Were Spencer Pratt And Heidi Montag Ahead Of Their Time?

Speidi was practically synonymous with “everything that’s wrong with show business” but were they just ahead of their time?

Why Is Speidi Relevant Again?

Scrolling through Australian TikTok one day, I came across a few videos posted by Spencer Pratt. They made me snort with laughter and made my Speidi senses tingle — I could smell the rebrand brewing and knew I had to catch up ASAP. I found out that the once publicly villainized couple on everyone’s favorite fake reality show had lost their home in the devastating wildfires that tore through L.A., and, in an attempt to rebuild all they’d lost, turned to TikTok to promote Heidi’s music career. If this was 2009, this would be the point where everyone falls over themselves with smug laughter, but because it’s now 2025, one of the biggest albums of the year was BRAT by Charli XCX, Pratt’s insistence on promoting his wife’s 15-year-old pop songs was kind of the perfect amalgamation of the cultural shifts that have taken place since The Hills first aired in 2006. 

“Cool girl feminism” is over. Being a feminine woman with a “bimbo” persona isn’t bad. Bubblegum pop is unironically enjoyed. Owning up to getting tons of plastic surgery on national TV without any obligation to do so is brave and transparent. In the anti-nepo baby era, hustling your way through show business to assert your own fame through sheer will, even if that means being hated, is, in some sense, respected. Speaking of villains, in an era where one of the biggest songs from the most successful, defining artists of the 2020s being “anti-hero,” I would even argue Speidi’s rebrand was prophesied—inevitable. Anything that was “out” in the early 2000s—Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, flared jeans—well, they’re “in” now. So, why the sudden rebrand? Like any good story, it all started with a bit of tragedy.

Speidi Declare Themselves “House Poor” But Celebrities & Fans Rally Around Them

During the devastating wildfires that broke out in Palisades, California, the couple tragically lost their $2.5 million home. They've since joined other homeowners who are suing the city and the Department of Water and Power for "failing to maintain an adequate water supply system to fight the blazes." In the immediate aftermath of the fires, Pratt wasted no time hopping on TikTok to promote his wife’s music career and take jabs at people who swore he was broke and irrelevant for suddenly referring to him as a “rich celebrity,” dismissing the loss of their multi-million dollar home because people assume they’re hardly struggling. He joked, “please, everyone update my Google alerts—that celebrity net worth thing that said I've been worth like $1000 for the last 15 years.”

However, in an interview with Good Morning America, they opened up about being "house poor.” The couple says all of the earnings from their 20 years in the spotlight were put into their house and everything inside it, and because they were among the many Californians dropped from their home insurance policy, neither their house nor any of their possessions were insured. On his TikTok account, Pratt took issue with people misrepresenting the value of his home, clarifying the actual build of the house is only worth about $1 million, which he described as a 3,000 square foot, humble little house. With their biggest investment now gone, they had no choice but to hustle, turning to TikTok to promote Heidi’s 15-year-old album Superficial and asking the TikTok community to rally behind them by liking and watching Pratt’s minute-long videos in an attempt to receive money from the TikTok creator fund. 

Pratt's sarcastic TikTok banter has commenters comparing his wit to Scott Disick—the comedic relief of Keeping Up with the Kardashians—and wondering if we've always misunderstood his sense of humor. In one video, he toasts hitting a million followers with a deadpan "Who would have thought all i needed is our house to burn down to finally hit a million? Can't believe I didn't think of that sooner." Another clip sees him pushing streams for his wife Heidi on Spotify, adding, "You can listen with the volume off." The couple may have lost everything, but if Pratt's work ethic is any indication, they'll be flying high again in no time. Since losing their home, Pratt has turned into a 24/7 monetization machine, doing seemingly anything—mukbangs, grocery hauls, even pure silence—to pad out those 1-minute-and-1-second uploads for that sweet Tiktok buck, or as Pratt says, his "10 or 50 cents." Meanwhile, he's pushing Montag's music every other video (and threatening to block anyone he knows who fails to promote it), Pratt Daddy Crystals, their wine line, Heidi merch, and hustling fans to boost their socials, donate if they can, and throw support behind a pitched reality show on Hulu.

All of Pratt’s hustling paid off, as celebrities came out in full force to support Speidi. Former The Hills co-stars Whitney Port, Kristin Cavallari, and Brody Jenner all posted videos jamming to Heidi’s music. Other celebrities that threw their weight behind Speidi include Paris Hilton, Julia Fox, Flavor Flav, Tana Mongeau, Trisha Paytas, Jenny McCarthy, Donnie Wahlberg, Howie Mandel, and Diplo. With all the celebrity support and public attention, Heidi’s album Superficial went #1 on iTunes 15 years after it was released. 

The Rebrand: Is Spencer a Supportive Wife Guy Who Was Unfairly Villainized?

It’s hard to believe the last time the couple achieved this level of notoriety, it was as public enemies. Pratt added some context to the once failed music venture, explaining that in an attempt to veer away from reality TV and invest in Heidi’s attempt to break though the pop music scene, they spent all of their money on her debut album Superficial in 2010. Pratt believed deeply in his wife’s potential to become a pop star and the quality of her music, but the failure plagued them for many years. Seeing their hard work finally pay off 15 years later brought Pratt to tears.

For all the finger pointing Spencer had thrown his way during the run of the hit MTV show The Hills for breaking apart Heidi and Lauren Conrad’s friendship, they seem like they’re in a really happy, healthy, and successful relationship. The two tied the knot in 2008, have been happily married for 15 years, and share two children together. On an episode of Kristin Cavallari’s podcast, Kristin says whenever Spencer and Heidi are brought up, people ask her if they’re as crazy as they were in the show and her response is always, “No, they’re not. They just understood the assignment. We were there to film a TV show. If we’re not bringing it, there’s no TV show.” In asking Heidi what the biggest misconceptions about them are, she says the idea that they had such a tumultuous relationship, because if all the fighting were real, they never would have sustained a relationship. Pratt, since losing most of his possessions, has been practically living in his “Heidi Montag” T-shirt, proudly brandishing his wife’s face on his body as he boasts about her music career, and doesn’t play with anyone who fails to support her. 

On his TikTok, Spencer discourages people from watching The Hills in an attempt to support him, clarifying that he doesn’t get any residuals from the show and that the show made him out to be a monster for a paycheck. He says all the drama was fake and that he and Heidi never fought in real life. He chucks in some classic Lauren Conrad shade, claiming “the narration is the most skewed, manipulated mind control brainwash lunacy.” This does the beg question though, how much of the Speidi hate was completely manufactured? Did Spencer actually wrong LC? 

Were Speidi the good guys all along? We may never truly know the extent to which the drama depicted in The Hills was scripted, but what we do know is that Speidi have made it a lot longer than anyone expected them to, and the two have remained close friends with their cast mates, like Brody Jenner and Audrina Patridge, while Lauren seems to have had one too many falling outs without the source of the problem tracing back to her (including Audrina, who mentioned in an interview that Lauren was very controlling over her friends.) But hey, it was a supposedly fake reality TV show so maybe the problem was the character they had Lauren play, and not necessarily who she is in real life.

Make no mistake though, Lauren was no saint in The Hills, despite everyone at the time painting her out to be the perpetual victim of every situation. With Speidi’s redemption arc brewing, people are revisiting some iconic moments from The Hills, and re-analyzing them from a new perspective. What they’re taking away from it is that Lauren (or at least her character) was kind of an insufferable mean girl. Take the time Heidi calls Lauren to tell her she landed her dream job and Lauren proceeds to mock her, make snide comments, and sings “fashion school drop out” to the tune of Beauty School Drop Out in front of Whitney. 

In the comments, people were shocked to see such brazen mean girl behavior from someone they remembered was always supposedly in the right. Was Lauren really always in the right, or did she just have a faux sense of superiority over Heidi and consistently belittled her as an unserious person? Others have taken notice that the prevailing narratives of the reality show haven’t held up over the years, namely the idea that Lauren was this mature, perfect friend or that Spencer was an irredeemable villain. Lauren had ridiculously high standards for her friends that they could never live up to and she was a bit of a walking dark cloud of negative energy. Meanwhile, Spencer may have admittedly played into the villainous arcs he says he got paid for on the show, but it’s shocking that no one ever gave him credit for his savvy insults or his hilariously absurd persona. In recent years, however, people have come to appreciate Spencer for what he was — a much-needed comedic relief who just sort of said and did anything to keep the ratings up. 

Heidi’s reputation was something of a bimbo, for having gotten ten plastic surgery procedures in one day, sticking by her vilified man even when it cost her a sacred friendship, and because she had an air of carefree joy. In the 2010s, this might be labeled “ditzy” and it was a stereotype of bimbo-presenting feminine women who didn’t do the whole "I'm not like the other girls” shtick. Looking back, a lot of the interviews she was subjected to in the media could never pass in a post-bimbo feminist world, which certainly accounts for at least some of the narrative change concerning Speidi. Interviewers used to openly condescend to her like she was a silly little girl not worth taking seriously, and they haven’t aged very well. Now, people are watching these back and saying, “she was so ahead of her time.”

Why the Speidi Rebrand Makes Sense for the Current Culture

If you were sentient during The Hills era, you might find this rebrand shocking, but here's why I think it makes perfect sense for the current cultural climate. I think that the 2010s can be defined as a period dominated by “relatability culture,” in which celebrities would feign relatability by insisting they were “just like us.” It was understood that flaunting just how far removed you were from the plight of the average citizen was in bad taste, if not crass. Things have changed significantly in the past 15 years, though. Celebrities are more accessible than ever, making their proximity to luxury all the more apparent. The social capital of celebrities has dwindled, while self-made social media influencers' status soared. 

If you don’t believe me, just keep in mind that in 2014, one of the biggest headlines of the year was that a gaggle of celebrities (half now fallen from grace) took a photo together at an ego-stroking award show. In 2025, one of the biggest rising stars in the industry is a former TikTok influencer. People now look at celebrities feigning relatability and get the ick. Just ask the celebrities who attempted a cringe sing-along from their ivory towers to John Lennon’s “Imagine” in an attempt to foster “togetherness” during the pandemic. We were not, indeed, “all in this together.” 

The pandemic may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, as we’ve been sort of ignoring celebrities ever since. Over the past decade, Americans have also become more class conscious. You could even argue that we've peered behind the veil of identity politics blinding people from seeing the real divider: wealth. Some channel this awareness into venom: resentment, snarky infographics about eating the rich, championing redistribution of wealth. Then there’s the other faction: the “yearners.” These are normies with a regular job and average incomes who now look at ultra-wealthy nepo babies through a lens of fantasy. Their tacit bargain: “Show me your life of obscene privilege so I can pretend I have it too. Just don’t insult me by acting like we share the same struggles.” 

Call it some sort of perverse manifestation, if you will, but it keeps everyone happier than the previous disingenuous arrangement. As long as these privileged elites hold up their end of the deal, the yearners hold up theirs — they don't demonize them for reaping the benefits of being born into wealth and power, recognizing it to be a position universally coveted by all, just regrettably enjoyed by few. Curiously, the normies foam at the mouth for the chance to witness the wealthy brag about their most prized possessions. They beg those with privilege to stop pretending to be too humble to do an unboxing of all of their fancy Christmas presents. It’s not about hating the rich so much as craving a glimpse into their world. It’s a pact of mutual benefit: nepo babies flaunt wealth, and yearners vicariously bask in it. With American society internalizing the idea of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, Americans soured on the idea that wealth and privilege should only be the entitlement of an elite few, and so our pretension surrounding what it means to be a celebrity — that you have to have some sort of earth-shattering talent or be well connected, completely shattered. If you can’t beat them, join them, they say. And so, people did (on their live streams), or devised a plan to get clout on their own, thanks to the notoriety being a niche internet microcelebrity can afford you these days.

Relatability culture isn't just about money or power, though. It's also about positioning and social perception. As we've come to terms with the fact that celebrities who purported to understand the common man were merely cultivating an image of benevolence, altruism, and kindness, while fundamentally doing very little to live up to that image in actuality, we started to revise our blueprints for personality, too. What if the people always pretending to be the good guys are actually bad? What if the ones shamelessly embracing the role of the villain can be taken at their word and know that trying to escape a label placed upon you by the public is a futile attempt to protect your ego that seldom works, anyway. Before you knew it, American politics shifted in favor of provocateurs like Donald J. Trump, who didn’t allow finger pointing or shaming tactics to melt his resolve like hot butter in the midday sun. We started revisiting widespread cultural narratives about certain celebrities, influencers, and famous-for-being-famous socialites. Was Paris Hilton really dumb, or was she clever? Did Lindsay Lohan really deserve to be raked through the coals over her past struggles with addiction? 

Closing Thoughts

Before the reign of the influencer, Spencer and Heidi were basically prototypes for this new breed of over-the-top celebrity lacking all the pretension of the celebrity ethos of being so “above it all.” They were willing to do anything for attention in order to boost ratings and get that bag, including admittedly calling the paparazzi on themselves, something no one with a semblance of clout would ever deign too admitting back in the day. Today, that stunt is considered “iconic” or “camp” because there’s no prize for being “too good” to make something of yourself. They may have been the butt of everyone’s jokes for a number of years, but who’s laughing now? Speidi were just the early adopters of this method; now it’s the standard currency of fame.