Their rise from “The Hills” to celebutab magnets is a well-scripted affair.

The tabloid world - led by the magazine Us Weekly, along with the paradigm-exploding websites TMZ and Perezhilton.com - is simultaneously bursting and flat.

But it’s flat in that every story seems just as important as every other, and the monster needs feeding. That’s what tabloid fame is now: Weekly, and sometimes hourly, we must have stories; the lives of the chosen people must appear to move forward. Into the breach between supply and demand have stepped Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, the villainous couple from MTV’s docu-soap “The Hills” - while they may not be the most famous, they are definitely the most fame-ish. Creatures of the game in every way, they have mastered the new realities of celebrity culture.

The two know what commodity they’re selling and what its value is. “There’s only so much gossip,” as Heidi said over lunch recently.

“We’re always the juicier story,” Spencer said. Switching to the third person, he added, “And when Heidi and Spencer are gossip machines, it’s like, ‘What did Heidi and Spencer do?’ ”

Heidi and Spencer. “Speidi” for short. He’s 24, went to Crossroads School and then USC, having grown up in Santa Monica and the Palisades. She’s 21 and was raised in Crested Butte, Colo., which she referred to as “the smallest place in the world.” She came to Los Angeles in August 2005 after a miserable fashion-school year in San Francisco where she met Lauren Conrad, late of MTV’s “Laguna Beach,” whose move to L.A. was to become the raison d’être for “The Hills.”

TMZ calls them “celebutards.” Perez Hilton calls them “famewhores” and “promosexuals.” Spencer’s response: “Anybody who wants to promote our brand, negative or positive, give me a call.”
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In a day when just about anyone with a mobile phone can choose almost any song or soundclip to use as a ringtone, it’s interesting to hear what actual celebrities opt to download onto their wireless devices, and what it says about that person.

Take for instance the ladies of MTV’s reality juggernaut The Hills. While you’d think pals Lauren Conrad, Whitney Port and Audrina Patridge would all share similar tastes, according to the website for AT&T’s Ringtone A-List, the songs these young lovelies have selected for their ringtones represent a wide spectrum of popular music.

LC’s list is heavy on the ladies, with Britney Spears (”Piece of Me”), Sara Bareilles (”Love Song”) and Colbie Caillat (”Buddly”) leading the charge. Meanwhile, Whitney appears to like the more masculine sounds of Timbaland (”Apologize”) and Chris Brown (”Kiss Kiss”). And Audrina is surprisingly eclectic in her choices, running the gamut from Linkin Park (”Shadow of the Day”) to Kanye West (”Flashing Lights”) to Maroon 5 “Won’t Go Home with You.”)

Click here to check out the lists in their entirety.

Source: okmagazine.com

Miley Cyrus may be too young for The Hills, but she’s got a supporter on the MTV show.

“She was probably just swept up in the moment and didn’t realize what she was getting into,” Whitney Port told PEOPLE at Thursday’s Lupus L.A. Orange Ball in Beverly Hills, of Cyrus’s controversial Vanity Fair photos. “I can understand how she’s a little bit wary about it.”

Port, who has worked in fashion magazines as well as PR, calls iconic photographer Annie Leibovitz “amazing” - but admits the photos may be a little extreme.

“I think for 15-year-olds, to some people, they’re probably a little inappropriate,” Port, 23, says.

Source: people.com

Is it the latest salvo-or peace offering-in the on-going feud between Hills stars Spencer Pratt and Brody Jenner? One thing is certain, Pratt is relying on the power of prayer when it comes to his former pal.

“We pray for Brody,” Spencer said of he and girlfriend Heidi Montag at the LG launch of the “Scarlet” TV series. “Honestly, Brody was such a good friend to me. He hooked Heidi and I up, and I think that everything will work out eventually.”

Pratt and Jenner have been taking shots at one another for so long, they’ve become the reality-TV equivalent of the Hatfields and the McCoys, which only makes Pratt’s latest revelation all the more surprising.

“I wish that Brody and I were still best friends,” Pratt insists, adding, “I pray every day that everything works out between us.”

So could a Spencer/Brody reconciliation be in the works? “Absolutely, 100 percent.” Pratt said. “It’s just going to take time. We’re both very stubborn, in the sense where, he thinks that he’s right, I think that I’m right.”

If forgiveness is in their forseeable future, what about a Lauren/Heidi detente? “No!” laughed Montag. “I really pray for her!”

Source: people.com

And what will this article tell us? That poor Spencer doesn’t have any friends!

Here is the alternate version of the cover of The Hills girls during their Rolling Stone cover shoot.

And for kicks, here’s one more quote from the wise Spencer Pratt: “It’s jealousy, man. 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.”

Heidi added, “You have to understand, we have so many fans. The haters are the ones who ask us for photos. The haters are the ones who are downloading songs. The world works on haters now.”

Yes, Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag were together for the cover photo shoot. Here are some quotes from the interview:

Heidi on thinking the cover shoot might have been a scam: “I thought I was walking into Punk’d or getting killed or something,”

Spencer on showing Heidi support for the cover: “Heidi really wanted me there for backup. She was like, This is a setup.”

Heidi on first meeting Lauren at the Academy of Art in San Francisco: “We were the only blondes in the class. We were such. Good. Friends. 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.”

Spencer on the Lauren-Heidi feud: “People love feuds. 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.”

Source: Just Jared

Rolling Stone - 2008

As an O.C. girl, the closest Lauren Conrad got to the ice was sipping her chilled latte – but all that changed when she moved to Los Angeles and started watching Kings games the last two seasons.

But with Los Angeles failing to make the National Hockey League playoffs this year, The Hills star says, she’s returning to her roots.

“I grew up with in Laguna Beach, in the heart of Ducks country,” writes Conrad, 22, one of the N.H.L.’s celebrity bloggers during the playoffs, which start this week. “Since the Kings are out of it, I’ll adopt my fellow Orange County Anaheim Ducks as my team for the playoffs.”

With the blog, she’ll now have to learn the nuances of the game, and she put out a plea for help: “Is there anything you guys think I should know as I watch the Ducks?”

Source: people.com