Spencer Pratt Says Losing it All Changed Everything—and Why He’s Running for Mayor of Los Angeles

Spencer Pratt has always understood attention—how it works, how it turns, and how quickly it can sharpen into something serious. On The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Show, he joins hosts Lauryn and Michael Bosstick at a moment when his public persona and private life have collided in unexpected ways. 

Best known as reality TV’s original villain from The Hills, Pratt reflects on the version of fame that made him a household name while unpacking the very real consequences of the Pacific Palisades wildfire that destroyed his family’s home at the beginning of 2025. He’s calling out insurance denials, the staggering cost of rebuilding, and what he believes are systemic failures that left families unprotected. 

Pratt explains why he’s channeling his frustration into a run for Los Angeles mayor, positioning himself as an unlikely advocate for accountability and reform. Along the way, he also opens up about his new book, The Guy You Love to Hate, and how revisiting his past has clarified what he’s fighting for now.

Spencer Pratt on the Fire Insurance Crisis and His Political Plans

Below are the highlights from the episode, adapted from The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Show.

Walk us through what happened—and why can’t you rebuild your home after losing it in 2025?

“Before the fires, all the insurance companies were well aware that the state of California had created such a dangerous condition by letting 50 years of dead brush, or ‘fuel,’ surround the Palisades all the way up to the backyards of people’s houses. So they sent an email saying ‘due to GPS or extreme fire hazard, we’re no longer covering you.’ There are senior citizens…that got dropped January 1st…and then January 7th lost everything and had zero insurance…

…The other thing is…we all got stuck with the California FAIR Plan (as the only insurance that would take people at the time)…California FAIR Plan maxes out at $3 million, even if your house is a $9 million house…The city of L.A. now requires for me to build on my exact spot where my house was, I need to put $1.2 to like $1.4 million in caissons that were not there. So now they care about how I build, even though in court, they say they have no responsibility if my house burns down. And the same city that’s saying, ‘Oh, we’ll let your house burn down, that’s not our responsibility,’ cares about how my foundation is, so I don’t have the money to put a million in cement down to the bottom before you even start…

So that’s happening to a lot of people that even had the California FAIR Plan, because we’re all on hills and these houses all were built a long time ago. Also, my house was probably 50 years old. How many earthquakes did it survive? It survived the big one. So if it’s like an earthquake thing, and again, you don’t care if my house gets destroyed, if there was an earthquake, so why do you care how I build it? So it’s things like that.”

What did you lose when your parents’ house burned?

“Everything I’ve ever owned was just, you could walk into my room and it was exactly like when I went off to college. And so everything I had in that life, and then my life as an adult, everything burned. I don’t have anything that wasn’t when the cloud started…my parents didn’t get one item out of the house, my mom didn’t even get her passports…the idea of my parents’ house burning at the bottom of the Palisades next to the ocean is impossible to believe.”

Why do you think the state failed at basic fire prevention?

“California has environmentalists, called CARB (California Air Resources Board)…The idea of CARB is they don’t want to do prescribed burns, like Florida does 2 million acres a year. The Native Americans survived in the Palisades by doing that. CARB doesn’t want to do that because they’ll have smoke in the air…They care more about the plants than people. They have secret maps that the firefighters aren’t even allowed to keep…This isn’t made up, this is in their manual. ‘Do not give anyone the secret maps,’ and the secret maps show all the protected plants in the state…

…I never even heard of what Milk Vetch is. Milk Vetch is why 12 people were burned alive and 7000 structures, because they’re not allowed to come clean up the Milk Vetch. So, there are all these people fighting for plants. Where are the people fighting for human beings (and other animals and things that burned alive)?…All they would have had to do, I’ve talked to so many experts, for $500,000 max…they could have made a fire break surrounding the Palisades, yes, some Milk Vetch would have been cleared, but it would have given time for the firefighters to A. get up there, as they would say, dig in and have a chance, and B. it wouldn’t just go right into these houses, and now they’re fighting house to house, so that’s the biggest thing.”

How did you process the trauma in real time?

“The positive of thinking my dad was burning alive is that, as I was watching my security cameras and watching my house burn live, I couldn’t reach my dad…and the last I talked to him, he’s like, I’m gonna fight this and I was like, ‘Dad leave’ and he’s like, ‘No, I’ll just jump in the pool,’…so as everything was happening, it was such a blessing that I was so concerned about him dying that like brought everything into like, who cares about anything but him…hours later, then I like could process like, ‘Oh we lost everything.’”

When did you decide to run for mayor—and why do you think you can win?

“Once I saw that Karen Bass was running again…she should have resigned on January 7th, January 8th, and even before the fires…the city is just a disaster and as it was getting closer to the anniversary, and I just felt like there’s no hope for anybody, we’re seeing the level of cover-ups just continue. These law firms that they’re bringing in to just make sure the victims get nothing. I was like, oh no, I need to fight this any way I can, and I was like, the only way I can actually do anything is to get rid of these people…

…There’s a lot of people that have a lot more money, a lot more experience and whatever, that nobody wants to play in the gutter, you know, cause you risk a lot. I have nothing to lose, so I can go full sewer system with these people…that’s what it takes to beat them, you can’t do that without risking, you know, people all day long are like, ‘Are you scared?’ I’m not scared. These people are scared of going against that system.”

What does Heidi think about you running?

“She’s very connected to God, so she’s like, if I become mayor, it was clearly God’s plan, and if I don’t become mayor, it’s clearly God’s plan. So she totally backs that if, if it happens, it was clearly destiny and it was all meant to be, and if it doesn’t, there’s going to be something else.”

What is the real point of your new book?

“I think the coolest part about the book is that the goal was to really describe an era of fame and this new modern world of attention-fame that I aspired to be…so I think the coolest part about the book is like the roadmap to where we are now. I truly believe that, you know, at USC Film School, you could teach this book, or a chapter out of it….

…So here’s the ironic thing about the mayor saying that, ‘Oh, he’s using this book as if he was running for mayor.’ If I was an actual candidate, the way they think of it, my book would be the last thing I would launch before my campaign…I’m putting everything in this to have sales before any of this happened…I don’t feel like I’m the good guy in my book. It’s not a hero story. It’s a tragic, dark tale of fame that you wouldn’t write this book to like, be like, I’m running for office now. It’s not marketing.”

To hear all of Spencer Pratt’s conversation, listen to The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Show wherever you get your podcasts.

Read More

• Drake Bell Admits Touring Changed Once He Became a Dad on ‘The Good Guys’
• 7 Rules Kenzie Elizabeth Learned From Ina Garten and Martha Stewart
• Paris Hilton Says ADHD Became Her Superpower Long Before Anyone Took Her Seriously