Love or loathe him, Spencer Pratt is a marketing genius. The villain of MTV’s “The Hills” created a marketing scheme for pure celebrity that rakes in the cash without having to release a sex tape.
Of course, that isn’t to say that Spencer – along with girlfriend Heidi Montag, doesn’t make the rounds… the media rounds, that is.
Enter The Ralphie Radio Show. Last week, capitalizing off of the premiere of “The Hills” fifth season and the release of two new Heidi singles on iTunes, the couple affectionately known as “Speidi” kicked off a three hour radio tour with 97 BHT’s Kidd Kraddick In The Morning. Towards the end of the phoner-fest, Spencer and Heidi called up The RRS. The possibly-engaged duo wanted to talk about Montag’s music and their supremacy on “The Hills”. Of course, there were a few other topics I wanted to touch on – namely the type of money we’re talkin’ here with these “reality” shows and staged photo-ops.
“Ralphie, to be honest, with this recession we’re so broke and we need money,” Spencer spewed before I cut him off by citing a leaked report to In Touch Weekly last August that the couple made $65,000 – each – per episode.
“…Yeah… and I heard Santa Claus was real,” retorted Pratt, clearly annoyed that I wasn’t offering up your typical softball questions. Game on.
Not letting up, I attempted to reference that same article, which stated that according to Lauren Conrad’s contract, no one on the show could make more money than her. Pratt then tried to spin that statement – claiming L.C. would be foolish to give up such money. Finally, I cut to the chase: doesn’t the couple stand to make a considerable amount of money directly by Conrad exiting the show (L.C. insists that this is her last season)?
“(2 seconds of silence) If you’re our agent, I’d think you were right,” Pratt finally admitted.
While we were discussing money, I decided to bring up the couple’s relationship with blogger Perez Hilton. The self-proclaimed “Queen of All Media” holds nothing back when it comes to “The Hills” – stories of staged events, criticism of the cast’s side projects, and rumored revelations of behind-the-scene deals. Yet despite this, Spencer and Heidi tweet back and forth with Perez, and attend his parties. In one recent post, Hilton wrote that “Speidi” stood to make $200,000 with an undisclosed tabloid for the exclusive rights to report on a staged breakup/reunion of the couple.
“Like I said, where is this money?” asked Spencer. “I wanna see it. Because if it was true, I’d be taking you out to dinner right now Ralphie in Pennsylvania.”
Pratt stumbled over words and changed the subject when I brought up the fact that everyone else sees this money on “The Hills” during shots of Spencer driving his BMW.
“Perez is very honest,” chimed in Montag.
That was all I needed to hear. Montag used the term “honest” to describe the man who falsely accused rapper Flo-Rida of killing a rabbit and claimed Cuba Dictator Fidel Castro was dead, without citing a source.
Whether it’s the TV show, Heidi’s body, or Spencer’s paparazzi deals – there’s something fake about The Hills, and it doesn’t get much more honest than that.
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