Spencer Pratt is lashing out at California officials for an “absolute catastrophe of mismanagement and governmental failure, corruption and incompetence” after losing his home to the January 2025 Palisades Fire.
“They want to call it a natural disaster? No, this was negligence dressed up as an act of God,” the reality star turned LA mayoral candidate writes in his new memoir, “The Guy You Loved to Hate.”
And he points the finger at Gavin Newsom — whom Pratt dubs “Mr. Hair Gel” after the governor called him a “C-list reality star” – and accused him of spreading misinformation.
The devastating fire, along with the Eaton Fire that wiped out homes in Altadena, was inevitable, he writes, because of “decades of budget cuts, ignored warnings and politicians who cared more about their careers than our lives.”
According to the book, “In 2024, Pacific Palisades paid $700 million in state taxes … Even a fire break, where they cut back dead brush, would have cost $200,000 and a day’s work.”
Pratt believes “the fire could have been manageable” if only the reservoirs near his home — “including the Santa Ynez Reservoir across the hills and the Palisades Reservoir next door to our house” — hadn’t been dry.
“Hydrants in the Palisades were close to being empty … ” he writes. “Fire department helicopters were forced to fly all the way to Pepperdine in Malibu and Encino in the Valley to get water …”
Pratt has lots of questions for the governor’s office and beyond.
“Why were no assets pre-deployed when the winds had been forecast for days? Why did California State Parks not inspect its properties, post a fire watch, or use thermal imaging to ensure there were no embers or hot spots remaining in the vegetation from the Lachman fire [which authorities say became the Palisades Fire]?” Pratt, 42, writes.
“Why was the FAIR Plan — the state’s joke of a stopgap — the only insurance left to us? Why are Palisades residents paying millions in taxes only to be abandoned?”
Pratt, his wife and fellow reality star Heidi Montag, and their sons, 8-year-old Gunner and 3-year-old Ryker, lost everything in the fire.
He writes of calling 911 repeatedly, begging for a a fire truck to hit the hill behind his neighborhood with water — only to be told “No assets are available.”
And he recalls driving away, “watching the security camera footage from our house, and I saw the flames coming up, around the house. In the house. Then, flames in the shape of a heart, burning through Gunner’s bed.”
His is a story of lost fame and fortune entwined, with at least a million dollars spent on Hermès Birkin bags and designer suits, not to mention another million on healing crystals.
He and Montag, 39, found success — and each other — on MTV’s reality juggernaut “The Hills,” which aired from 2006 to 2010. The couple became pop-culture villains, raking in cash not just from the show but also from setting up paparazzi shots of themselves and selling stories about his pals to the tabloids.
Pratt details how producers conjured storylines that made him a villain, which he readily embraced.
“The truth is, I’d already burned my life down years before this wildfire,” he writes. “Torched relationships for storylines. Nuked my reputation for ratings. Set my soul ablaze and called it entertainment. Back then, I called it success.”
Growing up among some of LA’s most privileged, Pratt admits he was desperate to appear on the cover of Us Weekly.
While still in college, he came up with the idea for “The Princes of Malibu,” a reality show following his best pal, Brody Jenner, and Brody’s brother Brandon as they loafed about the sprawling estate of their then-stepdad, music producer David Foster.
It lasted for just one season — but captured the attention of Kris Jenner, who was then married to Brody’s dad, Bruce (now Caitlyn Jenner).
According to Spencer, Kris called him up and asked, “Wanna team up, make TV magic? [A reality show] about my daughters and Bruce — they’re dying to do it!”
Bruce, Pratt writes, “had the on-screen charisma of drywall,” while “the Valley [where the family lived] was where dreams went to die in a cul-de-sac. Strip malls, wine moms, Chili’s happy hour … Who the hell would want to watch that?”
He recalls how, when he hung up, “Brody and I burst into laughter.”
Of course, Kris went on to team up with Ryan Seacrest as the producer of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”
“I have replayed that moment in my head probably forty million times,” Pratt writes. “If only I’d said yes … I’d own a yacht. I’d have f–k-you money. Instead, I have f–k me money. Which is to say: no money. Which is exactly what you get when you think you’re too good for the Valley.”
But Pratt came up with a new plan — setting Brody up with Lauren Conrad, the star of “The Hills,” and using his own burgeoning romance with Conrad’s friend, Montag, to get on the show.
But being a reality-TV villain wasn’t as easy as it looked.
At the height of the show’s success, he feared Conrad’s father was sending goons after him over a story he sold about Conrad’s ex allegedly trying to sell a sex tape.
He and Montag hired bodyguards and bought guns.
But they still couldn’t resist the call of fame.
The couple only got married, Pratt admits, so MTV would not fire them from the show.
Everything was for sale in Pratt and Montag’s world. After they left “The Hills” they even peddled the — fake — story they were divorcing.
“We were living check to check. But honestly, that had always been the case,” Pratt said. “Ever since I’d met Heidi, every dollar that came in, we’d spent right away. That’s just how we rolled. No savings account, no backup plan, just direct deposit and vibes.”
But he was proud that all their wheeling and dealing enabled them to buy their Pacific Palisades home in 2017 for $2.52 million. The house, he writes, was valued at $3.8 million before it went up in flames.
The year before, according to the book, the couple — along with Pratt’s parents, who also lost their own Palisades home — were dropped by Farmers Insurance because, he writes, “they knew this state did nothing to protect this town”.
Instead, they were “shoved” onto the California FAIR Plan, which he dubs “expensive, bare-bones stopgap coverage.”
He and Montag joined 20 other homeowners to sue the state last year.
Pratt details how he became consumed with finding out what really went wrong — filing FOIA requests and raising his voice to ask questions the state’s government doesn’t necessarily want to deal with.
“What I found was as shocking as the flames themselves: years of neglect, mismanagement and flat-out indifference from the very people who were supposed to protect us,” he said.
He’s working to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Pratt, a Republican, announced his campaign for mayor in January.
And he’s making noise about how the Palisades will look in the future.
“The city and state are trying to turn our ashes into a land grab,” Pratt writes. “They’re out here rezoning scorched earth for ‘affordable housing’ — translation: high-rise apartments jammed into one of the most fire-prone canyons in California. A neighborhood already on life support, where the roads can’t handle an evacuation, the hydrants ran dry, and the power grid dies every Santa Ana.”