Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt are speaking out in a new interview with "Good Morning America" about the "life-changing support" they've received since losing their home in the Palisades Fire.
"The fan support has been such a light in such a darkness for us. And it's life changing," Montag said.
The celebrity couple, nicknamed "Speidi," rose to fame on the reality TV series "The Hills" and have been together for more than 15 years. Once-vilified on the show, social media users are now tuning in as Montag and Pratt chronicle the fire aftermath for their combined 3.2 million TikTok followers.
"I think the support system is new, so no, we haven't had this support system since today," Montag said. "[People will say] 'Hey, it's Speidi,' [as] we're leaving restaurants, when they see us. It's unbelievable and [we] really appreciate every single person posting it. I mean, anywhere is really our biggest chance to change our lives and to be able to provide for our kids."
Montag and Pratt, who are parents of two, are among the tens of thousands who lost their homes in the Palisades Fire, which started on Jan. 7 in Los Angeles and has since burned over 23,000 acres. According to Cal Fire, the Palisades Fire is 18% contained as of Tuesday evening.
"Spencer was like, 'Grab anything you want to keep,' and I was like, 'How do you choose?'" Montag recalled of the day they evacuated their home due to the fire. "My brain actually stopped working because I was so overwhelmed with so many things you can't replace, so I grabbed my kids' teddy bears."
"The worst was our kids' room that is so magical," Pratt added, speaking about the fire damage. "We do story time every night and it's, like, such a routine. So much love is in there. Our son's bed started just like burning in the shape of a heart, like the fire just started as a heart. This is, like, out-of-body insane."
The celebrity couple said neither their house nor their possessions were insured because like many people in California, they were dropped from their insurance company policy.
"We were 'house poor,' as they call it, like, we have a house and everything else is a hustle, is a grind," Montag said. "So, yeah, we're definitely counting every dollar that we make. It's like we're working really hard to take one trip a year."
Californians have been struggling to finding fire insurance in recent years and many have simply gone without it after insurance companies started to pull out of the state completely or stopped renewing or issuing new policies to homeowners following 2018's destructive Camp Fire. The largest insurer in California, State Farm, announced in 2023 that it would stop accepting new applications from the state.
Montag and Pratt said money they earned throughout their nearly 20 years in the spotlight was spent on their home, and everything inside it was lost.
"I feel like a ghost," Pratt said. "I don't have a single photo now from before an iPhone existed. I don't have any of the dumb little things that are on your shelves. They're all gone, not a single [thing] ... nothing."
Added Montag, "It's a place that you love, that you live, that's a refuge from the world, and to have that be gone, it's a really difficult concept to continue to, daily, deal with."
As the couple try to find a way forward together, like so many others, they're looking to regain a sense of normalcy.
Pratt recently helped turn his wife's 2010 album "Superficial" into a hit by encouraging people to download and stream it in order to earn money to help rebuild their lives. With the help of their followers and celebrities like Flavor Flav sharing it, the album has since catapulted to No. 1 on the iTunes charts, and Pratt updated his Instagram biography to read, "Married to a Pop Superstar number 1 artist in 13 countries."
The couple told "GMA" they hope to earn enough money to help others impacted by the fires as well.
Tune into "Nightline" tonight at 12:35 a.m. ET on ABC to hear more from Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag.
