The rise and fall of 'The Hills' star Spencer Pratt's improbable campaign for Los Angeles mayor

LOS ANGELES (AP) — He wrote a memoir called “The Guy You Loved to Hate.” He's dabbled in rap, releasing a song called “I’m a Celebrity." He started a company selling crystals claimed to have healing properties.

But Spencer Pratt was not able to pull off his latest venture — an improbable bid to become mayor of Los Angeles. The Associated Press determined Monday that the onetime reality television personality did not qualify for the November runoff to unseat embattled incumbent Karen Bass.

Instead of Pratt, a Republican who received a nod of approval from President Donald Trump, Bass will face progressive Nithya Raman, a city council member who had challenged the Democratic mayor from the political left.

Pratt's candidacy was fueled by celebrity — he starred on “The Hills,” a show about young people in Los Angeles — and videos that supporters generated with artificial intelligence. But his campaign also reflected frustration that political leaders have been unable or unwilling to address chronic problems. Pratt had relentlessly focused on homelessness, crime and decay that's marred a city otherwise known for its culinary scene, postcard scenery and a global entertainment industry.

"Enough is enough,” Pratt often said on the campaign trail.

Officials spent days tallying votes from the June 2 primary, typical in a state where slow counting has made the process a target for frustration and conspiracy theories. On Friday, Pratt posted photos of himself outside city hall with a single word — “Patience.”

No Republican has won a mayor’s race in Los Angeles since 1997, and Pratt faced a steep climb as a first-time candidate. His political ambitions were forged by tragedy that added grit to his tabloid backstory. His house was one of thousands destroyed in last year's Palisades Fire, the most destructive in city history.

“This is where I live," Pratt said in a campaign video while standing in front of a trailer parked on the ruins of his property. "They let my home burn down. I know what the consequences of failed leadership are.”

Never mind that Pratt didn't actually live in the trailer — TMZ later reported he was living with his wife and two young boys in the luxurious Hotel Bel-Air. His outrage mirrored broader dissatisfaction with Bass, a Democrat who was on a presidential delegation to Ghana when the blaze began and has faced criticism for the slow pace of rebuilding.

Dennis Kamrany, a lifelong Pacific Palisades resident who sells real estate and is waiting for his home's gas lines to be reconnected more than a year after they were damaged in the fire, said Pratt's political inexperience didn't matter.

“I’d rather have someone that’s a fighter, that has energy, that’s young, that is talking about common sense policies," he said.

“What the hell do we have to lose?” he added. “We’re already in the dumps. Give somebody else a shot.”

Steve Hilton, a conservative commentator who became the leading Republican candidate for governor, saw Pratt's candidacy along with his own as signals that California voters are desperate for a break from the state's prevailing liberal governance.

“We've got a failed and broken system and you've got a couple of outsiders who've never run for office before,” Hilton said of himself and Pratt. “This is our moment."

Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in California by nearly 2-to-1 statewide, and Republicans account for under 15% of registered voters in Los Angeles.

With that math working against Pratt, there were simply not enough Los Angeles voters who believed he should be given a chance to oversee a $15 billion budget and 50,000 municipal workers, including roughly 8,600 police officers, in the nation's second-largest city.

Billionaire businessman Rick Caruso faced a similar challenge in 2022, when he ran against Bass for mayor. The Republican-turned-Democrat spent over $100 million, most of it his own money, on a campaign focused on public safety, and he lost by nearly 10 points.

Deanna Crane, 33, said she wanted “anyone with a pulse other than Spencer Pratt” for mayor.

Although she shared Pratt's dissatisfaction with how Bass handled last year's fires, she voted for Raman instead.

Pratt is a product of the early aughts youth reality television boom in Los Angeles, where he entrenched himself for the better part of two decades. His breakthrough came when he joined the second season of “The Hills” as Heidi Montag’s boyfriend. The couple — especially Pratt — embraced their onscreen personas as fame-seeking television villains, even publishing a book, “How to Be Famous: Our Guide to Looking the Part, Playing the Press, and Becoming a Tabloid Fixture” in 2009, the year they married.

There was little, it seems, that Pratt wouldn’t do for a headline or in the name of publicity.

He claimed responsibility for spreading rumors about a sex tape featuring “The Hills” star Lauren Conrad, but later denied it. A year and a half after marrying Montag, they filed for divorce; several months later, he said it was faked to boost Montag’s fledgling music career. During their separation, he also was arrested and jailed in Costa Rica for attempting to board a flight with a firearm.

In 2018, he talked about how he blew through a $10 million net worth in pursuit of a lavish lifestyle, replete with $4,000 bottles of wine and $1 million worth of crystals. He also started a company, Pratt Daddy, that sells crystals. The website explains that the crystals helped heal Montag’s post-surgery pain “that even morphine could not relieve.”

After the family's home was destroyed in the Palisades Fire, they faced backlash for accepting money from fans. Pratt insisted they were not rich even before losing everything. He also turned to TikTok videos as a source of revenue, tried to get a reality show going about their rebuilding process, and started encouraging fans to stream Montag’s music, including her 15-year-old album “Superficial.”

It hit No. 1 on iTunes, thanks to support from the likes of Paris Hilton, Alix Earle and Flavor Flav. He celebrated with a video on Instagram.

“Who needs a house, who needs clothes, who needs anything but this level of clout, pop, superstardom?” Pratt said.

The next mayor will likely become an international figure when Los Angeles hosts the Olympics in 2028.

But a falling population in the region speaks to frustration with taxes, traffic and the cost of just about everything.

Although statistics suggest that the city has made headway on homelessness, makeshift encampments and rows of rusting RVs remain commonplace. Dirty, pocked streets and sidewalks abound.

Meanwhile, Hollywood jobs have been decamping for years to more affordable filming locales. The restaurant industry has been ailing.

Los Angeles' ailments had some voters willing to take a chance on Pratt.

Susie Tho, 38, came to wait outside Pratt’s primary night party hoping to shake his hand.

Tho said she is a Democrat but voted for Pratt. She was born and raised in Los Angeles and said she was voting for a change after feeling like the city has “gone downhill.”

When Pratt first announced his candidacy, she was apprehensive. but she said he won her over with his debate performance, which she called sharp and prepared.

“I just wanted a clean and safe street for my child to grow up in,” Tho said. “I miss the LA that I grew up in.”

Associated Press writer Jaimie Ding contributed.

Neighbors talk during a block party campaign event for Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jill Connelly)

Supporter listen to Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt during a block party campaign event Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jill Connelly)

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt meets Thomas Alhambra, 98, during a campaign event Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jill Connelly)

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt during a campaign event Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jill Connelly)

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt gets shown around the neighborhood by Maggie Quiroz during a campaign event Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jill Connelly)

BENI, Congo (AP) — The memories come flooding back whenever Vianney Kambale Kombi hears the word Ebola.

He remembers the pain and fear in his community in the eastern Congo city of Beni during the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak, history's second-biggest with more than 3,400 reported cases and over 2,200 deaths. It was stopped with the aid of vaccines.

Kombi also remembers the broad skepticism over the disease, attacks on health workers and inaction from patients that he blames for the speed in which the disease spread.

“We thought it was witchcraft,” said Kombi. “The community had not accepted that this disease existed and it had not accepted that we could recover from it.”

In Beni, a bustling commercial hub near the borders with Uganda and Rwanda, some fear that a repeat of mistakes made during Congo's past outbreaks and the lack of an approved vaccine this time around might make the response to the latest outbreak more challenging.

A total of 515 infections have been confirmed in the current outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, a type of Ebola virus, including 91 deaths and 12 recoveries.

Kombi recalled how he contracted the virus after being exposed to others who had it. He said they had little information about the disease at the time, and that while many thought it was witchcraft, others described it as a “Western conspiracy for funding reasons.”

“The community had not accepted that we could recover from this disease, that’s why reintegrating into the community at first was a bit difficult,” he said.

“When a pandemic hits here in Congo, we initially think it’s a political issue,” said Bienfait Wanzire, who also recovered after contracting Ebola during the 2018 outbreak.

“At first, we thought it was a spiritual illness,” he said. “Then because there were election campaigns, we believed it was political.”

Dr. Babah Mutuza Lusungu, a physician at “Dieu Est Grand” Medical Center in Beni, remembered losing his uncle and two colleagues even as he tried to convince people the outbreak was real.

“There was very strong resistance,” said Lusungu. “And so there was a climate of mistrust that took place between the population, the authorities, the partners too, right, and the health workers.”

Youths at the time were not directly involved in response efforts, he said, urging local authorities to work more closely with youth leaders to enlighten people about the disease.

“If we wait until they have so many declared cases to start making an effective response, we will have totally missed the target,” he said.

Esperance Masinda, who was working for the U.N. children’s agency in Beni during the 2018 outbreak, said it was particularly difficult caring for children who had lost their parents to Ebola.

She contracted the disease while looking after her husband who was working as a medical doctor. Although they both later recovered, the vaccine that helped save them distanced them from family and neighbors.

“When we were in the community, we were told that you’re not going to make it even five years, you’re going to die with that medication that you took there,” Masinda said.

“And today, when they see us, these people no longer stigmatize us,” she said. “We are all humans, even though we have been victims of Ebola, all of us are humans.”

A general view in Beni, Congo, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Kitsa Musayi Sebastien)

Bienfait Wanzire, an Ebola survivor, sits by his house in Beni, Congo, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Kitsa Musayi Sebastien)

Vianney Kambale Kombi, an Ebola survivor, poses for a photo in Beni, Congo, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Kitsa Musayi Sebastien)

Esperance Masinda, an Ebola survivor, poses for a photo at her home in Beni, Congo, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Kitsa Musayi Sebastien)

Dr. Babah Mutuza Lusungu, right, a doctor at "Dieu Est Grand" Medical Center, attends to a woman in his office in Beni, Congo, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Kitsa Musayi Sebastien)