He was a reality show villain. Can he be the mayor of one of America's largest cities?

4 days ago

As one of the stars of MTV's hit show The Hills in the 2000s, Spencer Pratt quickly became one of reality television's favourite villains.

But could the 42-year-old former publicist-turned Celebrity Big Brother contestant soon win himself a new role: mayor of the second largest city in America?

The Republican political outsider has risen in the polls since announcing his intention in January to run to be Los Angeles mayor, and has since become a serious contender.

With about two-thirds of the votes counted in Tuesday's primary election, incumbent LA Mayor Karen Bass is the only candidate so far to advance to the run-off, based on US media projections.

But Pratt is in pole position to get the second slot in November's election. He is battling with Democratic city council member Nithya Raman to join Bass in the head-to-head.

In terms of fundraising during the race, Pratt has blown the other two out of the water, raising $2.7m (£2m) between 19 April and 16 May. That is nearly 10 times what Bass - a longtime LA politician - raised in the same period, and approximately seven times what Raman raised.

Pratt's success as a Republican in such a liberal-leaning city has come after gaining widespread attention on social media through TikTok rants, reposted AI-generated videos that mock his opponents, and head-turning political adverts. His spokesperson has denied rumours that a reality show will be produced if he wins the contest.

"We are going to get the golden age of Los Angeles back," Pratt says in one of his campaign adverts: rhetoric that appears to echo the Make America Great Again (Maga) slogan of a certain other reality TV star-turned politician.

Pratt entered the mayoral race a year after he lost his home in the devastating fires in the city in 2025, which were some of the deadliest and most destructive blazes in the area's history. Much of his campaign has centred on the disaster, and he has accused Bass of failing to respond to the crisis.

He has campaigned on a message of fixing a broken Los Angeles, casting the city at times as unsafe and unclean, and advocating mandatory drug treatment to help combat homelessness in the city.

But he has an uphill battle, according to Efrén Pérez, a professor who teaches political psychology at the University of California Los Angeles. The city has not had a Republican mayor since 2001 - a quarter of a century ago.

And Pratt's base and his platform are still rather narrow, Pérez says.

"I'm not saying that there isn't any validity to being a spokesperson for - and potential improver of - the sort of tragedy that befell one very wealthy slice of LA," Pérez says - referring to the fact that one of the fires struck the affluent enclave of the Pacific Palisades, where Pratt lived.

"But that wealthy slice of LA is not representative of the entire city."

For her part, Bass has been critical of Pratt throughout the campaign.

"It's not just that he has no experience in city government. I don't know that he's ever held a job in his life other than to be a reality TV star," she said on Monday at a campaign event. "I think he doesn't know the issues. He's operating out of anger."

Raman, too, has sought to discredit Pratt, dubbing him an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist. She has said he "is not offering a realistic solution" to the issues the city is facing.

Pratt has taken on those criticisms, saying in a recent interview: "I may not have the experience, but I have the common sense to say this is not working."

Pratt rose to prominence in 2007 when he joined the cast of The Hills, a spin-off of the MTV reality show Laguna Beach, as the boyfriend of Heidi Montag. His character often ramped up drama and spread rumours with his sometimes abrasive persona.

Pratt and Montag later married, and they now have two children.

After the show finished in 2010, Pratt went on to appear on other reality programmes, including Celebrity Big Brother and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, as well as creating an online business to sell crystals.

Marty Kaplan, a professor of entertainment, media and society at the University of Southern California, says politics has been taken over by entertainment, meaning Pratt has an edge.

California previously gave rise to actor-turned-president Ronald Reagan and action star-turned-state governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Donald Trump, too, was famously a reality TV star before he was president. The tabloid TMZ, known for its coverage of celebrities, recently opened an office in Washington DC to cover politics.

"The audience has now been accustomed to want to be entertained," says Kaplan. "A candidate who can have a story that makes you want to know what happens next, and who delivers sure-fire twists and turns and thrills, that's what we want."

Bass, who has deep roots in Los Angeles with a background in community organising and a wealth of political experience, is just "not as entertaining" as Pratt, Kaplan says.

"It used to be that in the battle for attention, what counted was not only do you have a compelling message, but can you deliver?" he asks. "What seems to matter now is almost exclusively, 'will you promise not to bore me?'"

Trump himself recently gave a nod to Pratt's campaign. Asked about it by a reporter, he said: "I'd like to see him do well. He's a character."

The president added: "I heard he's a big Maga person. He's doing well."

Whether those words of support will help or hurt Pratt in such a liberal area remains to be seen, though the mayoral candidate has sought to distance himself from national partisan politics. Nearly 65% of voters in Los Angeles County voted for Trump's Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, in the last presidential contest.

Like Trump when he ran for the White House the first time, Pratt is a political outsider. Although he has a degree in political science, he has never held office and "therefore isn't tainted by experience", according to Kaplan.

"Unfortunately, that also may mean that he's not tainted by competence, and voters may be more interested in casting a protest vote against the problems they see… it is a way of saying to the establishment 'you're fired'."

The psychology professor Pérez, who has worked as a political consultant, says the case of Pratt should not be surprising.

"He's a celebrity, but more than that, he is in that sort of stratosphere where he has the ability to tap on people for money," Pérez says.

"There's a big leap, massively, between running for office and campaigning, and all the glitter that comes with it, and then getting your hands dirty for the long haul," he adds.