Spencer Pratt Details Selling Mary-Kate Olsen Photos in New Book

Before Spencer Pratt became reality TV’s resident villain on “The Hills,” he says his first Hollywood spinoff happened years earlier, and it involved Mary Kate Olsen. In his new memoir, “The Guy You Loved to Hate: Confessions of a Reality TV Villain,” Pratt looks back on his pre-stardom days, growing up in Santa Monica, Calif., where famous classmates were the norm. Among them were Olsen and her then-boyfriend, Max Winkler, the actor’s son Henry Winkler. According to Spencer Pratt, his ambition to make his own film, without the money to finance it, pushed him toward a move that would later make tabloid headlines and permanently link his name with that of Olsen.

According to PEOPLEPratt writes that after Olsen and Winkler broke up, he noticed what he described as a “photo shrine” in the bedroom dedicated to the former child star. He called the images “young love documented in European hotels, Hollywood parties, stolen moments” and claimed he had suggested they be removed.

“I asked Max if I could take the pictures off his wall, you know, for his healing process,” Pratt wrote. “He didn’t say no, so I took that as a yes,” Pratt said. He then returned to the Winkler family home, greeting Winkler’s famous father as he entered and left with all the photos.

Those photos, Pratt admitted, were eventually sold to a photo agency for $50,000, a salary he said made him feel “rich” at the time.

“Less than a week later, proof of my entrepreneurial genius was staring back at me from the InTouch cover of a gas station: “TEENS GONE WILD!” across the entire cover. A photo of Mary-Kate with a constellation of voids “LOOK AT ALL THE EMPTS!” and I was there in the background, frozen in the middle of the shaka. I did not sell this 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 supposedly wild phase, preserved in grocery store lines across America.

Despite the backlash, Pratt defended his decision years later in his memoir. “When you really think about it, it was a win-win,” he wrote. “Mary-Kate got her new rebel name, Max got closure.”

Although neither Olsen twin has publicly commented on the photo scandal itself, Mary-Kate brought up Pratt during a 2008 appearance on David Lettermanthe show. “He doesn’t have a good temper. He left the field for a few games,” she said, recalling Pratt’s behavior while playing football at their school.

When Letterman asked him if they were friends, his response was brief. “No,” she replied simply.

Elsewhere in the memoir, Pratt claimed that Olsen later referenced this football incident, writing that she would “use this incident as a weapon against me when she felt petty.”

Pratt’s headlines about Mary-Kate Olsen also come at a time when he’s stepping back into the public spotlight for an entirely different reason: politics.

On Wednesday, January 7, the 42-year-old “The Hills” alum announced he is officially a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles. The following day, Pratt addressed his political affiliation, revealing that he is a registered Republican and has no plans to change parties as his campaign begins.

“I have been in the public eye most of my life, and there is not a single piece of dirt you can find on me that hasn’t already been aired,” he wrote on Thursday (January 8). “It seems like the only thing people don’t know is my voter registration, so here goes: I registered Republican in 2020 and never changed it.”