Los Angeles politics has officially crossed over into reality-TV territory, and nobody’s playing it cool.
Former The Hills personality and now self-declared mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt is trading blows with “The Price Is Right” host Drew Carey, after Carey torched his political ambitions in a blunt social media broadside that basically called him everything short of a public menace.
Carey told voters on Threads that anyone backing Pratt “needs to get their head out of their a–,” and labeling him a “serial scammer without a soul or moral compass,” adding, “F— this guy already.”
Not exactly the civics lecture you’d expect from daytime TV’s nicest host.
Pratt, never one to let a jab go unanswered, fired back online with a post that immediately escalated the feud into something far messier than a local election spat. He suggested that Carey—and comedian Chelsea Handler—had been unfairly attacking him while being connected, in his telling, to controversies involving the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Pratt wrote, “Isn’t it weird how the two comedians historically lashing out against me are both in the ‘Epstein files’? What are the odds?”
He paired the claim with screenshots and clips he said supported his insinuations, including references to an alleged email and a resurfaced comedy bit involving Shane Gillis. None of the individuals named have been substantiated by official findings in relation to those claims, but that didn’t stop the post from detonating across social media.
Fox News Entertainment reports that the exchange is the latest escalation in a growing public feud surrounding Pratt’s unlikely campaign for Los Angeles mayor.
Pratt, 42, has framed his run as a populist revolt against entrenched city leadership, especially incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, whom he has blamed for mishandling the city’s response to the devastating 2025 Palisades wildfires that destroyed his home and others in the Pacific Palisades area.
That disaster became the political ignition point for his campaign—and also the backdrop for a string of lawsuits involving Pratt and other property owners against the city and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Meanwhile, Pratt has leaned into outsider messaging, insisting he’s not aligned with either party despite being a registered Republican and recently drawing attention from Donald Trump, who commented publicly that he “likes” Pratt’s character while also airing familiar complaints about California’s election system.
Even as critics dismiss the campaign as performance politics, Pratt has doubled down, arguing Los Angeles has been mismanaged into decline and needs a dramatic course correction. City council member Nithya Raman is among those also competing in the officially nonpartisan race.
Still, the Carey feud has shifted attention away from policy and squarely onto personality—where Pratt, for better or worse, has always been most comfortable.
And in true Hollywood fashion, the mayoral race is now less about potholes and public safety, and more about social media scorched earth, celebrity grudges, and a level of spectacle that would make even LA raise an eyebrow.
In a city that never lacks for drama, this campaign might just be setting a new standard for it.
