Los Angeles mayoral candidate and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt has issued a lengthy, AI-powered statement to dismiss a lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general against Paramount over its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. In a TikTok video, he shouted that Hollywood would collapse if the lawsuit succeeded.
On July 20, a coalition of 12 states led by California sued Paramount to block its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The coalition includes New York, Colorado and others. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to temporarily halt the merger earlier this week.
Pratt, the former MTV star who played the villain on the reality TV show Hills 20 years ago, he began leaning into Los Angeles city politics in 2025 after his home in Pacific Palisades burned down in one of the fires that swept through parts of the city. Pratt and other property owners in the area sued the city of Los Angeles and its Department of Water and Power, claiming the fires were DWP’s fault. He also began blaming Mayor Karen Bass, citing the slow response.
@spenserbrat Greasy Gavin and Bonehead Bonta are the true straight-haired villains we’ve seen in every movie. Now they are coming to destroy Hollywood forever, because of petty politics. The Paramount sabotage…is much worse than you think.
♬ Original sound – Spencer Pratt
He was so angry about Los Angeles politics in the wake of the fires that he launched a campaign for mayor on the anniversary of the fire, presenting himself as a common-sense populist. In June, he came in third place behind Bass and City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, after the initial count put him ahead of her by more than eight percentage points. He refused to accept the result and received support from President Donald Trump (who had already doomed his chances in Los Angeles with his vocal support) and House Speaker Mike Johnson; Both claimed the race was fraudulent, again without evidence.
Pratt said he will remain in Los Angeles to remain focused on local politics. But with this new video, he’s gone national, training his arm on every state that’s suing Paramount. Being from California, he naturally took the spotlight on Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, claiming that the two are destroying Hollywood while trying to “cripple two of the greatest movie studios of all time on politics.”
“[Newsom and Bonta] “She’s everything Paramount isn’t,” Pratt says. While Paramount and Tom Cruise have spent the past decades building Hollywood, [these two] They’ve ruined it – chasing productions out of town, sending projects to Budapest, neglecting film tax breaks and incentives to restore productions, and doing everything they can to cripple the film industry while Atlanta and Hungary steal our lunch. Now they are filing a lawsuit against Paramount to ensure the further collapse of this industry, because Paramount wants to invest $110 billion in Warner Bros.
Clips longer than 10 minutes intersect Pratt’s AI-generated clips into clips from popular Hollywood movies. Channeling former candidate Alex Jones, he sits behind a desk and shouts into the camera as he argues that state leaders want jobs outside of California. Citing a clip from a podcast interview with Bonta, he noted that tech giants like Amazon were not named in the lawsuit despite producing blockbuster films with large theatrical releases – Pratt cites Top Gun: Maverick Its star is called “Saint Tom Cruise.”
In the clip, Pratt also tries to shoot down Bonta’s claim that Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery would reduce production, arguing that other factors are at play.
“They claim that after Disney acquired Fox, production declined. Notice what they say specifically after They merged – they don’t say because “They merged,” he says, “because something else happened after the 2019 merger that may have had an impact on production.” Yes, they merged right before coronavirus, but Gavin Newsom shut down the entire state and followed that up with the largest and longest labor dispute in Hollywood history. Everyone’s production decreased.
Pratt also points to what he calls the political motivation behind the opposition, noting that there was no similar scrutiny of Amazon’s acquisition of MGM, and that streaming companies like YouTube were not mentioned in the lawsuit — which is uncomfortable, he says, for Paramount’s monopoly theory.
“This isn’t the ’80s, Rob. Streaming has changed everything. More and more people are getting their content online, which means fewer and fewer people are watching traditional cable. The trend line is only going in one direction,” he says in the clip.
Pratt ended his speech with high praise for Paramount, which he credits with saving the industry.
“There’s a lot of competition for these studios,” Pratt says. “This entire lawsuit is a scam. He needs to stop playing petty politics and crippling Hollywood.”
