The Hills star Spencer Pratt will compete on the inaugural season of Hulu’s Got to Get Out alongside other reality personalities, as well as TV newcomersPratt tells PEOPLE he entered the show with a “do whatever it takes to win” attitude in hopes of walking away with $1,000,000″Even if I pretended to trust anybody, I never trusted anyone in there,” Pratt says of teaming up with his castmates
Spencer Pratt has nearly two decades of reality TV under his belt, but Got to Get Out still presented a whole new challenge to him.
“The chance to win $1,000,000 was why I was all in, but it felt near impossible,” Pratt, 41, tells PEOPLE.
The Hills star says he entered the Hulu competition with a “do whatever it takes to win” attitude.
“I don’t think I slept for the first five nights,” Pratt says. “When they let me call (my wife) Heidi, she was like, ‘You need to leave that house. This is the craziest I’ve ever heard you. It’s not worth your health.’ She was kind of freaked out. But the way the show is, you could lose $1,000,000 if you go to sleep, so I was making sure I didn’t lose $1,000,000. I needed the money for my family.”
So Pratt stayed on the lookout to make sure none of his castmates — who include Housewives Cynthia Bailey and Kim Zolciak-Biermann, Bachelor Nation’s Demi Burnett, Clare Crawley and Susan Noles, The Apprentice’s Omarosa and Dancing with the Stars pro Val Chmerkovskiy — escaped.
The cast also includes a group of reality newcomers, but Pratt felt like he couldn’t trust anyone.
“One thing I learned about reality TV — and pretty much life in general — is you really can’t trust anyone, especially in Hollywood,” Pratt says. “So even if I pretended to trust anybody, I never trusted anyone in there. Figuring out who was going to maybe split the cut was the harder part. Whoever I could work with to get the million is who I worked with.”
Spencer Pratt on ‘Got to Get Out’ season 1.
Howard Gordon/disney
Pratt approached the game meticulously, especially since “I wanted to be on Hulu for as long as possible,” he says. “Going in there, I said to Heidi, ‘Unless I have a chance to really win $1,000,000, I’m going to try to make sure nobody else wins so that I can be on Hulu for as many episodes as possible. I definitely was not trying to leave a Hulu television show on the first night.”
The MTV alum found Got to Get Out extra tricky because it marks the first show he’s done without wife Heidi Montag Pratt.
“We’ve always been going into these shows as Speidi, so not having her to plot with and being a singleton operator on this one a first. That was a shock because that’s what also made all the shows I’ve ever been on so much fun,” Pratt says. “No matter what the drama was or whatever was happening, Heidi and I would have so much fun. So a piece of me was definitely missing in there.”
Spencer Pratt on ‘Got to Get Out’ season 1.
Howard Gordon/disney
Since filming Got to Get Out, the Pratts’ house burned down in the Pacific Palisades wildfire. But the father of two says he “was trying to win” the game “as if my house had already burned down.”
“Right now, we’ve been just working so hard to rebuild our lives,” Pratt says. “Not having a home anymore has given me a new level of focus, motivation and energy. I always felt like we worked hard, but I’m on a whole new level of trying to make it for the family.”
Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag Pratt at the premiere party for MTV’s reality show ‘Twentyfourseven’ on Nov. 29, 2006 in Los Angeles.
Michael Buckner/Getty
Got to Get Out’s premiere comes at an exciting time for Heidi, 38, too, as she tops the charts with her new music.
“The highest you could be as a human is me watching Heidi on that red carpet and how everyone at the Billboard Women in Music (event) was treating her,” Pratt says of his wife of 16 years. “Heidi getting over 100,000,000 streams on Spotify and almost 4,000,000 monthly listeners, these are things that are better than anything I could get for myself. She’s the bigger cheerleader for me always, so I’m just trying to do my part. So it makes a way better relationship when you have each other’s backs.”
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Got to Get Out drops on Hulu Friday, April 11.
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