Lisa Rinna said on the red carpet outside the American Music Awards in Las Vegas that she was not yet ready to back anyone in the Los Angeles mayor’s race, but she made one thing clear: she was not behind Spencer Pratt. Speaking with Variety at MGM Grand Garden Arena, Rinna laughed off the idea of the former reality star as mayor and said, "I don’t know yet," when asked who she supported.
Rinna, who first became known on NBC’s daytime soap Days of Our Lives and later appeared with Harry Hamlin in Harry Loves Lisa before joining Bravo’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills from 2014 to 2022, said, "Not a reality star, though," after Pratt’s name came up. She added, "I love him [Pratt], but we’ve already done that. We’re not going to do that again," then went further: "You got me, because listen, I’m a reality person. You wouldn’t want me as mayor, really. I mean, let’s just face it, I love him. I think he’s amazing. I just think we did that."
That offhand answer landed in the middle of a real race. Pratt, the star of MTV’s The Hills, has gained traction in the polls while attacking incumbent Karen Bass over the city’s handling of the Palisades fire in January 2025. He and Heidi Montag also lost a home in the devastating wildfires, a fact that has shadowed his campaign message as he presses Bass on the city’s response.
Rinna briefly blurred the mayor’s race with California’s gubernatorial contest as she thought through the question. "Let’s have somebody that’s already been mayor — the mayor of San Jose, or whoever," she said before correcting herself and adding, "I like him for governor." The slip mattered less for the geography than for the larger point: Rinna was not offering a formal endorsement, just a quick read from someone whose career has lived in the same reality-TV world Pratt came from.
Pratt answered on Monday afternoon after the interview was posted on X, writing, "Hey Lisa, if you’re against me because I was on a TV show in my 20’s, wait til you learn what Karen Bass was doing in her 20’s…" He attached a video showing himself on a television news appearance claiming Bass was a supporter of Fidel Castro in her younger years. The reply turned a light red-carpet exchange into another round of campaign noise, with Pratt again aiming at Bass and framing his own entertainment background as beside the point.
The exchange also underscored how unusual this race has become. Pratt, once better known for tabloid television, is now polling with enough strength to draw public comments from other celebrities who know the reality-TV lane well. Rinna’s hesitation suggested she sees the stunt as exactly that — a stunt — even as Pratt keeps finding a political audience. The question is no longer whether he can get attention. It is whether attacks built from celebrity, grievance and wildfire anger are enough to carry him any farther.
