question relates more to t