The Speidi Chronicles

Homero Tercero, WireImage / Getty Images Spencer Pratt, star of MTV's The Hills, talks to The Daily Beast about how he and wife Heidi Montag scripted their way to becoming actual celebrities. Plus: Perez Hilton on Speidi’s shallow genius.

That whole thing Andy Warhol said about everyone being world famous for 15 minutes? Eff that, say MTV’s The Hills stars Spencer Pratt, 25, and Heidi Montag, 22, who have miraculously spun what should have been 15 minutes—or less—into bona fide fame, including dozens of magazine covers, around-the-clock paparazzi stalking, and a spot on NBC’s upcoming reality show, I’m a Celebrity—Get Me Out of Here, set to premiere June 1. (Other contestants include actor Stephen Baldwin, model Janice Dickinson, former NBA player John Salley and American Idol phenom Sanjaya Malakar.)

When Pratt told Letterman he charges $100,000 to make nightclub appearances, Letterman famously replied, "Stop it, just stop. For a second there, I thought you actually said $100,000."

After three years on the wildly popular MTV show, Speidi-mania has reached a fever pitch. The power blondes are now ubiquitous, even landing on the radar of some of the biggest names in Hollywood—and politics. During his campaign, John McCain told Time.com, “I’m honored to have Heidi’s support and I want to assure her that I never miss an episode of The Hills, especially since the new season started.” In June 2008, David Letterman invited Pratt to sit on his couch, a milestone any up-and-comer would relish. In January 2009, Speidi appeared as themselves on the top-rated CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.

This past weekend, Speidi got married—again. (Their first “wedding” took place in Mexico on November 20, 2008, and garnered tons of media attention.) A Google search for the most recent “Heidi Montag Spencer Pratt wedding,” which, as opposed to their previous elopement on the beach, took place in Pasadena, California, in front of more than 200 friends and family members, yielded 240,000 results. And according to gossip blog PerezHilton.com, they were reportedly offered $400,000 by both Us Weekly and OK! Magazine for exclusive wedding photos, but the duo turned both offers down.

International fame aside, Speidi has racked up as many enemies as they have fans: Earlier this month, when Pratt challenged Ashton Kutcher to a Twitter race to get the most followers in 30 days, tell-it-like-it-is talk-show host Chelsea Handler ripped Pratt a new one, saying, “Spencer, you can’t make a bet with someone if they don’t know who you are.” Adds Page Six’s Paula Froehlich, author of the forthcoming novel Mercury in Retrograde, “They are such a boring and redundant subject. They’re a derivative of a derivative of Paris Hilton (first derivative: Kim Kardashian). Everyone in L.A. knows how to work the paparazzi.”

Famewhores? No question. And they’re the first to admit it. “Speidi love being famous—you can tell,” Perez Hilton says.

“Heidi and I do we love fame,” Pratt admits, phoning in from Los Cabos, Mexico, where she was shooting her latest music video—the paps lurking nearby. (Off-camera, you can imagine the two rolling around in $100 bills on the bed. If they ever did anything off-camera.) “We’re honored to be famous,” he continues. “We feel blessed to be famous. We pray every day to stay famous. It’s the most fun. That’s our mentality with fame. That’s why we’re so different than everybody else in these tabloids—because we embrace it.”