- - Spencer Pratt Launches Campaign for L.A. Mayor 1 Year After Losing Home in Wildfires: 'We're Gonna Expose the System'

Greta BjornsonJanuary 7, 2026 at 5:48 PM

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Spencer Pratt in Los Angeles on Jan. 7, 2025 -

Former reality star Spencer Pratt is running for mayor of Los Angeles after a year spent advocating for families like his own who lost their homes in the devastating Los Angeles fires

Pratt, who starred on The Hills alongside wife Heidi Montag, announced his bid for mayor on Jan. 7, the one-year anniversary of when the fires began

Pratt told a crowd of supporters, "This just isn't a campaign. This is a mission, and we're gonna expose the system"

Spencer Pratt announced his run for mayor of Los Angeles today, one year after the former star of The Hills lost the home he shared with wife Heidi Montag in last year's Los Angeles fires.

Pratt, 42, directly referenced the fires when launching his bid for mayor. He told a crowd on Wednesday, Jan. 7, "The system in Los Angeles isn’t struggling, it’s fundamentally broken. It is a machine designed to protect the people at the top and the friends they exchange favors with while the rest of us drown in toxic smoke and ash."

He continued, "Business as usual is a death sentence for Los Angeles, and I'm done waiting for someone to take real action. That's why I am running for mayor."

Pratt addressed the crowd at Wednesday's “They Let Us Burn!” protest, where he stood among the remains of his Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

"And let me be clear, this just isn't a campaign. This is a mission, and we're gonna expose the system," he said. "We're going into every dark corner of L.A. politics and disinfecting the city with our life and when we are done, L.A. is going to be camera ready again."

He also took shots at California Gov. Gavin Newsom, blaming him for allowing brush to "grow wild in Topanga State Park for 50 years with no prescribed burns and no wildfire maintenance."

“Gavin Newsom and the state of California created an insurance market so hostile that every major carrier stopped writing policies and dropped our families and our neighbors just before the sparks flew here in the Palisades,” he told the crowd.

Montag, 39, was also critical of California leadership, telling The New York Post, "They intentionally let us burn before, during and after. There was no accountability. It was gross negligence."

She added, "They let this happen. It wasn’t a natural disaster or something that was unavoidable. It was their fault, and we need the accountability we deserve."

Pratt confirmed his mayoral bid with an Instagram post on Wednesday, sharing a photo of himself filling out campaign paperwork, which he captioned, "Yes, it’s official. Papers are filed and campaign is open: mayorpratt.com."

Months before announcing his mayoral campaign, Pratt visited Capitol Hill, where he joined Republican lawmakers to bring awareness to a congressional investigation into the response to the Palisades fire. He said at the time of the September 2025 visit, "I feel like this is going to be so powerful for all of the United States because there shouldn’t be disasters that are preventable."

His mayoral bid already earned Pratt an endorsement from Richard Grenell, who serves as special presidential envoy for special missions under President Donald Trump. Grenell wrote in a Wednesday post on X, "I endorse @spencerpratt for Mayor of Los Angeles and will help raise money for him. Transparency is what we need. Spencer has the passion and the drive to make positive change for Los Angeles."

Jon Kopaloff/Getty

Spencer Pratt and Heidi Pratt attend Us Weekly And Pluto TV's: Reality TV Stars Of The Year at The Highlight Room on Oct. 10, 2024 in Los Angeles

While Pratt has been active in his campaign for accountability for the fires, he does not embrace the term "activist," telling The Hollywood Reporter in October 2025 that the term makes him think of “somebody on a watchlist."

"When I hear that, I don’t identify. I see myself as someone whose house got burnt out and I have a social media account to talk about it,” he said. While he doesn't object to the term, he told THR he prefers “taxpayer.”

When the fires first began in January 2025, Pratt shared clips of the blaze to social media. Before the flames engulfed his house, he filmed them in the distance, telling his followers at the time, "We got a fire going on behind the house here, say a prayer for the Palisades here, there's the town, there is the fire."

He added, "That's pretty black smoke, should go home and start packing up the house." Not long after, he and Montag lost the home they shared with their two sons, Ryker, 3, and Gunner Stone, 8.

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Three months later, in April 2025, Pratt said he still felt "anger" about the fires, telling E! News at the time, "It's horrific." Pratt’s parents also lost their home in the Pacific Palisades.

“My mom’s crying all day long, I don’t think my mom’s stopped crying,” he said, but told the outlet he was determined to turn his “anger to positivity.”

on People

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”