• Trump endorsed Spencer Pratt for LA mayor, calling him a “Big MAGA person” — Bass says Angelenos will reject a MAGA mayor
• IATSE, Teamsters 399, AFM Local 47 and other Hollywood unions have endorsed Bass for reelection ahead of the June 2 primary
• Three DSA-backed council members, including Hugo Soto-Martinez, Eunisses Hernandez and Ysabel Jurado, have abandoned Nithya Raman to back Bass
• Bass reveals the entertainment industry itself requested a film czar with city expertise — not a Hollywood insider
• Ted Cruz has also praised Pratt’s campaign, what fans are calling the “kiss of death” for the reality star’s mayoral bid

Karen Bass is not running a glamorous campaign. She’ll be the first to tell you that. “I’m a workhorse, not a show horse,” the incumbent Los Angeles mayor told Deadline in a wide-ranging interview Wednesday, “and that’s a problem.” But with Donald Trump’s endorsement of The Hills villain-turned-candidate Spencer Pratt landing just hours before she sat down to talk, Bass looked less like a mayor on the ropes and more like one who just got handed a gift.

The Trump endorsement — expected but still striking — arrived Wednesday morning, the former president calling Pratt a “Big MAGA person” and throwing his support behind the self-styled outsider. In a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a massive margin, the backing may have done Pratt more harm than good. Bass didn’t hide her read on it. “No surprises here,” she said flatly. “Both Trump and Pratt want ICE to invade our city and kidnap our neighbors. L.A. doesn’t want a MAGA Mayor, so I think Angelenos will reject him.”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz piled on too, praising Pratt’s viral campaign ads during a Capitol Hill interview with TMZ and calling them “awesome,” saying they “speak to a real truth” about LA’s decline. Whether that helps Pratt is another question — Cruz has become so reliably associated with losses that fans and internet culture have coined the “Ted Cruz kiss of death,” the idea that his endorsement of a team or candidate tends to precede embarrassing defeat. Pratt may want to read the room.

The political math is stark. Bass is polling around 30%. Pratt is in the mid-teens. If the two end up in November’s runoff — which Bass says is a real possibility — the dynamic could mirror what happened in France in 2002, when Jacques Chirac cruised to a joyless landslide over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen simply because the alternative was unthinkable to most voters. A win by default is still a win.

Hollywood Is Backing Her — and So Is the Left She Didn’t Expect

The day of the interview also brought a significant endorsement: IATSE, one of Hollywood’s most powerful crew unions, formally backed Bass for reelection. The California IATSE Council’s statement didn’t mince words: “Karen Bass has been fighting for film and television workers her whole career. She wrote California’s original film and television production tax credit while she was speaker of the California Assembly, and as Mayor she’s done more to bring our jobs back to Los Angeles than anyone in city government.”

Teamsters 399 and the American Federation of Musicians Local 47 came in the same day. AFM Local 47 president Marc Sazer called Bass “a champion of issues of direct concern to musicians, whether we perform on film and TV scores, make music played on AM/FM radio or play in live music venues.” The union endorsements matter in a low-turnout primary — labor organizations bring the organizational muscle to actually move votes.

Bass herself traces the relationship back decades. “I have worked with IATSE, I have worked with SAG, I have worked with the unions and the entertainment industry for over the last two decades,” she told TheWrap Tuesday, the day before the IATSE announcement. “Before I ever thought of running for office, I was involved in starting a program at West LA College to deal with diversifying the below-the-line crafts.” She also noted that as Assembly Speaker she passed California’s first film and television tax credit — mid-recession — and that her family has been connected to the industry for three generations.

The union support joins a broader celebrity coalition that includes J.J. Abrams, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Magic Johnson and Yvette Nicole Brown. Pratt, meanwhile, has attracted a different kind of Hollywood money — Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, Saban Entertainment founder Haim Saban and music executives Lucian and Elliot Grainge. And Nithya Raman has her own progressive Hollywood contingent, with Natalie Portman, Adam Conover and producer David Mandel among her backers.

But Raman’s broader progressive coalition is fracturing in a way that could seriously damage her chances. Three members of the City Council’s DSA-backed bloc — Hugo Soto-Martinez, Eunisses Hernandez and Ysabel Jurado — have all broken ranks to endorse Bass, leaving Raman politically stranded among her own ideological allies. Soto-Martinez was first, announcing in February. Hernandez and Jurado followed Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Political consultant Michael Trujillo put it bluntly: “These endorsements suggest they don’t believe Nithya Raman has the chops to run the city. The four DSA council districts all touch each other geographically. This is the movement’s base in Los Angeles, and for them to tell supporters to stay with Bass matters.” He added: “Every vote matters, and losing votes in your base is especially hard to make up somewhere else.”

On the Paramount-WBD Deal, the Film Czar, and What a Mayor Can Actually Do

Bass is unusually direct about the limits of her own power — which is either refreshing honesty or a political liability, depending on who you ask. On the $111 billion Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger, which is widely expected to bring layoffs and industry pain, she was candid: “I don’t have the ability to unilaterally stop Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery merger, but that’s why I meet with the industry to say, what is it you want?”

She made a point of distinguishing between what’s in her lane and what isn’t. Federal tax credits? Advocacy. The cap on state credits? A Sacramento decision, but again, advocacy. Permitting, red tape, filming fees at city locations? That’s hers. “When it comes to what I can do here in terms of the permitting process, I’m in charge,” she said. “I can go through the red tape.”

The revelation about her film czar appointment was one of the more surprising moments in the conversation. When Bass appointed Department of Public Works Commissioner Steven Kang — a city infrastructure expert with no Hollywood background — to the role, it drew criticism from some corners of the industry. But Bass says the choice came directly from the industry itself. “I basically left it up to the industry as to who they wanted,” she said. “They came to the conclusion that they didn’t want an industry person. They wanted a person who knew the intricacies of the city. That’s why we went with Steve Kang.”

The idea, she explained, was concierge service: when a production hits a bureaucratic wall, Kang can call the relevant department heads and make things move. “He literally, when anybody hits a bump in the road, will make the general managers or departments do what’s needed to facilitate.”

She also took a pointed shot at Raman on the industry front. “My opponent has been on the city council, or been in city hall, twice as long as I have,” Bass said, “and she has never initiated one thing for the industry, and has recused herself from everything. She has not shown any leadership at all while being on council, so it’s hard for me to understand how, then you show major leadership as mayor.”

The Fires, the Feds, and the Limits of Local Power

The January 2025 Palisades Fire remains the biggest wound on Bass’s record. Pratt, who lost his own home in the blaze, has made it a central campaign issue. Bass doesn’t deflect — she goes straight to what she’s done since. “First of all, not if I get reelected, but now,” she said when asked about fire preparedness going forward.

She described overhauling fire department leadership as her first move, followed by aggressive brush clearing — including on state land she technically doesn’t control. “I actually don’t care anymore. I’m going to clear brush. I don’t care if it’s on the state.” She says over 400 homes are now actively under construction in fire-affected areas, and that the biggest remaining obstacles are the insurance and banking industries, not the city.

On ICE and the LAPD, Bass was equally direct about what she can and can’t do — even when the answer isn’t what her supporters want to hear. Asked why LAPD wasn’t actively confronting federal immigration agents, she didn’t spin it. “At the end of the day, the power of the federal government supersedes all power, state power, local power,” she said. “You’re not going to have police agencies fighting each other. That’s not going to happen.”

She described the Trump administration’s immigration raids in LA as an experiment — a test run before a broader national crackdown. “I’ve been in contact with all the other mayors. We share policies, we share strategies.” On her own Oval Office visit, she was unapologetic: “The reason I was in the White House is because I need $8 billion to rebuild the infrastructure of the Palisades.” She pushed back on the optics directly: “I know how to fight with you one day and work with you the next, because the reality is there is no city that can function without federal support. Period.”

The LAPD union endorsement came up too. Bass has spent decades in criminal justice reform — she started in the Coalition Against Police Abuse before she ever ran for office — and she rejected the idea that union support compromises her. “One thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other,” she said.

The Olympics, Casey Wasserman, and an Already-Stretched Budget

LA28 looms over everything. The city is on the hook for the first $270 million in any losses, with the state covering the next $270 million and the city again responsible for the following $540 million — a potential $810 million exposure for a budget that’s already under strain. Bass acknowledged the risk but pushed back on the framing. “What I hear from LA28 is that the fundraising is way, way, way ahead of schedule. They should not go into a deficit.”

On Casey Wasserman — who weathered scrutiny after his name appeared in Ghislaine Maxwell emails — Bass was measured. She confirmed she called for him to step down, then acknowledged it wasn’t her call to make. “A lot of people think that I run LA28 or that I’m in charge of LA28. I’m not. LA28 is an independent nonprofit organization. The deal for the costs was cut years before I was even thinking about being mayor.”

She’s leaning into the pre-Olympic events as a dry run — the World Cup arrives in LA in a matter of weeks, with the US Open for golf following shortly after the June 2 primary. “I’m going to take full advantage of those events,” she said. “Make sure our neighborhoods benefit economically.”

And she’s not done making the broader case. “I don’t care what city it is, I don’t care what year it is. There is always anxiety and criticism and reticence over the Olympics. And then they happen and everybody goes, oh, it was so amazing. I was here in 1984. I remember everybody was freaked out. 42 years later, we’re still celebrating 1984.”

The June 2 primary is two weeks out. Bass leads in the latest polling, with Pratt and Raman fighting for the second spot that determines who faces her in November. Whether the city rewards her workhorse approach or decides it wants a show horse — that’s the question LA is about to answer.

The post Karen Bass on Trump, Pratt, Hollywood Jobs and LA’s Future appeared first on Cream.

• Spencer Pratt fired back at Chelsea Handler after she compared him to Donald Trump in a profanity-laced Instagram video
• A new Emerson College poll shows Pratt in second place with 22%, just eight points behind incumbent Mayor Karen Bass
• Pratt’s team flatly denied reports from TMZ and Deadline that his campaign is being filmed as a reality series for Boardwalk Pictures
• Billionaire donors including Dan Loeb, Bobby Kotick, the Winklevoss twins, and Jeanie Buss have poured money into his campaign
• The L.A. mayoral primary is set for June 2, with a runoff possible if no candidate clears 50%

Spencer Pratt’s run for Los Angeles mayor has officially become one of the most chaotic, compelling, and genuinely hard-to-look-away political stories in the country right now — and that was before Chelsea Handler got involved.

On Friday, May 15, Handler posted a video to Instagram pouring herself a drink and delivering a pointed message about Pratt’s political ambitions. “If you’re seeing this video, this is a reminder that a straight, white male, former reality star that has no previous experience in government should not be a legitimate political candidate,” she said, as photos of Pratt flashed on screen — followed by a goofy shot of Donald Trump. “Have we learned anything yet? The bar is on the f—— floor, people, and I need you to jump over it.”

Pratt, who has never once in his public life backed down from a fight, responded quickly. He posted a clip on X from comedian Shane Gillis’ set at the recent Netflix Kevin Hart roast — specifically the part where Gillis cracks a joke about Handler having attended a dinner at Jeffrey Epstein’s house in 2010, with Prince Andrew and Woody Allen also at the table. The Epstein card. He played it.

Their tension isn’t new. Handler spent years taking shots at Pratt and his wife Heidi Montag on her late-night show Chelsea Lately back in the late 2000s, so this particular feud has been simmering for over a decade. The Handler-Gillis dynamic had already been heating up after an onstage confrontation at the Netflix Is A Joke festival finale at the Kia Forum on May 10, and Pratt clearly saw an opening.

The Polls Are Not Laughing Anymore

What makes this feud genuinely newsworthy — beyond the obvious entertainment value — is that Pratt is no longer a punchline in this race. A new Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics survey conducted May 9-10 among 1,000 likely primary voters shows incumbent Mayor Karen Bass at 30%, with Pratt right behind her at 22% — more than doubling his support from 10% back in March. L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman sits third at 19%.

Just as striking: the number of undecided voters collapsed from 51% in March to just 16% now. People are making up their minds, and a lot of them are landing on Pratt.

Prediction markets are tracking the shift too. Both Polymarket and Kalshi currently give Bass roughly a 58-59% chance of winning, with Pratt at 25% and Raman at 17-18%. That’s a real number for a guy who got his start as a reality TV villain on MTV.

Bass herself, in a one-on-one interview with ABC7’s Josh Haskell, acknowledged the obvious. “I think he’s tapping into the anger and frustration that people have,” she said. “I think we’re a celebrity-driven culture.” When asked directly whether she thought Pratt knew what it takes to run the second-largest city in the country, she was blunt: “I don’t think he has a clue.”

Pratt launched his campaign in January, one year after the Palisades Fire destroyed his Pacific Palisades home along with more than 18,000 other structures. “We are standing here amongst the ashes of our once beautiful town because the state and local leaders let us burn,” he said at the time. “They all stood by while our community became a tinder box.” Since then, he’s turned that fury into a full anti-establishment campaign targeting Bass, homelessness, public safety, and government corruption — and, apparently, attracting some very serious money along the way.

Billionaires, Fundraisers, and a Katharine McPhee Performance

The donor list that’s coalesced around Pratt would raise eyebrows in any political race. According to the New York Times DealBook, among those backing him financially are hedge fund billionaire Dan Loeb of Third Point Capital, former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, crypto moguls Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, entertainment mogul Haim Saban (estimated net worth: $3.3 billion), Lakers governor Jeanie Buss, Universal Music Group chairman Lucian Grainge, his son Elliot Grainge of Atlantic Music Group, and Hollywood producer Brian Grazer.

Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo put it plainly: “Unfortunately, my entire life is talking to people in the industry, but I can report that everyone was pleasantly — or unpleasantly — surprised by Spencer Pratt’s debate performance.”

The debate in question had 79% of NBC viewers declaring Pratt the winner, according to polling cited in reports. His dismissal of Raman as a “random city council member” went viral almost immediately. “All the unions support Mayor Bass,” he said afterward. “You think it’s easier to run against the incumbent mayor with all the unions, or a random city council member who has been a failure for six years?”

Earlier this week, Katharine McPhee and David Foster hosted a fundraiser at their Brentwood mansion that drew a crowd of entertainment industry heavyweights. McPhee performed a modified version of Tina Turner’s “The Best” with Foster on keys, singing, “You’re simply the best / Better than all the rest / Better than Karen Bass / And Nithya Raman.” She accidentally called Raman “Cynthia” at one point, laughed it off, and Pratt just shrugged.

Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising development on the donor front: Nicole Avant — Hollywood scion, wife of Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, and former Obama-era ambassador — has reportedly indicated she plans to support Pratt. The reaction in Democratic circles was immediate. “What the f-k?” said one veteran political consultant, per Page Six Hollywood. “She’s crossing a line she won’t be able to come back from. She’s done as a Democratic donor.”

Avant had previously backed Rick Caruso in the last mayoral race, which Bass won by nearly 10 points.

The Reality Show That Isn’t (Or Is It?)

The week also brought a wave of reports — from both TMZ and Deadline — claiming Pratt had signed a deal with Boardwalk Pictures (the Santa Monica production company behind Netflix’s AKA Charlie Sheen and FX’s Welcome to Wrexham) to document his campaign and, potentially, his time in office. “It’s both familiar and uncharted territory, isn’t it?” a production source told Deadline. “That’s part of Spencer and Heidi’s appeal, right?”

Pratt’s team moved fast to shut it down. “This is inaccurate,” a spokesperson told TheWrap. “There is no series in production and cameras have not been following the campaign. He does not have any signed contract. No contract exists related to this because it isn’t true.” A rep also told Us Weekly he has “no plans to do so” going forward.

Boardwalk Pictures did not respond to requests for comment. Separately, the couple had been in talks with Hulu about a show documenting their life after the fires, but that project has not been greenlit.

The denial hasn’t stopped the chatter. One insider told Radar Online that regardless of whether cameras are officially rolling, “Spencer may have denied he is shooting this campaign for a reality show, but it is still a reality show-style circus of a campaign. He has spent years watching how celebrity culture and politics have merged together, and he genuinely believes the old rules no longer apply.”

Hotel Bel-Air, Airstreams, and Where He Actually Lives

Another controversy hit when TMZ reported that Pratt had been staying at the Hotel Bel-Air — where rooms start at $1,500 a night — rather than the Airstream trailer parked on the lot of his burned-down Pacific Palisades home, which featured prominently in his campaign ads. The clip, in which he stands in front of the trailer saying “This is where I live,” has drawn over 13.8 million views.

Pratt’s response on X was pointed: “Hey guys, why don’t they wanna talk about why I need a hotel in the first place? Karen Bass let my home burn down. Also 6,000 of my neighbors. NBD.”

On TMZ Live, he elaborated. “I don’t live at the Hotel Bel-Air. I don’t live in the Airstream. I don’t live in Santa Barbara. I don’t have a house. They burned it down.” He said the Airstream had become unsafe for security reasons — citing “vantage points for a would-be sniper” — and that the Hotel Bel-Air was simply the safest option available. His wife Heidi and their sons Gunner, 8, and Ryker, 3, have been staying in Carpinteria, California.

“That is where I live, period,” he said of the Palisades property. “I don’t need to sleep there every night. I don’t need to go number two on that toilet. That is where I live.”

The Obama Comparison and The View’s Reaction

If there’s one moment that crystallized the absurdity of this whole situation, it might be Pratt’s recent interview with NBC Los Angeles, in which he compared his experience to Barack Obama’s pre-political career. “I have two awards from my community,” he told anchor Conan Nolan. “President Obama actually didn’t even have awards when he was a community organizer. He was able to become a senator and then a president for eight years. So, I feel like him, and I have the same experience.”

The View addressed it Wednesday. Joy Behar’s response was immediate: “What? Snapchatter of the Year is not the same thing as head of the Law Review at Harvard?” Sunny Hostin pointed out that Obama graduated from Harvard Law School and served in the U.S. Senate before the White House. Behar also noted that Bass holds a JFK Profiles in Courage Award, while Pratt’s standout credential is winning Snapchatter of the Year at the 2018 Shorty Awards.

To be fair, Sara Haines and Alyssa Farah Griffin both pushed back slightly, arguing that Ivy League credentials don’t automatically translate to effective governance — but the audience was mostly laughing.

Not everyone in Pratt’s orbit is cheering him on, either. His sister Stephanie Pratt wrote on X in February: “Spencer has done great work for the Palisades. But LA does not need another unqualified and inexperienced mayor. A vote for him is a vote for stupidity.”

Pratt, for his part, has leaned into the outsider framing. “I’m no longer a reality star,” he’s insisted. “I’m the only candidate living in reality, too.” His campaign has run AI-generated videos depicting him as a Batman-style vigilante fighting a dystopian Los Angeles, with Bass cast as the Joker. He’s also posted a clip using Khloé Kardashian screaming “liar” from an old episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, spliced over footage of Bass from the recent debate.

The June 2 primary is now just days away. If no candidate clears 50%, the top two vote-getters advance to a November runoff — which, given the current numbers, looks increasingly likely. Whether Pratt makes it to that stage, or whether Bass pulls away as undecided voters make their final calls, the race has already done something remarkable: it’s made people outside of Los Angeles pay attention to a city council election.

“Funny how they never attack my policy ideas,” Pratt posted on X this week. “They can only try to assassinate your character. I’m in the arena, son.”

The post Spencer Pratt’s Mayor Run: Chelsea Fight, Poll Surge & More appeared first on Cream.

• Magic Johnson publicly endorsed LA Mayor Karen Bass for reelection, citing a 30-year friendship and her record on homelessness and crime.
• The endorsement drew immediate backlash online, with critics calling Johnson “out of touch” since he lives in Beverly Hills, not within LA city limits.
• Trump official Richard Grenell called the endorsement “beyond pathetic” and a “selfish move” given the city’s struggles.
• Lakers owner Jeanie Buss has thrown her support behind challenger Spencer Pratt, donating the maximum $1,800 to his campaign.
• The LA mayoral primary is less than a month away, with Bass, Pratt, and Councilmember Nithya Raman among the top candidates.

Magic Johnson has officially picked a side in the Los Angeles mayoral race — and it’s costing him some goodwill. The basketball legend publicly endorsed incumbent Mayor Karen Bass for reelection on Monday, praising her record on homelessness and public safety. But instead of giving Bass’s campaign a clean boost, the move has unleashed a wave of criticism directed at both of them.

Bass posted the video endorsement on her social media, in which a visibly enthusiastic Johnson laid out his case. “She sustained the first ever consecutive decrease in homelessness. Homicide rate is down, new housing units, 40,000. I mean, she’s doing a tremendous job,” he said. When Bass walked into the frame, Johnson told her, “You took on a tough job here and you’ve done a fabulous job and all of us appreciate your effort and what you’re doing. We look forward to helping you continue your mission.”

Bass welcomed the support warmly. “Magic Johnson has been my friend for over 30 years. His belief in how I’m changing Los Angeles means everything to me,” she wrote on X. “Magic has poured his heart into this city long before anyone asked him to — through investment, through community, through showing up. I am deeply honored to have his endorsement.”

The Beverly Hills Problem

The problem, critics were quick to point out, is that Johnson doesn’t actually live in Los Angeles. He resides in Beverly Hills — a separate city not among the 114 LA neighborhoods whose residents can cast a vote in the mayoral race. That detail became a rallying point almost immediately.

“Magic is a fool who lives in a guarded compound. The rest of us live in the real world,” one commenter wrote on X. “Oh wow! An endorsement from an out of touch millionaire athlete. Not really an endorsement for the Los Angeles citizens,” said another. A third cut even more directly: “He and you don’t have to live next to homeless junkies like the rest of us.”

Others used the moment to take aim at Bass’s record. “You’ve made L.A. WORSE. Some said it couldn’t be done. Congratulations,” one user wrote. Another accused her of misusing public funds: “Karen you keep stealing from the taxpayers and giving the money to your allies in the unions.”

The pile-on extended beyond social media. Richard Grenell, a Trump administration official, went after Johnson directly on X, calling the endorsement “beyond pathetic” and questioning his motivations. “Los Angeles is in terrible shape and you want Karen ass to be re-elected because she’s your friend?!” Grenell wrote, tagging Johnson and calling it “a selfish move.”

A Lakers Split That’s Hard to Ignore

What makes this particularly striking is who Johnson is now publicly standing against — his former Lakers boss, Jeanie Buss. The two spent decades together building one of the most storied franchises in sports. Johnson served as the team’s president of basketball operations in the late 2010s. Now they’re on opposite sides of a city election.

Buss quietly made her position known last month when she donated $1,800 to Spencer Pratt’s mayoral campaign — the legal maximum. She hasn’t made a formal public endorsement, but the money speaks clearly enough. And over the weekend, Pratt was spotted sitting next to Buss at Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals between the Lakers and the Oklahoma City Thunder, making the optics even harder to ignore.

Pratt, best known from his reality TV days on The Hills, has built his campaign largely around attacking Bass over her handling of the 2025 wildfires — a catastrophe that killed at least a dozen people and caused billions in damage across the region. His campaign has also hammered her $300 million homeless program, pointing to data suggesting 40 percent of participants have returned to the streets. Only 30 of roughly 16,000 structures destroyed in the fires have been rebuilt, according to activists backing Pratt.

Johnson conspicuously avoided the wildfire issue entirely in his endorsement video. Whether that was a strategic calculation or a genuine blind spot, his critics noticed the omission.

More Than a Former Athlete

To dismiss Johnson as just a celebrity endorser would be to miss the weight he carries in LA civic life. With an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion as of 2026, he holds ownership stakes in the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Los Angeles Sparks, Los Angeles FC, the Washington Commanders, and the Washington Spirit. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2025. He’s been investing in underserved communities in Los Angeles for decades, long before it was fashionable for athletes to do so.

Bass acknowledged exactly that in her response: “Magic has poured his heart into this city long before anyone asked him to.”

But in a race defined by voter frustration over fires, homelessness, and the cost of living, the question isn’t whether Magic Johnson loves Los Angeles. It’s whether an endorsement from someone who doesn’t live within city limits — however beloved — can actually move voters who do. The primary is less than a month away, and the city is watching.

The post Magic Johnson’s Karen Bass Endorsement Draws Fire appeared first on Cream.

• Spencer Pratt accused CBS of giving his interview footage to Karen Bass’ PR team to use against his L.A. mayoral campaign
• CBS denies any footage handoff occurred and says the full interview aired
• The accusation came after a heated mayoral debate in which Pratt called Bass “an incredible liar” over her handling of the 2025 Palisades fire
• A CBS News fact-check sided with Pratt on two key debate claims — wind speeds during the fire and Bass’s whereabouts in Ghana
• Pratt, who lost his Pacific Palisades home in the fires, says he’ll freeze CBS out if elected mayor

Spencer Pratt is done with CBS — and he wants everyone to know it. The Hills alum and longshot Los Angeles mayoral candidate took to X on Saturday to accuse the network of handing footage from his recent on-camera interview to incumbent Mayor Karen Bass’s PR team, claiming they used it to turn his campaign into a political “sideshow.”

The interview was filmed at Pratt’s scorched Pacific Palisades lot — the site of his home, destroyed in the devastating January 2025 fires that leveled nearly 7,000 structures and killed 12 people. For Pratt, it wasn’t just a backdrop. It was the reason he’s running.

CBS pushed back hard. Sources told TMZ that no footage handoff occurred and that the network planned to air the full interview. Whether viewers found it to be the “Hills demo reel and hit piece collab” Pratt described is another question — but his frustration clearly runs deeper than a single segment.

Pratt declared he’ll never speak to CBS again — not even if he wins the mayor’s office and serves two full terms. That’s eight years of silence, should the stars align.

The Debate That Started It All

The CBS accusation came hot on the heels of a combative Los Angeles mayoral debate, where Pratt went after Bass directly over her handling of the Palisades fire — and specifically over what he called her lies about the conditions on the ground that day.

“A lot of people talk about climate change and hurricane-force winds,” Pratt said during the debate. “The winds in the Pacific Palisades never reached higher than 40 mph. For those first six hours, they didn’t go above 27 miles per hour.”

Bass fired back: “He talked about the winds — that is just completely inaccurate. If that were accurate, then the planes would have been able to fly. And so if the winds reached close to 100 miles an hour and the planes were unable to fly.”

Pratt didn’t let it go. “She is referencing the Altadena fire,” he shot back. “She is an incredible liar. Everyone on their phones, Google it. 40 weather stations in the Pacific Palisades. It never went above 40 miles per hour.” When a moderator tried to cut him off for name-calling, Pratt responded: “Yeah, but no name calling? She just lied though… No more lying. We need the truth.”

It was a chaotic moment — but then came the fact-check.

CBS’s Own Reporting Backed Pratt Up

In a notable turn, CBS News fact-checked the exchange and landed squarely on Pratt’s side. “Weather modeling reviewed for my reporting shows winds in the Palisades during those first several hours of the fire were, in fact, under 40 miles per hour,” the CBS reporter noted. “Planes could and did fly. Stronger winds intensified later in the evening. And that distinction matters because the earliest hours of a wildfire are often the most critical for containment.”

According to CBS’s own reporting, the fire was first logged at 10:30 a.m. Helicopters were dropping water within 15 minutes. Planes arrived within the hour. Bass’s claim about 100 mph winds grounding aircraft simply didn’t hold up.

The second fact-check hit even harder. Bass had argued during the debate that her being in Ghana when the fires broke out “didn’t matter” — that she managed the crisis just as effectively from overseas. CBS’s reporting told a different story: Bass left for Ghana knowing dangerous fire weather was forecast. Her office described her to emergency managers only as being “out-of-state.” While she was abroad, her team continued posting social media content that made it appear she was in Los Angeles — creating confusion during the fire’s critical opening hours. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley didn’t initially know the mayor was even out of the country. And after Bass was briefed on the growing disaster, she still attended a cocktail reception in Ghana and went more than an hour without responding to messages from L.A. officials asking for help.

For Pratt, who has been living with the wreckage of the fires both literally and politically, the fact-check felt like vindication. Whether it translates to votes is a different matter entirely — but it’s not nothing.

The full CBS interview has aired. The fact-checks are out there. And Spencer Pratt, reality TV’s most committed villain-turned-candidate, is still standing in the rubble of his old neighborhood, making his case.

The post Spencer Pratt Accuses CBS of Handing Interview Footage to Karen Bass Camp appeared first on Cream.