Lauren Conrad ‘cherished’ Spencer Pratt earlier than feud

Heidi Montag claims ex-BFF Lauren Conrad was a fan of Spencer Pratt before feuding with him on “The Hills.”

“So, actually, she loved Spencer to the point where I was like, ‘OK, you don’t need to love him that much!’” Montag, 37, says in a joint interview with Pratt, 40, on Page Six’s “Virtual Reali-Tea” podcast.

“There were a few points where she was like, ‘My dad would just love you! You should meet my dad.’ I’m like, ‘He hasn’t met my family. and I don’t really think that’s appropriate.’”

Per Montag, Conrad shunned her romance with Pratt because she realized that his best bud Brody Jenner — Conrad’s love interest on the MTV reality show — wouldn’t be a long-term match and wanted a single wingwoman by her side.

“It was the fact when Brody wouldn’t date her anymore or hook up with her or whatever it was, and then she’s like, ‘We’re done with them,’ basically. And it’s like, ‘We’re not done with them. I really like Spencer,’” says Montag.

Pratt, for his part, felt an energy shift when he involved Conrad in his first of many set-up paparazzi shots.

“Lauren was so mad I called the paparazzi,” he says, recalling an outing with Montag, Conrad and Jenner at The Grove outdoor mall in Los Angeles.

“That was also when she started, [being] like, ‘Wait, I don’t like this. He’s masterminding over me, and I have an agent and a manager.’ She was a pro, this girl.”

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Montag claims Conrad wielded an impressive amount of control as the centerpiece of “The Hills,” alleging that the former Teen Vogue intern frequently stood up to executive producer Adam DiVello when she wasn’t comfortable on set or behind the scenes. (Montag, for her part, accused DiVello of sexual harassment in 2010; he offered a denial via an MTV spokesperson at the time.)

“Lauren was very serious and methodical about lines that she said, everything she did. She’d get in arguments with the producers. She’d talk to [DiVello] sometimes [in] shocking [ways], like, ‘No, Adam, I am not talking [about that]!’” Montag claims.

“‘‘Good for you. Say this for me!’” she says she thought to herself at the time. “I’d be like, ‘Whoa, yeah, ditto! I’m on her team!’ Until it turned, and then you’re on the other side, and it’s not good.”

A rep for Conrad didn’t immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.

When Montag found herself on Conrad’s “other side,” she felt there was no other option but to team up on screen with then-boyfriend Pratt, who had already cemented himself as “The Hills’” resident troublemaker.

“I should have tried to have been the hero,” Pratt reflects. “It looks a lot more fun in retrospect.”

Meanwhile, Montag “never wanted to be a villain,” she asserts, as assuming such a role was “out of [her] wheelhouse.”

But her love for Pratt eclipsed any concerns over the label. 

“I loved Spencer, and I was just in for the ride. I’m a ride or die. I risked everything for the love of Spencer,” she says. “[Conrad] told everyone she wasn’t going to keep filming if I was on it anymore. And I was like, ‘What is life without love?’”

Montag and Pratt — who wed in 2008 and share sons Gunner, 6, and Ryker, 9 months — starred on all six seasons of “The Hills” from 2006 until 2010, while Conrad departed halfway through Season 5.

The couple appeared on MTV’s “The Hills: New Beginnings” reboot, while Conrad declined participation, before it was canceled in 2021 after two seasons.

Now, they host a podcast called “Speidi’s 16th Minute” for Spotify’s The Ringer Podcast Network, on which they share insight about the world of reality TV and pop culture.

“Sometimes nobody knows what is going on with the paparazzi set-up,” Montag tells us.

“So it’s kind of an inside scoop, too, of Hollywood … sharing that inside information that people don’t want to necessarily divulge.”