Spencer Pratt is back in the political fray, this time taking aim at California leaders over a high-stakes legal fight involving Paramount. In a lengthy, AI-assisted TikTok rant, the former reality TV star and Los Angeles mayoral hopeful tore into Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, arguing that their lawsuit against the company could damage Hollywood.
The dispute centers on a lawsuit filed July 20 by a coalition of 12 states led by California to block Paramount’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The group includes New York and Colorado, among others. Earlier this week, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order pausing the merger.
Pratt Expands His Local Political Crusade
Pratt, who once played the villain on MTV’s The Hills two decades ago, began leaning harder into Los Angeles politics in 2025 after his Pacific Palisades home burned in one of the fires that swept through parts of the city. He and other area property owners sued the city of Los Angeles and its Department of Water and Power, alleging the fires were DWP’s fault. He also blamed Mayor Karen Bass, citing what he described as a slow response.
That anger eventually turned into a mayoral campaign launched on the anniversary of the fire, with Pratt casting himself as a common-sense populist. In June, he finished in third place behind Bass and City Councilmember Nithya Raman, after an initial count had put him more than eight percentage points ahead of her. He refused to accept the result and drew support from President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson; both claimed the race was fraudulent, without evidence.
Pratt had said he would stay in Los Angeles and remain laser-focused on local politics. But in the new video, he went national, targeting the states suing Paramount and focusing especially on California’s top leaders.
“They’re Destroying Hollywood,” Pratt Says
Being a Californian, Pratt singled out Newsom and Bonta, accusing them of destroying Hollywood while trying to “cripple two of the greatest film studios of all time over politics.”
“[Newsom and Bonta] are everything Paramount isn’t,” Pratt claims. “While Paramount and Tom Cruise have spent the last decades building up Hollywood, [these two] have been destroying it — chasing productions out of town, sending projects to Budapest, neglecting film tax credits and incentives to win back production, doing everything they can to cripple the film industry while Atlanta and Hungary steal our lunch. And now they’re suing Paramount to make sure the industry crumbles further, all because Paramount wants to invest $110 billion into Warner Bros.”
The 10-minute-plus clip includes A.I.-generated cutaways of Pratt over scenes from popular Hollywood films. Speaking in a style reminiscent of Alex Jones, he sits behind a desk and shouts into the camera while arguing that state leaders are trying to push jobs out of California.
He also cites a clip from a podcast interview with Bonta and points out that tech giants like Amazon are not named in the lawsuit, even though they make blockbusters that receive major theatrical releases. Pratt references Top Gun: Maverick and calls its star “Saint Tom Cruise.”
Pratt Pushes Back on the Merger Arguments
Pratt also tries to rebut Bonta’s argument that a Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger would reduce production, saying other forces are to blame.
“They claim that after Disney acquired Fox, production decreased. Notice they specifically say after they merged — they don’t say because they merged, because something else happened after that 2019 merger that may have had an impact on production,” he says. “Yeah, they merged right before COVID, but Gavin Newsom shut down the entire state and followed that with the biggest, most prolonged labor dispute in Hollywood history. Everybody’s production decreased.”
He also argues that the opposition is politically motivated, pointing to what he sees as the lack of similar scrutiny over Amazon’s MGM acquisition and the absence of streamers like YouTube from the suit. To Pratt, that undercuts the idea that Paramount is the monopoly problem.
“This isn’t the ’80s, Rob. Streaming has changed everything. More and more people get their content online, which means fewer and fewer are watching traditional cable. The trend line only goes in one direction,” he says in the clip.
Pratt ends the rant by praising Paramount and arguing that the studio is helping sustain the business rather than harming it.
“There’s a ton of competition for these studios,” Pratt claims. “This whole lawsuit is a scam. He needs to quit playing petty politics and crippling Hollywood.”
Greasy Gavin and Bonehead Bonta are the real life slick-haired archetypal douchebag villains we’ve seen in every movie. Now they’re coming to destroy the Hollywood for good, over petty politics. The Paramount sabotage is…way worse than you think.
