Spencer Pratt runs for mayor of LA one year after wildfires
Reality TV personality Spencer Pratt launched his Los Angeles mayoral campaign with an event commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Palisades fire.
Spencer Pratt has spent much of his career in front of the camera, but in another life he might have been a paparazzi.
In an interview with Page Six Radio on Tuesday, January 27, the reality TV personality and author revealed how he made thousands of dollars selling photos of teenage Mary-Kate Olsen and her then-boyfriend Max Winkler to media outlets in the early 2000s. Director and screenwriter Winkler is the son of Emmy Award-winning actor and “Happy Days” alum Henry Winkler.
Pratt, 42, also details the incident in his new memoir, The Man You Hated: Confessions from a Reality TV Villain.
Pratt, who was Winkler’s friend at the time, discovered that Winkler had a “photo shrine” dedicated to Olsen and stumbled across the photo. The then-19-year-old “The Hills” star sold his first photo to In Touch Weekly magazine for $50,000, but said he would later make tens of thousands more by publishing other photos.
“I think it was around $90,000,” Pratt told hosts Danny Murphy and Evan Real. “These lovely people are already millionaires. There’s nothing I’ve sold that I can’t post on Instagram.”
USA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Pratt, Olsen and Winkler for comment.
Despite leaking personal photos of Winkler and Olsen to the press, Pratt insisted the images he sold were “clean” and said he did not sell public event photos of himself and Olsen in which the “Full House” star appeared “intoxicated.”
Winkler reflected on her romance with Olsen in a 2011 New York Magazine interview while discussing her star-studded relationship history.
“I dated the Olsen twins because I was in love with them,” Winkler said at the time. “But I didn’t fall in love with her just because she was the Olsen twin. I thought she was very beautiful and smart and cute.”
Mr. Pratt himself never faced criticism from Mr. Olsen, but he said that Mr. Pratt’s photo sales came back to haunt him during a business meeting with his wife, Heidi Montag, and Mr. Olsen’s manager. Pratt said Olsen’s rep told her that he had “wanted to kill” Pratt for “years” for selling the photos.
But the “Celebrity Big Brother” alum and Los Angeles native who is running for mayor of a Southern California city has no time for celebrity champagne issues.
“I’ve never had mercy on billionaires,” Pratt said. “Now people just hate billionaires, but I’ve supported billionaires. I didn’t spend (tears).”
