NEWSSpencer Pratt Snaps at Reporter Over Living Situation as L.A. Mayor Race Intensifies
Spencer Pratt defended his living situation online.
May 21 2026, Published 8:31 a.m. ET
Spencer Pratt’s mayoral campaign just delivered another reality TV moment, off-script and aimed squarely at a reporter.
The former Hills villain, now running for mayor of Los Angeles, erupted on social media after a journalist mocked his comments about leaving the city if he loses the race, triggering a heated exchange that quickly went viral.
The Comment That Set Him Off
He criticized a reporter after comments about his residency.
Pratt said in a recent interview on “The Adam Carolla Show” that he would be “done with trying to live in L.A.” if incumbent Mayor Karen Bass or another Democrat wins the election.
A reporter responded on social media by pointing out that Pratt is currently living in Santa Barbara, roughly 90 miles outside Los Angeles.
“My house burned down. I lost everything. I can’t rebuild. As a 42-year-old man with two kids, I’ve had to move into my parents’ house, and I’m getting attacked for that? This is journalism?” Pratt wrote on X.
“This is why no decent people ever get into politics. This is why you only have goblins running everything,” Pratt continued. “God help you if you try to make things right for your community…if you lose your entire town, ‘journalists’ mock you for not making your kids sleep in the toxic dirt on your burned out lot. Who raised you, dude?”
Why He’s Not Backing Down
The reality star tied his campaign to wildfire recovery.
“The textbook crisis comms move is apologize fast and pivot. For Spencer Pratt, that's the wrong play,” said Aaron Evans, strategic communications expert and President of Story Group. “The LA Times is never going to cover him favorably, and his voters aren't asking him to make peace with them anyway. They want a fighter.”
Evans argues that apologizing would undermine the narrative Pratt is trying to build.
“Apologizing to a reporter for a residency story when your house literally burned down isn't grace, it's surrender, and it validates the exact institution his voters are voting against,” he added.
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Turning Controversy Into Strategy
He said his family was living in temporary housing.
Pratt has built his campaign around the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and their aftermath. In a campaign video, he stood in front of a trailer on his property, which was destroyed in the Palisades Fire, and declared, “This is where I live.”
Reports later surfaced that he had been staying at the Hotel Bel-Air, while his wife Heidi Montag and their children were living in Santa Barbara. Pratt dismissed the criticism, describing each location as temporary housing.
The viral clash intensified attention on the mayoral race.
Evans says “Pratt's instinct to lean in is the right one.”
“The discipline here isn't restraint. It's repetition,” he explained. “Every day until June 2, same line: 'My house burned down, I'm rebuilding it, and the people writing hit pieces about where I sleep are the same people who let the Palisades burn.' That's not a gaffe to clean up, it's a campaign to run.”
