A few days after her home burned down due to the LA wildfires, Heidi Montag’s album, “Superficial,” which was originally released in 2010, went No. 1 on iTunes over the weekend.
Montag told HuffPost on Sunday that this past week has been a “roller coaster.”
“It’s really challenging,” Montag said. “It comes in waves of just definitely trying to look at the positive and the blessings that we do have, and that we’re healthy and safe.”
She continued as she began to tear up: “And then at the same time, I’m at the highest point of my career with everybody really rallying behind us. It’s pretty overwhelming.”
Montag, who gained fame on the early 2000s MTV reality show “The Hills,” spoke to HuffPost from Santa Barbara, where she and her husband, Spencer Pratt, are renting a home after theirs burned down on Tuesday. After Pratt and Montag evacuated with their two kids, Pratt began posting on TikTok asking his followers to stream and buy Montag’s album “Superficial,” which released its 15-year anniversary edition on Saturday. The rerelease just happened to coincide with Montag’s home burning down.
After Pratt began encouraging people to buy the album, it went No. 1 on iTunes, as well as the album’s title song, which beat out songs from Teddy Swims, Lady Gaga, Morgan Wallen, and more.
Montag said she probably had “unrealistic expectations” when she first released the album 15 years ago, but maybe she knew “in the depths” that her dreams would “come to fruition one day.”
“But regardless of the circumstances that people would rally behind us, and Spencer too, who is such a warrior and really out there for his family and rallying everybody behind us,” she said. “It’s just such a blessing that people feel that strongly and connected to us, and people who have been fans of the music forever, and new fans of the music just really merging together to support us and the Palisades and LA in a way. So I really appreciate that love and support, and it’s such a light in such a dark moment.”
Pratt said in a TikTok on Saturday that he and Montag spent $3 million making the album, and if people buy it, they will like it, and if not, buying it is a “good deed.” Since their home burned down, Pratt, who grew up in Los Angeles, has been on TikTok making long videos to earn money, asking people to stream his wife’s music, and doing anything he can to make their situation better. Montag said he has been able to relax but that she loves his energy.
“I’m so proud of him to not just crumble and just be depressed, and it is so painful and excruciating,” Montag said.
She continued: “It’s so devastating. And for him to be able to turn this energy around and be positive, and to be a light to so many people, and a light to our family, and to turn it into dark, you know, beauty to ashes, and just hustling for us and knowing, like, we’re not going to roll over, we’re going to survive, we’re going to thrive, we’re going to rebuild. We’re going to come back from this.”
Montag and Pratt, who were reality TV villains on “The Hills” because of their feuds with other cast members, have had a redemption arc the past few years because of Pratt’s social media presence that shows his and Montag’s daily life with their two kids. Montag said her music success after her home burned down feels “so Speidi,” a reference to the celebrity couple name the two have.
“It’s not just like pure success, it’s success with the most horrific loss at the same time,” she said.
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“It seems to actually kind of make sense for our lives and certain things that we had been through. But to have that vindication and to have people rally behind us is everything, and just that endless support and streaming is unfathomable. It’s hard to put into words my gratitude and shock, but it definitely is Spencer at the helm of it all.”