Whatever Happened To Spencer And Heidi Pratt?

In regards to the pot-stirring villainy they pioneered on The Hills, Spencer and Heidi Pratt are still still sticking to that script. Only now, the novelty of the schtick has certainly worn off, leaving them scrambling at the bottom of the celebrity totem pole. Once a tabloid sensation, the outrageous duo are now basically just standard characters making their way through the inevitable string of popular reality TV competitions. But they went down swinging, in an absurd blaze of manufactured controversies that were as remarkable as they were despicable. Here's what happened to Spencer and Heidi Pratt.

Claiming he coined the term "Speidi," even though the internet probably did that one nanosecond after they became famous, Spencer Pratt has actively been trying to turn his relationship with his wife, Heidi, into a brand since day one. From successfully campaigning to get himself hired as a bad guy on The Hills, to years later still admitting to Complex, "If you want to throw missiles, I'm throwing a nuke. This is how I operate," Spencer has never shied away from his self-proclaimed wickedness. He even manufactured "Make Speidi Famous Again" hats in a recent attempt to glom on to then-candidate Donald Trump's controversial presidential campaign.

Spencer has also publicly feuded with everyone from fellow reality TV stars to Today's Al Roker, to his own mother-in-law. He became one of the original Twitter trolls, and lamented that for all their slimy scheming, he actually wishes they'd have gone farther despite the destruction caused to friendships and relationships with their families. "I think if I had gone farther, I'd still be on TV and I'd be somebody that people needed in their lives. I feel like I just put one foot in the villain door, and I should have gone to the max. Simon Cowell, he's the most famous a—hole in the world! How did I not surpass him?" he told EW. So, if the nickname was meant to invoke thoughts of a creepy, eight-legged pest that no one wants near them, congratulations, mission accomplished.

The Hills was the MTV "reality show" that was so obviously scripted it made The Real Housewives look like a documentary. And despite the fact that Spencer has admitted it took him constantly pestering show producers to cast him, he couldn't wait to take a crap all over it as soon the show ended. During an interview on Bethenny (via TooFab), Heidi and Spencer claimed they got bonuses for high ratings, which they interpreted as "there were clear incentives for amping up the drama." So, being the insect-like humans they aspire to be, they faked a pregnancy scare, because did we already mention they don't care if everyone thinks they're terrible? That seemed relevant again for some reason.

But part of the blow back of their behavior on the show was that they turned themselves into pariahs for future projects. According to Broadly, MTV passed on a spin-off show that actually got to the development phase, and even the paparazzi — who Spencer claims he arranged shoots with, so they'd get cut in on the profits — lost interest in the couple's phony drama. This led to them plowing through their ill-gotten fortune, which they estimate at around $10 million dollars. They wasted tons on insane wardrobes, a reported $3 million on Heidi's highly questionable music career, and crystals (more on the rocks later).

Because what's a fake pregnancy scare without a fake divorce, America's anti-sweethearts also cooked up some mock marital drama as a Hail Mary pass when they found out The Hills was getting cancelled. First, Heidi sought legal separation from Spencer in court, which caused doubters to immediately side-eye this as another Speidi spectacle. The whole thing took an especially disingenuous turn when Spencer started making contrived statements to the press like "Well, some say if you can't handle the heat get out of the kitchen. Heidi couldn't handle King Spencer's fame so she got out of the marriage." But Heidi stuck to the script and filed legal paperwork to divorce Spencer, according to People.

Fast-forward to two months later, and a miracle happens. Heidi calls off the divorce, and the terrible twosome finally come clean, revealing the whole thing was a publicity stunt. According to a press release they sent to Life & Style (via The Huffington Post), they believed they had interest from a British network to do a show about their break-up, but that never panned out. Although Spencer didn't seem too remorseful about the whole incident, even making this ridiculous claim about it. "The divorce was real — just the idea behind it was different than most people's. Divorcing was the only way to keep Heidi's career going because everyone hated me so much. Look at Sandra Bullock – her divorce from Jesse James was the best thing to happen to her image." Nope, nobody liked Sandra Bullock until Jesse James cheated on her. Nailed it, Spence. Now there's a guy with rock solid grasp on reality.

Just before the final season of The Hills, a plastic surgeon approached Hollywood's already fakest couple and offered to make the female half of them considerable faker. Presumably in an attempt to cross-promote his plastic surgery practice, the now deceased Dr. Frank Ryan performed 10 procedures on Heidi in one day, which he claimed was "well within the realm of safety," according to People. Other doctors didn't agree.

According to The New York Daily News, the list of Heidi's enhancements included "a mini brow lift, Botox, nose job, fat injections in her cheeks and lips, a chin reduction, liposuction to her neck, her ears pinned back, buttocks augmentation, liposuction to her waist and thighs and breast augmentation revision."

She also claimed the pain was terrible and that she almost died because she "had too much Demerol like Michael Jackson did." But none of that stopped her from having additional work done, which she later admitted she regrets for a number of reasons, including chronic pain, being too young when she did it, and being insecure because of "all the media and internet and comments." That's a stark reversal from her initial opinion of cosmetic enhancements which includes, in part, this nugget of historical wisdom. "If Cleopatra were alive now, I'm sure she'd have triple D's ... there's always been a struggle between pain and beauty. I feel like since the beginning of time." Yep, they probably would have put a Hooter's right next to the Great Pyramid of Giza, too.

Since Spencer openly laments not reaching his full garbage human potential, it should come as no surprise that he eventually wormed his way into the world of conspiracy theorists. And don't get us wrong, there's nothing inherently evil about the tinfoil brigade. If you want to spend your time hunting Bigfoot and studying crop circles, go nuts. But there's a darker corner to conspiracy theory which includes the denial and/or wild fabrication of facts regarding atrocities like the September 11th, 2001 attack. And even within this "9/11 truther" movement, there is a spectrum. Some take issue with the structural and engineering claims, while others — and this is where Heidi and Spencer leach onto it — believe the U.S. government orchestrated the whole thing.

During an appearance on Infowars, Alex Jones' media outlet (the same one that theorizes on everything from lizard people to the inside of juice boxes turning kids gay), Spencer agreed with Jones' assessment that 9/11 was "an inside job." "'From your research, it 100 percent is,' Spencer says, adding later: 'I want to throw up,'" according to US Weekly. Yep, us too. Except what's turning our stomachs is The Pratt's attempt to latch onto a ridiculous and shameful controversy to try to generate enough buzz for an invite on another reality show, because that's the only way they make money at this point.

When discussing their reality TV appearances with Complex, Spencer said, "Those are huge checks in the real world." Because in Speidi's "real world," you plan your life around the existence of shows like I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! to put food on your table.

In fact, after The Hills, aside from shady deals to sell paparazzi photos, this was their entire game plan. And their first outing was a spectacular disaster. Dropped into the jungle with Stephen Baldwin and a bunch of other tangentially famous folks, Heidi and Spencer lasted just days before bailing on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Heidi conveniently "got sick" although she'd already appeared on camera having a near mental breakdown over her dry shampoo labels being removed. Spencer spent the entire time screaming in everyone's face and ended up at war with NBC, drawing the ire of NBC executive, Paul Telegdy, and having a testy exchange with Al Roker on Today. Seriously, how does anyone not get along with Al Roker?

Their next move was a relatively uneventful episode of Wife Swap, then Marriage Bootcamp: Reality Stars, after which Spencer freely admitted he agreed to do the show in the hopes that producers would "tell Heidi to chill out, enjoy her youth, and she can get pregnant later in life." Their most recent reality project at the time of this writing is Celebrity Big Brother, and though they didn't win, this might be where they've found their niche. After their contentious 2013 stint in the house, they returned in 2017 for an alleged paycheck of $750,000. According to TMZ, the producers paid top dollar for the hate-watch draw of Speidi in the hopes it would boost ratings. So that means Spencer's plan to make he and his wife so universally loathed that people can't stop watching them actually worked. Wow, that's depressing.

If you're a person who's hit your head a lot, right now you're probably thinking to yourself, "Gee, this Heidi and Spencer life plan sounds like the right path for me!" Well, you're in luck, because in 2009, Speidi took a pause from whatever other horrible things they were doing to write a tutorial called How to Be Famous: Our Guide to Looking the Part, Playing the Press, and Becoming a Tabloid Fixture. And aside from not understanding how book titles work, they also greatly miscalculated the number of people who are willing to pay money to turn themselves into unlikeable, unemployable messes. Some of the bullet points from the book's Amazon description include learning "how to say I hate you without opening your mouth," and "why getting and talking about plastic surgery is a must."

But the real magic is in the actual pages of the book, where they promise to reveal the keys to "infiltrating Hollywood" with their proven fame-chasing techniques. It's all questionable advice like always make some kind of scene, and choose targets who have skeletons in their closet you're willing to exploit. It reads like Frank Underwood without any of the education, especially when Spencer tries to coin signature lines like, "You may attract more flies with honey, but you attract more fame with bitch slaps." Of course, the irony in all of this is that from years of practicing their own advice, they were already broke, but why would that stop them from blatantly lying to people's faces?

Despite proclaiming they'd developed a surefire code for generating fame and fortune by alienating everyone in their path, Heidi and Spencer eventually turned to the mystical properties of geodes to essentially wish for fame when all else failed. Spencer claims to have spent $500,000 on crystals, which an awful lot for someone who is worried about money. During that same interview with Complex, Spencer showed off his crystal collection, saying, "This is supposed to be bringing in money, but I can tell you it doesn't work. Citrine is supposed to bring wealth. I'm just waiting."

Spencer's patience must have run out, because in a different interview with EW six month later, he revealed that he took his belief in mysticism up a notch. "I spent thousands of dollars having a wizard coach," Spencer said. Wait, what? No please, by all means, Spencer, elaborate. We honestly can't wait for what's next. "Being a wizard, it's pretty heavy. Going around with a wand, and people start looking at you weird when you're wanding your coffee in the morning and whatever." So. Many. Questions. Was the coffee too hot and he was trying to cast a perfect temperature spell? Was he trying to turn the liquid back into the beans? Was he literally just stirring his coffee with a toy wand? Whatever the answer is, points to Slytherin for intriguing us like that. (You know that's totally where the Sorting Hat would have dumped these two.)

Finally, we arrive at the "Where are they now?" fact that sort of exemplifies where you'll end up a decade after deciding to pattern your real life after a soap opera villain — only those characters often die and come back to life. Spencer and Heidi are still breathing, but their coveted tabloid mega fame still remains six feet under.

As of that February 2016 Broadly interview, Speidi resides rent-free in Spencer's dad's oceanfront Carpinteria, California vacation home. Not a bad rock bottom, for sure, but the beautiful borrowed surroundings only serve as a reminder of what they once had. "Kim was edited out of Hills episodes organizing Heidi's closet. Now it's like, 'Kim Kardashian breaks the internet with her booty.' Like, what the f***? That's real life for us," Spencer lamented to Complex, ironically coveting the often repudiated fame of the Kardashians.

Heidi's only ambitions these days seem to be drinking tequila, dancing, and waiting around for Spencer to agree to have a baby. But he's scheming his way back onto TV. He appeared on two podcasts for a while, but he mostly spends his time building a Snapchat following, the technology of which astounds him. "On TV you can't have rainbows popping out of your mouth unless you have CGI." Nope, you can't. And most normal people can't go around behaving like Regina George and end up lazily enjoying life on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. So, if you came here looking to enjoy some kind of feel-good story of karmic hardship for these too, sorry, we don't have it. Try Snapchat though, that sounds like a hoot.