Spencer Pratt has admitted to leaking photos of Mary-Kate Olsen.
In his new memoir titled The Guy You Loved to Hate: Confessions, the 42-year-old media personality wrote that he capitalized on his friend Max Winkler’s breakup from Olsen, now 39, in the early aughts.
He attended Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California in 2002 with The Row co-founder and Winkler, son of actor Henry Winkler.
According to People, Pratt penned that he disassembled Winkler’s ‘photo shrine’ to Olsen – which he described as ‘young love documented in European hotels, Hollywood parties, stolen moments’ – and sold the fragments to a tabloid for $50,000.
‘I asked Max if I could take the photos off his wall – you know, for his healing process. He didn’t say no, so I took that to be a yes,’ read an excerpt.
‘Here I was, 20 years old, turning my buddy’s romantic misery into startup capital,’ he bragged in the book.
Spencer Pratt admitted in his new memoir that he leaked photos of Mary-Kate Olsen to make $50,000; pictured on Tuesday
The 42-year-old media personality wrote in The Guy You Loved to Hate: Confessions that he capitalized on his friend Max Winkler’s breakup from Olsen, now 39, in the early aughts; pictured in 2009
He added, ‘Less than a week later there it was, evidence of my entrepreneurial genius staring back at me from the InTouch cover at a gas station: ‘TEENS GONE WILD!’ across the cover’
He added, ‘Less than a week later there it was, evidence of my entrepreneurial genius staring back at me from the InTouch cover at a gas station: ‘TEENS GONE WILD!’ across the cover.’
The author noted that a photo of him with Olsen was also published, after it was provided to the magazine by another seller.
‘A shot of Mary-Kate with a constellation of empties — ‘LOOK AT ALL THE EMPTIES!’ — and there I was in the background, frozen mid-shaka.
‘I hadn’t sold that frame. Someone else was shopping, and now I wasn’t just the seller, I was part of the merchandise.
‘My face was now forever linked to Mary-Kate Olsen’s supposed wild phase, preserved in grocery store checkout lines across America,’ he illustrated.
The Daily Mail has contacted a representative for Olsen for comment.
In 2008 Olsen revealed on the Late Show with David Letterman that she was not friends with Pratt, revealing he did ‘not have a good temper’ and recalling that he would ‘walk out of’ soccer games in a huff.
Pratt is rebuilding his life following 2025’s devastating California wildfires, which destroyed the home he shared with wife Heidi Montag.
The couple married in 2008 and share sons Gunner, eight, and Ryker, three.
Pratt penned that he disassembled Winkler’s ‘photo shrine’ to Olsen – which he described as ‘young love documented in European hotels, Hollywood parties, stolen moments’
The former reality television villain is married to Heidi Montag and they share sons Gunner, eight, and Ryker, three
The LA-bred star attended the They Let Us Burn! protest in the Palisades earlier this month and revealed his shocking plan to run for mayor of the city.
He proclaimed in a speech, ‘The system in Los Angeles isn’t struggling, it’s fundamentally broken. It is a machine designed to protect the people at the top and the friends they exchange favors with while the rest of us drown in toxic smoke and ash.
‘Business as usual is a death sentence for Los Angeles, and I’m done waiting for someone to take real action.
‘That’s why I am running for mayor. And let me be clear, this just isn’t a campaign, this is a mission, and we’re gonna expose the system.’
The father of two added, ‘They intentionally let us burn before, during and after. There was no accountability. It was gross negligence. They let this happen.
‘It wasn’t a natural disaster or something that was unavoidable. It was their fault, and we need the accountability we deserve.’
Pratt did not reveal which party he was running for.
The star also confirmed his ‘official’ run for mayor on Instagram, telling his followers: ‘Papers are filed and campaign is open.’
The 2026 Los Angeles Mayoral election will be held on June 2, 2026. Karen Bass is the city’s current mayor.
The Pacific Palisades home Pratt and Montag lived in with their two sons in Pacific Palisades was incinerated in the devastating blazes.
Earlier this month, Pratt revealed he will run for Mayor of Los Angeles- one year after wildfires devastated California and destroyed his home; seen with wife Heidi Montag
The Pacific Palisades home Pratt and Montag lived in with their two sons in Pacific Palisades was incinerated in the devastating blazes in January 2025
Pratt confirmed his ‘official’ run for mayor on Instagram, telling his followers: ‘Papers are filed and campaign is open’
In photos and videos shared to Instagram at the time of the LA fires, Pratt was seen rifling through the debris at the home he shared with Montag for crystals or other personal artifacts that might have potentially survived the blaze.
The only parts of the couple’s home still standing were the charred entry gate and the front portion of the home’s stucco perimeter wall.
Large piles of debris were seen throughout the property as well as burnt foliage that once decorated the home’s front yard.
Not only was the couple’s residence destroyed, but Pratt’s parents also lost their home to the fire.
In January 2025, just weeks after the blaze, Pratt and Montag filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
While speaking to blogger, Perez Hilton, at the time, the father-of-two recalled desperately trying to get help from Los Angeles Fire Department as he watched his property go up in flames.
‘They never came. The gate was still locked,’ he claimed. ‘They never came. I watched from my security cameras until our house burned down. There were no fire trucks.’
As his home burned down, Pratt insisted that he called 911 and informed them that if they sent ‘one fire truck’ to his street that they ‘could stop [the fire from] coming down the whole freaking area.’
In response to his suggestion to bring in a truck, he said he was told that the fire department didn’t ‘have the assets.’
The wildfires scorched thousands of acres, burnt scores of structures and caused $275 billion in damages.
Other stars who lost their homes in the fires include Mel Gibson, Paris Hilton, Anthony Hopkins, Tina Knowles, John Goodman, Candy Spelling, Milo Ventimiglia and more.
Pratt and Montag rose to fame on the hit MTV reality series The Hills, which ran for six seasons from 2006 to 2010
The couple’s romance sparked an iconic feud with Montag’s best friend-turned-foe Lauren Conrad in season two
Pratt and Montag rose to fame on the hit MTV reality series The Hills, which ran for six seasons from 2006 to 2010.
The show followed Lauren Conrad, star of MTV’s Laguna Beach, as she worked as an intern at Teen Vogue in Los Angeles. It also provided a glimpse at Conrad’s love life and her tight-knit friend group, which included then-BFF Montag.
Pratt joined the show as Brody Jenner’s close pal and as the boyfriend of his future wife Montag.
Montag’s romance with Pratt led to an iconic feud between the couple and Montag’s best friend-turned-foe Conrad, who did not approve of Pratt, in season two of the show.
While Conrad ended up exiting The Hills in season five, Montag and Pratt held on until the series’ finale in 2010, reportedly making nearly $200,000 per episode.
Despite raking in money as one reality TV’s most iconic couples, Pratt and Montag famously went nearly broke by living beyond their means at the height of their fame.
The couple, who were once worth $10 million, blew much of their fortune on luxury clothing, paid photo-shoots, bodyguards and other extremely pricey non-essentials.
Montag also famously spent thousands on plastic surgery to transform her appearance, including a breast augmentation and nose job.
‘I felt like I was someone I wasn’t. We had business managers who told us to stop spending but we acted like we knew what we were doin,’ Montag told PEOPLE in 2016.
Pratt and Montag have been working hard to build their fortune backup over the years after blowing through millions at the height of their reality TV fame in the 2010s
She added: ‘We had nothing to show for what we’d done. I was like, the haters were right! It was sad.’
After hitting rock bottom financially, the couple were forced to move in with Pratt’s parents.
Pratt and Montag have been working hard to build their fortune backup over the years by booking reality TV show gigs, including Celebrity Big Brother in the UK, and by gaining popularity on social media.
Pratt launched his very own crystal shop in 2018 in the heart of Los Angeles and the couple reunited with many of their The Hills co-stars for the reboot The Hills: New Beginnings in 2019, which ran for two seasons.
