Whatever Happened To Spencer And Heidi Pratt?

Claiming he coined the term "Speidi," even though the internet probably did that one nanosecond after they became famous, Spencer Pratt has actively been trying to turn his relationship with his wife, Heidi, into a brand since day one. From successfully campaigning to get himself hired as a bad guy on The Hills, to years later still admitting to Complex, "If you want to throw missiles, I'm throwing a nuke. This is how I operate," Spencer has never shied away from his self-proclaimed wickedness. He even manufactured "Make Speidi Famous Again" hats in a recent attempt to glom on to then-candidate Donald Trump's controversial presidential campaign.

Spencer has also publicly feuded with everyone from fellow reality TV stars to Today's Al Roker, to his own mother-in-law. He became one of the original Twitter trolls, and lamented that for all their slimy scheming, he actually wishes they'd have gone farther despite the destruction caused to friendships and relationships with their families. "I think if I had gone farther, I'd still be on TV and I'd be somebody that people needed in their lives. I feel like I just put one foot in the villain door, and I should have gone to the max. Simon Cowell, he's the most famous a—hole in the world! How did I not surpass him?" he told EW. So, if the nickname was meant to invoke thoughts of a creepy, eight-legged pest that no one wants near them, congratulations, mission accomplished.

Because what's a fake pregnancy scare without a fake divorce, America's anti-sweethearts also cooked up some mock marital drama as a Hail Mary pass when they found out The Hills was getting cancelled. First, Heidi sought legal separation from Spencer in court, which caused doubters to immediately side-eye this as another Speidi spectacle. The whole thing took an especially disingenuous turn when Spencer started making contrived statements to the press like "Well, some say if you can't handle the heat get out of the kitchen. Heidi couldn't handle King Spencer's fame so she got out of the marriage." But Heidi stuck to the script and filed legal paperwork to divorce Spencer, according to People.

Fast-forward to two months later, and a miracle happens. Heidi calls off the divorce, and the terrible twosome finally come clean, revealing the whole thing was a publicity stunt. According to a press release they sent to Life & Style (via The Huffington Post), they believed they had interest from a British network to do a show about their break-up, but that never panned out. Although Spencer didn't seem too remorseful about the whole incident, even making this ridiculous claim about it. "The divorce was real — just the idea behind it was different than most people's. Divorcing was the only way to keep Heidi's career going because everyone hated me so much. Look at Sandra Bullock – her divorce from Jesse James was the best thing to happen to her image." Nope, nobody liked Sandra Bullock until Jesse James cheated on her. Nailed it, Spence. Now there's a guy with rock solid grasp on reality.

Since Spencer openly laments not reaching his full garbage human potential, it should come as no surprise that he eventually wormed his way into the world of conspiracy theorists. And don't get us wrong, there's nothing inherently evil about the tinfoil brigade. If you want to spend your time hunting Bigfoot and studying crop circles, go nuts. But there's a darker corner to conspiracy theory which includes the denial and/or wild fabrication of facts regarding atrocities like the September 11th, 2001 attack. And even within this "9/11 truther" movement, there is a spectrum. Some take issue with the structural and engineering claims, while others — and this is where Heidi and Spencer leach onto it — believe the U.S. government orchestrated the whole thing.

During an appearance on Infowars, Alex Jones' media outlet (the same one that theorizes on everything from lizard people to the inside of juice boxes turning kids gay), Spencer agreed with Jones' assessment that 9/11 was "an inside job." "'From your research, it 100 percent is,' Spencer says, adding later: 'I want to throw up,'" according to US Weekly. Yep, us too. Except what's turning our stomachs is The Pratt's attempt to latch onto a ridiculous and shameful controversy to try to generate enough buzz for an invite on another reality show, because that's the only way they make money at this point.

If you're a person who's hit your head a lot, right now you're probably thinking to yourself, "Gee, this Heidi and Spencer life plan sounds like the right path for me!" Well, you're in luck, because in 2009, Speidi took a pause from whatever other horrible things they were doing to write a tutorial called How to Be Famous: Our Guide to Looking the Part, Playing the Press, and Becoming a Tabloid Fixture. And aside from not understanding how book titles work, they also greatly miscalculated the number of people who are willing to pay money to turn themselves into unlikeable, unemployable messes. Some of the bullet points from the book's Amazon description include learning "how to say I hate you without opening your mouth," and "why getting and talking about plastic surgery is a must."

But the real magic is in the actual pages of the book, where they promise to reveal the keys to "infiltrating Hollywood" with their proven fame-chasing techniques. It's all questionable advice like always make some kind of scene, and choose targets who have skeletons in their closet you're willing to exploit. It reads like Frank Underwood without any of the education, especially when Spencer tries to coin signature lines like, "You may attract more flies with honey, but you attract more fame with bitch slaps." Of course, the irony in all of this is that from years of practicing their own advice, they were already broke, but why would that stop them from blatantly lying to people's faces?

Finally, we arrive at the "Where are they now?" fact that sort of exemplifies where you'll end up a decade after deciding to pattern your real life after a soap opera villain — only those characters often die and come back to life. Spencer and Heidi are still breathing, but their coveted tabloid mega fame still remains six feet under.

As of that February 2016 Broadly interview, Speidi resides rent-free in Spencer's dad's oceanfront Carpinteria, California vacation home. Not a bad rock bottom, for sure, but the beautiful borrowed surroundings only serve as a reminder of what they once had. "Kim was edited out of Hills episodes organizing Heidi's closet. Now it's like, 'Kim Kardashian breaks the internet with her booty.' Like, what the f***? That's real life for us," Spencer lamented to Complex, ironically coveting the often repudiated fame of the Kardashians.

Heidi's only ambitions these days seem to be drinking tequila, dancing, and waiting around for Spencer to agree to have a baby. But he's scheming his way back onto TV. He appeared on two podcasts for a while, but he mostly spends his time building a Snapchat following, the technology of which astounds him. "On TV you can't have rainbows popping out of your mouth unless you have CGI." Nope, you can't. And most normal people can't go around behaving like Regina George and end up lazily enjoying life on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. So, if you came here looking to enjoy some kind of feel-good story of karmic hardship for these too, sorry, we don't have it. Try Snapchat though, that sounds like a hoot.