Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag are defending themselves after fans donated more than $100,000 to them because their family home burned down in the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles last week.
“There’s nobody with a brain [who] thinks we’re rich celebrities. It’s like these are just hater people trolling,” Pratt, 41, told Us Weekly in an interview published Friday.
“The people [who] are supporting us and have been following our lifestyle on social media, they see we’re not rich celebrities. They see what we do every day.”
“We have been posting our life on Snapchat for the last 11 years, all day long,” he reasoned. “Our audience knows we’re not rich celebrities, they know we just eat Mexican food and we get organic eggs and they know we do it. We film everything.”
Pratt also aired out his frustration that people never called him a “rich celebrity” until he lost his home.
“Nobody thought we were rich celebrities until three days ago and it’s getting frustrating. Like if you Google ‘Spencer,’ it literally [says] ‘Broke, no net worth,’” the former MTV star noted. “My net worth on that site that you search for the last 15 years … has been $1,000.”
The “Hills” alum further explained that he and Montag, 38, live “check to check” and that all their money was tied up in their destroyed house and food for their family.
The pair share sons Gunner, 6, and Ryker, 2.
After the couple’s home was destroyed in the ongoing Los Angeles wildfires, Pratt said fans immediately asked how they could help.
He made sure to mention that neither he nor Montag explicitly asked for handouts.
“When this first happened, that first day, [fans] created a GoFundMe on their own and it just kept on doing great and so amazing,” Pratt recalled to Us Weekly. “We’re so thankful for them doing that and they set up the Amazon wishlist.”
The “Marriage Boot Camp” alums’ GoFundMe has raised more than $134,000.
“If people want to send their own money to whoever they want, it’s the equivalent to buying a celebrity’s merch, buying their movie tickets,” Pratt added.
“People can do whatever they want with their own money and, thank God, there’s people who want to support and send us whatever.”
Fans have also been supporting Pratt and Montag by streaming her 2010 album, “Superficial.” It reached the No. 1 spot on the iTunes chart this week, beating out Bad Bunny’s new project, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos.”
Fans of the couple, who have lovingly been nicknamed “Speidi,” have also been spreading the word about Pratt’s crystal shop, Pratt Daddy.
“The overwhelming support of these people using their platforms to help us when they know how influential their platforms are, and how important every single post is to them and their brands and to ask the people who follow them to rally behind us and to help us — it’s amazing,” Montag raved to Us Weekly.
