Reality TV star Spencer Pratt said he didn’t always have political ambitions, but after witnessing what he described as “criminal negligence” by Los Angeles leadership surrounding the catastrophic fires that swept the city last year, he decided he had to step up and run for mayor.
“I never wanted to be mayor. I don’t want to be in politics. I want to [be] back in my house with my family, going down to the local public schools and having just a normal life,” Pratt said Wednesday on “Fox & Friends.”
He said city and state leaders should have resigned in the days following the Pacific Palisades fire.
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“I was waiting for somebody to step up and go after these people, and nobody did. So I was like, OK, well, it’s my job to do that.”
Pratt’s home burned down last year, along with his parents’ home. He announced his candidacy for mayor during a “They Let Us Burn!” protest in the Pacific Palisades near the remains of his house on the one-year anniversary of the start of the fire.
He said the most heartbreaking part “wasn’t being displaced or losing everything I own. It was the realization that all of this was preventable. We are standing here amongst the ashes of our once beautiful town because the state and local leaders let us burn.”
In January 2025, along with 20 other property owners, Pratt and his wife Heidi Montag sued the city of Los Angeles and the Department of Water and Power over the destruction of their homes, blaming the city and the utility company for the damage.
According to Cal Fire, 16,251 structures were destroyed in the Pacific Palisades fires. A year on, fewer than 12 have been fully rebuilt.
“The Hills” star said Los Angeles is in “the darkest times ever,” pointing to the homelessness crisis, open drug use and animal abuse.
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He said he is working with animal rescue organizations because on Skid Row, an area of Los Angeles known for its high concentration of people struggling with homelessness and drug dependence, people are “torturing and mutilating dogs daily, just on the side of the street,” attributing the acts to mental illness and substance abuse while local leaders are “letting it happen.”
Pratt criticized sitting Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who was away in Africa when the fires started. He said as mayor he would never leave the city and claimed that all her text messages from the emergency had been deleted.
“What are in those text messages that were deleted? I can’t wait to read those,” he said. “So, the list just goes on and on, and that’s why, again, I’m running for mayor because nobody wants four more years of killing.”
“Fox & Friends” reached out to Mayor Bass for comment and did not immediately receive a response.
Pratt has released a memoir called “The Guy You Loved to Hate: Confessions from a Reality TV Villain.” He acknowledged the timing of the release coincided with his mayoral campaign and pushed back on criticism from Bass that he was running to promote it.
“They’ll understand within a few years from now when I’m still doing this, the book has nothing to do with the journey that she put me on by letting my house burn down.”
The city’s election will be held on June 2.
Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson contributed to this report.
