Salon.com > The Hills

“Speidi” calls it quits

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:31:00 +0000

Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards. Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren. Lucy and Desi (twice). Now Spencer and Heidi.

Heidi Montag, former star of MTV's hit "The Hills," has decided to divorce Spencer Pratt, breaking up the reality show entity known as "Speidi." Montage filed the papers Friday afternoon at a Santa Monica, Calif., courthouse, citing irreconcilable differences.

This comes six months after Montag filed for separation.

"The couple has agreed they would like their divorce to be finalized in a timely manner in an out-of-court settlement," Montag's lawyer, Jodeane Farrell, says. "Both parties are amicable with each other and over the possibility of finalizing their divorce."

Heidi Montag files for separation from Spencer Pratt

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:45:00 +0000

More than "The Hills" may be ending for two of its stars -- Heidi Montag has filed for separation from Spencer Pratt. She cited irreconcilable differences in a court document submitted Tuesday in Santa Monica, Calif.

Montag and Pratt are stars of the MTV series "The Hills" and have been married since last April. The series is in its final season.

Montag's two-page handwritten filing does not offer any more details on the couple's breakup. An e-mail sent to an MTV spokeswoman seeking comment was not immediately returned.

The filing also doesn't indicate whether Montag intends to file for divorce, which would formally end their marriage.

This week in crazy: Spencer Pratt

Sat, 15 May 2010 15:01:00 +0000

Spencer Pratt is a man whose claim to fame is being a lunatic jerkwad. So it's no small thing that lately, he's managed to raise the bar on his own bonkers behavior.

How crazy is Pratt? Well, the self-professed Christian has been carting around crystals to harness their "healing" energy -- a show of new-age hokum even more dated than a Kabbalah bracelet. He's also creating a dating show with "Jersey Shore" star Snooki's ex Emilio Masella -- called "Fist Pumping 4 Love." There's also a "Guido Juice" energy drink in the works. On Thursday, he and wife Heidi Montag called the cops to remove Montag's mother when she showed up at their reportedly rather squalid house.

But wait! I haven't even gotten to the disturbing part yet.

Heidi Montag: The monster we created

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:04:00 +0000

Though America will never lack for celebrities who parlay our loathing of them into their bread and butter, no one seems to bask better in the spotlight of distaste these days than Heidi Montag.

The spoiled, bitchy and bottomlessly vapid MTV reality star with the tragically self-promoting husband, Heidi Montag is also a monster of our own creation: a woman who seems to exist solely to make the rest of us feel better about our relative depth of character -- and who, apparently, thrives on the negative attention.

Earlier this month, she released an unsurprisingly lackluster album with the poetically appropriate name "Superficial" and started filming a new season of her heavily scripted series "The Hills," all to the yawns of millions. Perhaps fearing that the dawn of a new decade might signal an end to our fascination with watching shallow people do questionable things, the 23-year-old then took to the cover of People magazine last week to show off her multiple cosmetic procedures -- including a horrifying 10 in one day: a brow minilift, nose-job revision, fat injections in cheeks and lips, chin reduction, neck liposuction, ear pinning, breast augmentation revision, liposuction, buttocks augmentation and a little Botox thrown in. In a grand gesture of stating the obvious, she confessed that the reason she put herself through enough work to look like she'd gone through a car window was that she's "beyond obsessed" with self-improvement. Then, just in case that didn't get our attention, the sculpted, pneumatically hootered blonde appeared on "Good Morning America" to tell us, in her Tin-Man-before-the oil-can-stiff-faced way, that "My main message is that 'beauty is really within.'"

The evil savior of “The Hills”

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:05:00 +0000

We accept substitutes all the time, just to keep ourselves going. We substitute a glass of wine for a feeling of inner calm, we substitute pornography for a fulfilling sex life, we substitute the novelty of daily media for personal growth, we substitute poignant televisual entertainments for meaningful long-term relationships.

If you start to look closely enough, you have to wonder what purpose that chocolate bar serves, what those extra hours at the office are for, what those numbers in your checking account add up to, really. Is power a substitute for love? Is money a substitute for happiness? Is happiness based on hedonism a substitute for the more meaningful happiness that comes from helping others?

But we need our substitutes to get through the day, a day littered with reminders that we don't have everything we want. Or at least, we tell ourselves that story, as a substitute for really knowing what we want in the first place.

Them thar hills

Bratty teens and slutty housewives get their comeuppance

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:17:00 +0000

What did fans of trashy popular culture do before Bravo reality shows came along? I ask this honestly, partly because I have only the haziest memories of the '90s, but mostly because over the past few years Bravo has become this country's No. 1 purveyor of spectacularly bizarre reality-TV moments. From "The Real Housewives of New Jersey's" "prostitution whore" table-throwing scene to "NYC Prep's" teen supervillain showdowns, the network's shows have become increasingly over-the-top, explosive and entertaining.

They've also become very easy to parody -- although not to parody well. Thank goodness for the folks at KCS Cougar Productions, who have uploaded their smart and creepily dead-on Bravo reality-show cartoon parodies to YouTube. They're all worth a look (especially if, like me, you enjoy watching dramatic readings of "Cop Without a Badge"), but the best place to start watching is their recent "NYC Prep" takedown, which manages to capture the essence of the show's characters (Jessie's money quote: "Brah brah brah, Barney's, brah brah brah, Operation Smile") with remarkable efficiency, if not subtlety.

The unbearable lightness of Lauren Conrad

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:19:00 +0000

Last night, Lauren Conrad made an appearance to sign her novel, "L.A. Candy," at the Barnes and Noble in Tribeca, in Lower Manhattan. A cramped crowd of about 500 young girls, parents and twentysomething men and women turned up, many of whom had waited for hours for their chance to meet the star of the MTV show "The Hills." Bookstore staff announced that there would be no photos with Lauren, "no personalization of autographs," and that the store had enough security and police officers to remove anybody who lingered too long near the signing table. There was a brief shriek when it seemed like Conrad would emerge unexpectedly from the bathroom. When that proved to be false, the crowd began chanting her name, hoping to lure her out of the nearby storage area. Ten minutes later, she emerged wordlessly, and stood in front of a row of shouting photographers for a full minute, showing off a silk white top and short black shorts and blindingly glossy lips, before the press got shooed out of the store and she got down to the business of signing books.

Finale wrap-up: “The Hills”

Tue, 13 May 2008 16:00:00 +0000

I don't have many vices, but watching "The Hills" is one of them. And until a few months ago, I never felt guilty about it.

Previous seasons were so packed with luminously lit soap-operatic drama and (inadvertently) hilarious dialogue that each half-hour episode flew by, a pleasurable bonbon with fewer calories than a rice cake. The show pivots around Lauren -- the ultimate reality-TV It girl, so transparent you can barely see her at all. An apple-cheeked Teen Vogue intern, Lauren has for three seasons bravely brooked betrayal by boys she crushed on and by ex-best friend Heidi and her sinister boyfriend, Spencer, who (in case you've been squatting in a cave) supposedly spread word of a sex tape of Lauren to the media . Lauren's true girlfriends rallied round her -- in an endless series of beautifully filmed West Hollywood cafes, boutiques and clubs -- and bucked up her confidence. Not that it ever flagged for too long, because there was always her dalliance with boys like Brody Jenner (who starred in his own short-lived reality show, "The Princes of Malibu," with his ex-best friend Spencer) to keep her aflutter. And for comic relief, there was Lauren's sidekick, the strangely blank Audrina, and her unlikely love interest, a motorcycle-riding lunk considered trash by Lauren's friends, who nicknamed him Justin Bobby.

Heidi Montag, “feminist hero”

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:25:00 +0000

Speaking of kick-ass female heroines ... Heidi Montag is returning to our living rooms tonight with the premiere of the new season of "The Hills"!

Uh-huh, you read that right. You've spent all this time lamenting the lack of role models for today's girls, while surveying the stark pop culture landscape for a young woman with a sharp tongue, steel trap of a mind and the kind of self-confidence that could swallow alive the entire self-help section of Barnes & Noble. But -- sillies! -- that young woman was right before your eyes all along, flexing her feminist credentials by ascending the Hollywood it-list and occasionally putting her lying leprechaun of a boyfriend in his place, according to Ginia Bellafante writing for the New York Times:

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I Like to Watch

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:00:00 +0000

Home prices are down, says the New York Times, and so is confidence. Consumers on the street have been spotted slouching, stuttering and staring at their shoes, and experts believe that those indicators will only increase as home prices continue to decline precipitously while adjustable-rate mortgages skyrocket.

In addition to the 15 percent delinquency rate on subprime loans this month, a fifth of people surveyed believe that they are "worthless" and "old" and "fat" and they'll "never amount to anything." And slightly more Americans expect to miss a car payment, gain four to five pounds, get demoted at work or ejaculate prematurely over the next few months.

"I always thought I'd quit this job some day and write a novel," one consumer told this reporter. "But now it's clear that day will never come." When asked about his outlook for the next two years, he responded, "I'm going to be the same loser I've always been, only I'll have bigger love handles, darker circles under my eyes and even more credit card debt."

I Like to Watch

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 12:30:00 +0000

I know you don't want to hear this right now, but the end of the summer is fast approaching. That means we need to get real, people! We have to hunker down, get our heads together, and really focus on the task at hand: soaking up as much crappy summer TV as humanly possible before the fall season begins.

Because, no matter how indifferent you've been to TV this summer, when it comes to exquisitely debased, feeble entertainment, there's nothing quite like the pointless talent competitions and frivolous social experiments that air during the long, hot months in the middle of the year. Sure, you're probably looking forward to new seasons of "Lost" or "The Wire," but you still can't deny that there's something gripping about watching Dr. Will and Mike Boogie of "Big Brother" cackling in the Diary Room, marveling that, even though Mike keeps creating fake alliances and Will keeps announcing that he hates everyone there and wants to go home, somehow no one has put them up for eviction. Another season of "Battlestar Galactica" or "Prison Break" might keep your attention, but will it really offer the same cotton-candy thrill of seeing Janice Dickinson lose her mind and attack her business partner with her bare hands? I think not.

Jason’s tips for wooing the ladies!

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 18:37:00 +0000

Isn't life dreary and dull without the inane teen interactions of "Laguna Beach"? We agree. So here's a blast from the past: Jason, with a few savvy tips on how to woo the women of your dreams. Jason may be young, but he has all the right moves, from a simple, grunted "yeah," to more elaborate strategies, like telling her she looks, like, sooo cute right now.

Laguna biatch

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:00:00 +0000

Last month, Kristin Cavalleri, the star of MTV's pseudo reality show "Laguna Beach," scored a visit to "Jimmy Kimmel Live," an Us Weekly fashion spread and, most significantly, the cover of Seventeen magazine. (She's even rumored to be dating pop star Aaron Carter.) Reality show stars have made great strides (Elizabeth Hasselbeck) and suffered dramatic falls (Richard Hatch), yet few have broken out into this level of glossy, real-life fame. Kristin is sort of plainly California pretty with perfectly layered blond hair, clear skin, good makeup and a penchant for making adorably expressive faces, as well as obnoxious ones. She's curvy and short in the way high school boys prefer, and unsurprisingly, they worship her.

I Like to Watch

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 21:03:00 +0000

Critical mass
Critics are people who know everything. You probably didn't know this, since you're not a critic. Critics have read everything, seen everything, been everywhere and done everything. This is what qualifies them to tell you what you will or won't enjoy. Critics' opinions are immutable -- they never second-guess themselves -- and all verdicts are final. Like doctors, critics' diagnoses should only be questioned by other critics. Mere mortals, such as artists, are never qualified to dispute or even discuss a critic's opinion.

Artists only know their own hearts. Critics pretend to respect this, but really it just makes them laugh until coffee sprays out of their noses. Critics know which hearts are pure and which are probably only acting pure because it makes them look "artsy." Artists long to express their innermost thoughts and feelings, their deepest secrets, their hidden wells of sadness and desire. Critics know which of these thoughts and feelings are worth expressing, they recognize which "deepest secrets" might form a compelling narrative arc, and they can tell if a hidden well of sadness is one that Gwyneth Paltrow could capture on-screen. Artists seek the most pressing truths of human existence. Critics seek cheese danishes.

I Like to Watch

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:00:00 +0000

Curiously strong
There's too much to watch, damn it! Despite reports that indicate otherwise, this fall TV season is one of the strongest in years. Not only can you count on the return of such solid shows as "Arrested Development," "Veronica Mars," "Lost," "House" and "Grey's Anatomy," but there are also consistent reality staples like "America's Next Top Model," "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race" to count on. And that's before you even get into the really solid new shows like "Everybody Hates Chris," "My Name Is Earl," "Threshold" and "Commander in Chief," not to mention enjoyably crappy shows like "The Surreal Life" and "My Fair Brady."

But with this much TV to watch, how will any of us ever find a minute to open our mail or run a comb through our hair, let alone harangue our children, berate our significant others, and betray the confidences of our dearest friends? By offering us so many choices on the small screen, TV executives seem determined to take up every last minute of our free time until we're hollow shells of our former selves, with nothing to say about anything but how much we enjoy the opening credits to Martha Stewart's "Apprentice."