Spencer Pratt announces he will run for Mayor of LA on the anniversary of the Palisades fire

Spencer Pratt, the television star who lost his home in the Palisades fire, then emerged as a vocal critic of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom, announced Wednesday that he will run for mayor.

The former star of “The Hills” has spent much of the past year taking to social media to blame the mayor and governor for the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and burned more than 6,800 homes.

Pratt, who has never run for office before, made his announcement at the “They Let Us Burn” event in Pacific Palisades on the one-year anniversary of the fire.

“We’re going to expose the plan. We’re going into all the dark corners of LA politics and we’re disinfecting the city with our light,” he told the crowd of hundreds, many of whom cheered.

Former LA schools Supt. Austin Beutner, who is running against Bass, has also criticized the way the mayor played with fire, saying that he has not accepted the blame for the city’s failures.

Community organizer Rae Huang, who is running to the left of Bass, has voiced her own criticism, saying the mayor has done too much finger-pointing.

It’s still unclear whether real estate developer Rick Caruso — another staunch critic of Bass under fire — will launch a second bid for mayor. Bass defeated him in 2022 by a comfortable margin.

LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who represents areas affected by the Palisades fire, said Monday night that she is still considering a run for LA mayor.

Speaking to CNN’s Elex Michaelson on Tuesday, Horvath said he’s “listening to a lot of people who are encouraging me to get into this race, people who want a different kind of leadership.”

“You know, many people ask me about running for mayor,” said Horvath. “And I think it’s because they see that we’re putting a different accountability framework in the district, and that’s been long overdue by the district.”

On CNN, Horvath criticized the city for its handling of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s report, which was supposed to reveal what went wrong in fighting the Palisades fire and how to prevent mistakes from happening again. The Times newspaper reported last month that the report was prepared with many plans to review the department’s failures.

On Tuesday, Fire Chief Jaime Moore admitted that the report was watered down to reduce criticism of LAFD leadership and promised it would not happen again.

Horvath said the district invited LA officials to participate in its after-action report, but was turned down.

“They refused to participate and now we know why – because they wanted to shut up and tell their stories but they wanted to tell it,” she said.

The Palisades fire has become a serious political issue for Bass as the mayoral race heats up. He was out of the country on a search in Ghana when the fire broke out.

Since then, he has faced criticism for a series of problems with the city’s emergency services, including LAFD dispatch, that the Santa Ynez reservoir was empty, and the Fire Department’s failure to put out the New Year’s Day fire that eventually sparked the Palisades fire.

Bass, for his part, said Tuesday that he is using all of his mayoral powers to “get the community of Palisades back together and get families back home as quickly and safely as possible.”

He has been promoting his work to cut red tape in the Department of Construction and Safety, which reviews and signs off on rebuilding plans. As of Wednesday, permits had been issued for nearly 700 homes in the Palisades, and more than 400 were under construction, according to city officials.

His campaign team was impressed with Pratt’s entry into the race.

“It’s no surprise that prior to the imminent release of his book, a TV “villain” who once dissected fake news to boost ratings and spent last summer spewing false information behind the scenes and anonymous information to alienate his followers on social media, is now announcing his candidacy for Mayor,” Bass campaign spokesman Douglas Herman said in a statement.

Pratt and his wife, reality television host Heidi Montag, sued the city in January after their Palisades home burned down, saying the Santa Ynez reservoir shouldn’t have been offline and empty when the fire broke out.

As recently as Tuesday, Pratt wrote in X that he was “shocked that 7% of Angelenos have ‘high confidence’ in their city and state government.”

“Have they looked around?” he wrote.

In the past, Pratt has also indicated that he will run for governor. On his website, he is still advertising “Spencer for Governor” shirts for $20, more than 50% off.

Pratt rose to artistic fame with his role on “The Hills,” where he played Montag’s boyfriend-turned-husband. He also appeared on “Celebrity Big Brother” and “The Hills: New Beginnings.”