Spencer Pratt apologised on live television on Thursday, 28 May, for years of promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories, even as the Hills alumnus and reality TV villain rides a Trump-backed surge in his outsider campaign for mayor of Los Angeles.
For context, Spencer Pratt spent much of the late 2000s loudly insisting that the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks were an 'inside job,' parroting fringe claims that the US government had orchestrated the atrocity. Those comments resurfaced as he transformed, improbably, from tabloid antagonist into a serious contender in the Los Angeles mayoral race, launched on the first anniversary of wildfires that destroyed his home and much of his neighbourhood.
Appearing on CNN with Jake Tapper, Pratt, now 42, tried to recast his past beliefs as the product of youthful gullibility rather than malice.
'What I have learned almost 20 years later is, it's actually the negligence of the people in power,' he said. He contrasted his current views with wild theories about the California fires that burned his family homes, dismissing social media claims they were caused by 'lasers' or part of a 'land grab' akin to conspiracy chatter about Maui.
'The reality is, people in charge fail us as taxpayers,' he added, returning repeatedly to a theme that now sits at the centre of his campaign: that incompetence, not secret plots, is the real threat.
Spencer Pratt's 9/11 Past Returns To Haunt Mayoral Bid
The news came after old clips began circulating of Spencer Pratt's 2009 appearance on Alex Jones' Infowars, the conspiracy hub now owned by satire outlet The Onion. In that interview, Pratt embraced Jones' discredited film Loose Change, which falsely alleged that 9/11 was orchestrated by the US government.
'Not from my research, but from your research, it 100 percent is,' Pratt told Jones at the time, calling the film proof and marvelling that it had introduced him to claims about 'building seven'. On social media, he went further, declaring that anyone who watched Loose Change and 'not see the truth is blind' and promising that, if he ever became US president, he would reveal 'the facts of 9/11 that were not presented to the mainstream media.'
Two decades on, Pratt insists that he has abandoned those theories and now sees the attacks as the product of human error and institutional failure.
'When you're listening to that audio, that's a 21, 22-year-old person,' he told Tapper, presenting his younger self as inexperienced and easily influenced. 'I'm now 42, and have experienced city negligence, state negligence, and I've learned a lot. It's actually worse than a conspiracy, it's that we have people in charge that make mistakes that get people killed.'
There is a wrinkle. When he was championing 9/11 conspiracies, Pratt was in fact almost 26, not 21 or 22. He conceded on air that he would 'have to go back and look at all that' and admitted he had not revisited the material 'in 20 years or whatever.'
Pressed on how his views had shifted, Pratt pointed directly to the Los Angeles wildfires that killed 12 people in his neighbourhood and destroyed around 7,000 structures, including his own and his parents' homes. He said seeing the instant online rush to blame shadowy plots had jolted him.
'Now with my fresh eyes of surviving the city's negligence that burned 12 people in my neighborhood alive, 7,000 structures, and seeing how fast the internet said that was a conspiracy and how I had to be like, 'No, this is how it happened — this, this and this' — now with new fresh eyes, I'm sure I would look at that a lot different,' he said. In his view, the instinct to cling to elaborate explanations masks a simpler, bleaker reality: 'Sometimes the excuses are just real simple — people failed us as taxpayers.'
Trump's Backing Fuels Spencer Pratt's Political Reinvention
Spencer Pratt's mea culpa comes at a moment when his mayoral campaign is gaining traction in polls, with the former reality TV antagonist reportedly close behind incumbent Karen Bass and rival challenger Nithya Raman. His pitch is blunt: he is not a 'career politician', he has made public mistakes, and, he argues, that is precisely why he is willing to take on what he calls 'corruption.'
His candidacy has drawn heavy criticism. Detractors point to his Hillsfame, his history of online provocations and his role in amplifying 9/11 denial as reasons he should not hold public office. Supporters, however, appear unbothered by his past and impressed by his outsider image, helped along by endorsements from several former Hills co-stars and, more explosively, from President Donald Trump.
That presidential backing has aligned Pratt with the populist right even as he tries to reposition himself as a chastened figure shaped by personal loss. Asked directly if he regretted his 9/11 comments, he leaned into a broader narrative of imperfect growth rather than offering a clean apology.
'What I'm saying is I believe a lot of people failed to allow the Al-Qaeda terrorists to get in,' he said, arguing that the attacks were enabled by 'negligence in government' and 'failures' rather than deliberate malice. He drew a parallel with the fires that destroyed his home: 'They didn't burn my house down on purpose, they just failed.'
Pratt framed his political bid as a reluctant duty rather than an ambition.
'I didn't run to be mayor because I have some perfect past,' he told Tapper. 'I ran because there was no other fighter to stop corruption now. I was happy just living my life, feeding hummingbirds with my two kids, taking them to school.'
Then came the admission that hangs over his appeal to voters. 'Regret? Of course, I have 20 years of regret,' he said, describing 'dumb or stupid things' he has said in public. Yet he insisted those missteps 'don't connect to my mission now,' suggesting that losing everything in the fires had made him 'a new person.'
Whether Angelenos accept that version of Spencer Pratt, chastened, battle-tested and newly earnest, remains to be seen. For now, his attempt to rewrite his 9/11 chapter sits uneasily alongside the footage that first made him a conspiracist in the public eye.
