Spencer Pratt paced around a dirt lot set up with chairs and microphones, waiting for his wife, Heidi Montag, to join him. It was late August. The air tasted like batteries, and the ground was scarred with burn marks.
Pratt, the reality TV star best known for his role as Montag’s bad boyfriend-turned-husband on MTV’s “The Hills,” took a seat where the couple’s bedroom used to be. The canyon view was still there, but instead of walls and windows, there was nothing but a white canopy with a production crew.
The couple’s Pacific Palisades home burned down during the January wildfires that destroyed thousands of structures across Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, decimating the neighborhood where Pratt grew up and still lived. After the debris was cleared, they refashioned the property into an outdoor podcast studio.
“Hopefully they’re going to stop cutting down trees pretty soon,” Pratt, 42, said to his producer as the sound of revving chain saws drifted over from a property nearby.
The podcast is called “The Fame Game with Heidi and Spencer.” In theory, it features “Speidi” chatting about pop culture and celebrity. Lately, however, the show is just as often a platform for Pratt’s rage directed at California’s leaders. Angry gadfly is his new brand.
For months, Pratt’s social media presence has been dominated by hectoring posts blaming Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles for failing to stop the fires. He shows up at protests and flies to Washington to ask the Trump administration to investigate the state’s leaders. He takes on causes that include keeping affordable housing out of his former neighborhood and investigating how the money raised for fire victims is being spent.
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The post Reality TV’s Bad Boyfriend is Angry Again. This Time, He’s Yelling at Gavin Newsom. appeared first on New York Times.
