Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt has claimed in multiple campaign videos that he was living in a trailer at the site of his Palisades home, which burnt down in the 2025 L.A. fires. In reality, things looked a little different for the former reality TV star when the cameras were off.
He has been splitting time between a high-end L.A. hotel and a rental house outside the city, raising complications for a campaign that’s made housing and rebuilding after the L.A. fires a key message.
“This is where I live,” Pratt said in an April 29 ad, standing in front of the trailer at his fire-charred Palisades lot. Elsewhere in the ad, the former cast member of The Hills stood in front of his rival candidates’ intact homes, including that of current Mayor Karen Bass, whom he has accused of failing to stop the fires.
“I’m living in my trailer by the beach and I’m winning this race,” Pratt said in an April 6 video.
Pratt has been spending time in recent days at the five-star Hotel Bel-Air, where a night’s stay often costs more than $1,000, TMZ reported.
The Independent has contacted the Pratt campaign for comment.
After the initial TMZ report, Pratt told the site his remarks in the campaign video were being taken out of context and that viewers were “missing the messaging.”
“I haven’t been at the Bel-Air hotel for more than six days in the last month,” Pratt said, adding that he doesn’t “live anywhere” because his home burned down.
He claimed he couldn’t live full-time in the trailer because the city has been slow to hook up utilities, and because of death threats against him after rival candidate Nithya Raman accused him of representing “fascism” and being a “mini Trump” on a recent podcast.
“The point of the ad is to show this is where they burned my house down,” Pratt continued in the TMZ interview. “I have no house…I live in the Palisades. I am a registered voter to that address. I am an Angeleno, even if my family and kids have to now go to school in Santa Barbara.”
Pratt’s wife, fellow Hills star and singer Heidi Montag, told The Independent last year that the family is living in a rental in Santa Barbara and unsure of whether they will be able to rebuild in the Palisades.
“They’re saying it’s gonna cost five million to rebuild the house that cost a third of that; we just don’t have the finances, and I’m not sure we can keep our lot because you still have to pay a mortgage on it. I’m not sure what we’re going to be able to do,” she said. “I’m just trying to work as hard as I can, as much as I can, to be able to afford any type of house or down payment on something for our kids.”
Pratt’s family is living in Carpinteria, in Santa Barbara County, The Los Angeles Times reported last month.
Pratt, in a social media video, later acknowledged temporarily living outside of L.A., describing being in his father’s “rental home in S.B.”
Pratt can still run for mayor while living outside the city because of a state policy letting wildfire victims use their original address for government matters so long as they intend to return.
“In situations where a candidate has been temporarily displaced (such as the 2025 wildfires), their eligibility to run for office is not impacted, provided they maintain domicile in their district,” Michael Sanchez, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, told The Los Angeles Times.
Pratt, a Republican and scathing critic of Bass and L.A.’s homelessness crisis, is second in the polls behind the mayor, with 22 percent support among likely voters.
Primary elections occur next month, and will head to a runoff in November unless a candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote.
