Reality TV alum Spencer Pratt has been running a mayoral campaign in Los Angeles, and he took to the cover of Us Weekly to speak more about his campaign and distance himself from the persona he cultivated on “The Hills.”

“I’m not trying to convert anybody who’s caught up in believing reality TV is real,” he said in the new interview. “My friends involved in the process knew the personality I created on ‘The Hills’ was strategic [and that I was] in cahoots with the producers. At times, [things] obviously got more emotional and exaggerated, because even fake reality TV feels real sometimes, but it was always strategic.”

Pratt began appearing on “The Hills” in 2007 as the antagonistic boyfriend of series lead Heidi Montag, to whom he is now married and has two children. His sister, Stephanie Pratt, also appeared on the series, and has since urged fans not to vote for her brother, saying: “L.A. does not need another unqualified and inexperienced mayor. A vote for him is a vote for stupidity.”

On Jan. 7, Pratt announced his mayoral campaign to unseat Karen Bass, saying he was fueled by anger after losing his family’s home in the Palisades fire in 2025. His campaign has gained support from both celebrities (Adam Carolla, Paris Hilton and James Woods) and right-leaning political personalities (Rick Scott, Erika Kirk and Donald Trump).

Pratt also discusses in the Us Weekly interview how reality television prepared him for politics (“The only edge reality TV and fame has given me is to prepare me for the amount of negativity and threats. If you’ve already been in the gutter with the internet, [then it’s] just another day.”), and reports that he has been filming his campaign for a new reality series (“I had a show before any of this with Hulu [but] the last time I had a camera behind me was over a year ago. I’ve made it very clear to anybody who has reached out that my campaign is my priority.”).

See the Us Weekly cover below.