Spencer Pratt races into L.A. mayoral runoff spotlight

Spencer Pratt, the former “The Hills” reality villain who says he lost his Palisades home in the Jan. 7, 2025 wildfire, has surged in Los Angeles’ nonpartisan mayoral race. Polls show he has a strong chance to finish in the top-two of the June 2 primary, setti

Los Angeles voters had just started to look up from the wreckage of the Palisades fire when Spencer Pratt made his move.

Around Jan. 7. 2025—the anniversary of the blaze—Pratt launched his campaign for mayor. using social media like a megaphone against what he calls a city that let down people living in its streets. In his videos. he pointed to darkened streetlights stripped of copper wire. homeless encampments along sidewalks. and drug use in MacArthur Park. The message didn’t stay local for long. A former reality TV antagonist with the Hollywood talent for conflict had turned a sleepy citywide contest into something watched far beyond California.

Now, as Los Angeles heads toward its June 2 primary, polls show Pratt is in position to finish in the top-two. If nobody wins a majority, those top finishers would face off again in a Nov. 3 runoff. Even skeptics admit the path he’s opened is hard to ignore.

Pratt’s candidacy stands out for how quickly he’s gained momentum. including an assured debate performance and fundraising that has outpaced rivals. helping him rank 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 the city’s streets as a dystopian hellscape “menaced” by drug-addicted zombies. His campaign promises a scorched-earth approach toward anyone he says could block his plans to clear away the unhoused.

He’s also drawn attention for support from major figures in business and media. Pratt has picked up campaign donations from Democratic Party megadonor Haim Saban and from Universal Music Group Chairman and Chief Executive Lucian Grainge. A registered Republican. Pratt has also earned praise from media figures aligned with President Trump. including podcaster Joe Rogan and Fox News host Greg Gutfeld. Trump himself offered support on Wednesday, saying: “I heard he’s a big MAGA person.”.

Pratt has worked to undercut the partisan label, arguing that the mayor’s race is nonpartisan. He repeatedly declined to comment for this story, including when approached at a campaign event on 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.”

On the trail, Pratt’s nicknames land like punches. He regularly refers to Mayor Karen Bass. who is seeking a second term. as “basura. ” Spanish for garbage—swapping out her last name. He calls Bass supporters “Bassholes,” and refers to backers of another mayoral contender, Councilmember Nithya Raman, as “Ramaniacs.”.

His sharpest controversies reach well beyond city politics. Pratt appeared on the far-right outlet Infowars in 2009 and 2017, where he spoke with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones 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.

The campaign’s central wager is that the raw emotions of the Palisades fire can be converted into political power. Pratt, 42, says he is carrying that fire-earned anger into City Hall. In the wake of the January 2025 blaze. he voiced fury over an empty reservoir. broken-down fire trucks. and the destruction of his own home.

The city’s politics, though, remain a steep climb. Even with a nonpartisan ballot, Los Angeles is deep blue: 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 noticed the similarity between Pratt’s confrontational style and President Trump’s “take-no-prisoners” approach. Still, there’s uncertainty about whether it can survive the runoff stage—especially as voters may treat the election like 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.

That warning came from Democratic political strategist Garry South, who suggested Pratt’s style may not translate once the field narrows.

Pratt’s platform, however, gives the campaign a policy spine beneath the spectacle. He has focused 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.

Critics have blasted his plans as impractical. Yet supporters who turned out at a Saturday campaign meet and greet in Sherman Oaks spoke in the language of frustration—about crime, homelessness, and a sense that officials were lying.

“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.”

Between the persona and the policy pitch, there’s also a long-running question about what Pratt has learned—or what he’s still practicing.

The most striking detail in his rise might be how much of his political life is braided to his public life. 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 charismatic and popular, with a sense of humor. But they also recalled a darker edge from his high-energy personality—making fun of peers and talking down to staff members.

Nora Kletter, a freelance screenwriter who attended Crossroads, said she knew Pratt 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.”

Kletter’s account was echoed by three people who said Pratt screamed at a soccer coach after being benched during an after-school game during his senior year. According to their descriptions, when a parent intervened, Pratt screamed at the parent as well. Those three people asked to remain unnamed for fear of retaliation.

Pratt, in his memoir, wrote that he was punished for “ghosting a meeting the night before playoffs,” and said he was kicked off the team and narrowly avoided expulsion. In his book, he wrote: “Some people are born to keep the peace,” adding: “I was here to disturb it.”

Sue Kohl, a longtime Palisades resident whose kids grew up with Pratt, urged perspective.

“We all knew who our kids were with, and the good and the bad of what was going on,” said Kohl, speaking in her personal capacity as president of the Pacific Palisades Community Council. “They were 15. Right now, they’re adults, and I wouldn’t even think about those years.”

After Crossroads, Pratt enrolled at USC in 2003, writing in his memoir that he hoped to “conquer Wall Street.” But it was 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,” Schnur said. In his memoir. Pratt wrote that he grew less interested in classwork as he became intrigued by the money-making potential of reality television. After seeing the success of “The Osbournes,” Pratt said he looked to produce his own version.

That led to “The Princes of Malibu,” co-created with friends Brody and Brandon Jenner. Fox canceled the series in 2005 after two episodes. Pratt later returned to reality fame through the MTV show “The Hills. ” where he rose to prominence as the boyfriend—now husband—of Heidi Montag. The show ran for six seasons and 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.”

As Montag’s troublemaker boyfriend, Pratt became a master at stirring up drama, often at the expense of Conrad. Conrad declared him a “sucky person,” a moment that lives on in GIFs. According to his memoir. Pratt spread what Conrad said were false rumors about her having a sex tape. telling a gossip blogger about the possible existence of it.

Pratt married Montag, who was looking to become a pop singer. With “The Hills” nearing an end. Pratt wrote in his memoir that he burned through money and grew paranoid about the couple’s personal safety. stockpiling guns and ammunition. He wrote that he became fascinated with crystals and their healing properties, and that he took an interest in Jones.

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 later 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. Heidi Pratt filed paperwork in 2010, generating headlines for months, according to the memoir. Pratt wrote: “The public saw chaos, betrayal, and divorce papers,” while adding: “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.” Eventually. Heidi Pratt 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. In the years that followed, he returned to media again and again, voicing 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.

“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.’”

That backstory matters less as gossip than as a lens on how Pratt has made a career out of confrontation, and how he is now attempting to redirect that talent toward governing.

The fire—the loss—became the pivot point. 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. Pratt wrote that for their place to burn, the entire town would have to go up in flames. He stayed behind, waiting anxiously for two hours and 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 what Padawer called an “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,’” Padawer 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.

The same mix of grievance and showmanship—legal action paired with viral footage—has followed him into the campaign.

After the fire, Pratt moved to his parents’ beach home in Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County. When 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 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 used 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 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 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, South sees his run ending.

“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,” South said.

Spillane said he also thinks Pratt is unlikely to win in a runoff, but he left room for an upset.

“Never say never in politics,” Spillane said. “Xavier Becerra was supposed to land in the single digits, and now he is going to be the Democratic nominee for governor.”

Spencer Pratt Los Angeles mayoral race Karen Bass Nithya Raman Palisades fire June 2 primary Nov. 3 runoff homelessness public safety Infowars Alex Jones MAGA