Tuesday, April 29, 2008 || Rolling Stone cover
It's a chilly spring night in Los Angeles when I arrive at Don Antonio's Mexican restaurant to join the End of Western Civilization for nachos and chicken enchiladas. The EOWC, of course, is Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, a.k.a. Speidi, the fabulously toxic power couple of The Hills — the real-ish MTV reality drama about L.A. twentysomethings praised as "the most influential show we've ever had" by MTV president of entertainment Brian Graden — and watching the fair-haired lovers stroll through their beloved Don Antonio's feels like seeing Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe walk into the Stork Club back in the day. That is, if Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were, instead of a sports hero and a legendary sex symbol, the irresistible villains of a maddeningly addictive TV show in which nothing ever really happens.
We take seats at a dimly lit corner booth, and you can almost hear the text messages being tapped underneath nearby tables — omfg spencer n heidi r here!!! Spencer, 24, who's wearing a black Don Antonio's polo and a wispy blond goatee, rattles off a grande order without consulting the menu. Heidi, a 21-year-old mane of blond highlights dressed in a blue sweater and white sweatpants, tucks her tiny head into his shoulder.
"I wish I got to see what you saw today," Spencer says.
He's referring to this afternoon's cover photo shoot attended by Heidi and her three Hills castmates: Audrina Patridge, 22, Whitney Port, 23, and the show's protagonist, Lauren Conrad, 22, with whom Heidi has been engaged in an ugly feud. Once best friends and roommates, the two women have spent the past year and a half bickering back and forth in celebrity weeklies — a rift that, depending on whom you talk to, stems from either a Lauren sex-tape story that Spencer and Heidi leaked to the press (Lauren's version; they deny it), or Lauren's jealousy of Spencer and Heidi (their version; Lauren denies it), or Spencer's overall control-freakiness, or a cabal of genius MTV executives secretly pulling ratings/goosing strings behind a curtain. Whatever the case, the shoot was the first time Heidi and Lauren had been photographed, and not Photoshopped (as MTV has been forced to do), together in more than a year.
Heidi says that on her way to the shoot she thought it might be a scam. "I thought I was walking into Punk'd or getting killed or something," she says.
"Heidi really wanted me there for backup," Spencer says. "She was like, 'This is a setup.' "
But the shoot happened — even though Perez Hilton, the celeblogger and Hills Boswell, loudly tipped his readers off to the Lauren-Heidi summit and paparazzi staked out the parking lot of the Culver City, California, photo studio. (A pap shot of the four Hills girls together, Spencer claims, could command up to $200,000.) Inside, as MTV publicists and show creator Adam DiVello nervously looked on, the atmosphere was cordial but chilly. Hills Kremlinologists studied cast interactions, but over the course of a nine-hour day, Lauren and Heidi never spoke to each other. "You can feel it," Whitney, The Hills' doe-eyed Switzerland ("I'm neutral"), told me at a quiet moment. "There's a separation."
Heidi is sanguine about the split. Lauren, after all, is why she's on The Hills — Heidi was just a spitfire from the small ski town of Crested Butte, Colorado ("A seven-block town with one main street," says Heidi's mom, Darlene Egelhoff), when she met Lauren at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. "We were the only blondes in the class," Heidi recalls.
"We were such. Good. Friends," she says emphatically. "A part of me just wants to go up and be like, 'Hey, how are you?' But the other part of me is so mad. . . . It's like I'm the odd man out."
However awkward the Heidi-Lauren squabbling may be, it has been juicy business for The Hills. This spring's season premiere earned the show a record 3.9 million viewers — the highest-rated cable telecast of the year so far — with an estimated 5 million more views online. Graden believes The Hills is now a bigger franchise than other generation-definers like The Osbournes, TRL or Jackass.
"People love feuds," says Spencer, taking a chomp of quesadilla. "Who were Paris and Nicole before they weren't friends? That's when they became superstars. If Lauren and Heidi were friends, people wouldn't tune in."
Every rivalry needs its black hat, however, and Heidi, through Spencer, has eagerly, and perhaps too ingeniously, complied. The pair now operate, sometimes to the dismay of MTV handlers, like a MySpace edition of Bonnie and Clyde — courting reporters, vacuuming paparazzi attention, and deflecting Hills hype to outside projects like Heidi's Heidiwood clothing line and her would-be music career, not to mention her new nose and breasts ("It was the right thing for my life," she says unabashedly). This winter, a homemade video Spencer shot of Heidi prancing on a beach to her dance single "Higher," groundbreaking only in its lack of self-awareness, quickly got more than 1 million Web hits. The pair engender eye-scorching animosity on the Internet, but in their minds, at least we're paying attention. "Good girls are so vanilla," Heidi says. Spencer is routinely referred to as "the most hated man on television" — but he wears the title like a badge ("Who is that person they always compare me to, on Dallas?" he asks).
"It's jealousy, man," Spencer says. "It's human. I'm jealous of Jay-Z, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch. I feel for these people who wish they could be on reality television and not in their cubicles. You got to thank your haters."
"You have to understand, we have so many fans," Heidi says. "The haters are the ones who ask us for photos. The haters are the ones who are downloading songs." She looks out at the restaurant, which is packed. Don Antonio's has always been a popular joint, but since she and Spencer started eating here on The Hills, it's getting crazy, she says. "The world works on haters now."
source: rollingstone.com
You can get this edition of Rolling Stone May 15th.
posted by Lysandra @ 1:03 PM
"New City, New Drama"
14 Comments:
great photo but i wish lauren & whit were looking at the camera.
^ i agree it would have been nice if they were looking at the camera but i still like their shot, it's fun.
heidi is trying to.....well i dont know what she's trying to do but she's trying too hard
audrina really does do these sex kitten like poses but she looks nice
Heidi needs to get over herself. "We have lots of fans" and since she and Spencer go to Don Antonios the place has gotten bigger. Yeah right stop flattering yourself Heidi, you're not that well liked.
The photo looks nice, but IA it would look better if Lauren and Whitney were looking at the camera and Heidi was out of the picture.
heidi definetely needs to get over herself. anyone can have plastic surgery!
I like the Hills as much as the next person, but oh Rolling Stone...I didn't think you get any lower, but this is just sad.
"The haters are the ones who ask for photos. The haters are the ones downloading songs."
Nope. My friends and I all hate you and have not asked for pictures or downloaded songs.
We did see the video online for Higher though. It was a riot.
Even the seagulls left when they saw you and Spencer.
spedi is pretty full of themselves. as usual making it seem like lauren is the one talking trash trying to get everyone against them... uhm no! those two actually think that lauren is jealous of them. heck even the less unfortunate would be jealous.
lauren has her own goals and expectations. what would they have that she would want. spencer making it seem like lauren wanted him. thats the biggest laugh of all considering he was putting moves on audrina and even audrina was not interested.
please come up with better reasons for us to hate lauren not pathetic unreasonable disillusional facts you fathom out of the air.
as far as we see anyone jealous would be you two famewhores using laurens name to keep your 15 mins of fame running.
Honestly I couldn't even read that crap spencer and heidi rambling on about themselves ugh! Give me a break.
im a hater and i dont ask for photos or download songs.spencer should be jealous all those men are worth billions compare to him. heidi is such an idiot tagging along his side like a puppy. thats the perfect way to lose friends.higher was a flop when the video came out now it was a "fun" video yeah right.they just dont have money to make a video.i thought they would have enough for that since they call the pap. to take pictures of there staged photos and get money from them.
^Thank you 1:29. I thought it was just me.
I do love the Hills but I can't wait until this show ends so that we'll never hear from Heidi or Hobbit again. Their 15 seconds of fame is almost over!!!
Heidi looks like she is doing a spread from Playboy...she is such a trashy girl...always trying to get someone's attention...the pic would look alot better without her in it.
looks like these can be two seperate shots. lauren and whitney's photo is a fun girly shot while audrina and heidi are doing a bit more of a sexy like something or other.
i'd say heidi and audrina look a bit slutty, while lauren and whitney look more classy!
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