Heidi Montag And Spencer Pratt's GMA Interview: 'I Feel Like A Ghost'

Former reality TV stars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag – who became famous via MTV's The Hills in the mid to late 2000s – appeared on Good Morning America on Wednesday to discuss their current plight after losing everything in the Palisades fire.

For context, what are now several fires broke out in Los Angeles on January 7, rapidly spiraling into a massive natural disaster due to a perfect storm of high winds and dry vegetation.

On January 7, Spencer shared a TikTok clip of a fire burning close to the home he shared with wife Heidi and their two sons.

Less than 24 hours later, he updated followers after their house was destroyed, captioning the video: "Nightmare came true."

The devastating fires in Los Angeles are a tragedy, and at the time of publication, 25 people had lost their lives in the course of the disaster.

However, in a very unexpected way, Spencer has taken on the mantle of an advocate and even a source of positivity, and USA Today said he "sprouted from the wreckage as an unlikely, favored tour guide" — further pointing out that in 2011, he was deemed the "most hated" male celebrity.

It feels almost crass to observe that the loss of their home in the fires reversed Heidi and Spencer's fortunes to some degree, but Google Trends data illustrates this resurgence in Spencer's notoriety through a five-year view:

To be clear, the return of Spencer and Heidi – also known as "Speidi" in the late 2000s – is not the result of circumstance, or bad luck.

Rather, Spencer has been leveraging his newfound TikTok engagement to "hustle" and provide for his family, and he devised a campaign to allow fans to help them almost effortlessly.

Spencer politely asked fans to stream Heidi's 2010 album Superficial, regularly updating them on the album's race to the top of the charts — which occurred in the US on Sunday, January 12.

Since Spencer and Heidi's house burned down, he hasn't rested, interacting with fans constantly and candidly describing their current circumstances.

In one of his dozens of recent TikTok posts, Spencer admitted that a friend of his criticized his tireless hustling and promotion of Heidi's album.

He responded:

"Dear friend, I have zero. I have no house, I have no belongings — I couldn't be more humble. But nobody's gonna gatekeep my future for my family and my success in our life.

"So if it looks like I'm not being humble, trust me, I'm humble. But I'm also not gonna stand for people blocking our future.

"So, sorry if people think I'm not being humble enough ... I'm pretty sure my existence is humble right now."

There's no question that Spencer's raw honesty about the magnitude of the loss and his jokes about being neither rich nor famous have endeared him to a new generation of fans.

Moreover, nearly every post of Spencer's is awash in comments about what an amazing husband he is: "May we all find a partner that adores [us] like Spencer Pratt loves Heidi Montag."

All of this notoriety led to the couple's appearance on Good Morning America on Wednesday, January 15, during which they both became emotional when reflecting on their loss and the groundswell of support they received.

'Grab Anything You Want To Keep'

In some respects, the ongoing devastation in Los Angeles is something of an abstraction to people who don't live in fire-prone areas, and who can't envision the granular details of experiences like an evacuation.

Good Morning America shared a clip of Spencer and Heidi's interview, which opened with a sobbing Heidi.

Heidi recalled the chaos of their sudden evacuation, breaking down over the loss of "so many things you can't replace":

"Spencer was like, 'grab anything you want to keep,' and I was like, 'how do you choose?'"

What Heidi described is the sort of nearly minor detail that someone who hasn't been abruptly evacuated might not consider — knowing your home is likely to be reduced to ashes, and having to quickly inventory your entire life to try to salvage your most important memorabilia and possessions.

In the clip GMA shared, Spencer spoke next, and he too was visibly emotional and fighting back tears.

Spencer had to pause as he began to speak, and it looked like he was trying to avoid crying when he described the surreal experience of seeing a heart-shape in the fire as their son's bed went up in flames:

"The worst was, like [long pause] our kids' room that, like, was, like, so magical. We do story time every night, and it's, like, such — our routine, so much love is in there.

"Our son's bed started just, like, burning in the shape of a heart, like the fire just started as a heart. I was like, this is, like, out of body insane."

ABC News anchor Jaclyn Lee said in a voiceover that Spencer and Heidi put all of their money into their home — and that they, like many of those affected by the fires, were "dropped" by their home insurance provider before the fire.

Spencer's childhood home was also destroyed in the fires, and he talked about the loss of all the objects that make up a person's life:

"I feel like a ghost. I don't have a single photo now from before I — before an iPhone existed.

"I don't have any of the dumb little things that are on your shelves in your parents' — they're all gone, not a single nothing."

After that, Heidi expounded on their financial situation at the time of the fire, one to which many Americans can relate — finding it difficult to manage expenses beyond owning a house or renting.

She said that aside from their home, every other aspect of their lives was a "hustle" before the disaster:

"So, we were 'house poor,' as they call it. Like, we have a house, and everything else is a hustle, is a grind.

"So yeah, we're definitely counting every dollar that we make. It's like, we’re working really hard to – we – [to] take one trip a year."

GMA's clip ended on a slightly more hopeful note.

Heidi again became emotional, but for a different reason — citing the massive support she and Spencer have received from fans and from other celebrities:

The fan support has been such a light in such a darkness for us, and it's life-changing.

At the end of the clip, both Heidi and Spencer were smiling over "fan support," and Spencer reported that Heidi's album Superficial had just hit number one in the Philippines, placing her in the top spot in 12 countries.

In Spencer's most recent TikTok post on Wednesday, he updated followers on how to get Heidi's album to rank on other platforms, like Spotify, YouTube, and Billboard.