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If you've logged onto social media over the last few days, you've likely heard some variation of Heidi Montag's 2010 track, 'I'll Do It', with celebrities, DJs and fans alike joining together to stream it to the top of the charts.
In fact, the rally of support shown around Montag and her husband, Spencer Pratt, since losing their homes in the LA fires makes it easy to forget that at one point, they were some of the most truly disliked reality stars around - a poll once named Pratt among the most-hated celebrities in America, and the New York Post published an op-ed in 2007 simply titled 'EVERYBODY HATES SPENCER'.
Of course, that was a different time, when fame-hungry, barely-legal Hollywood rookies were often subject to public ridicule by the media, but sure enough, it soon became the pair's identity.
Pratt and Montag are best known for making their name on The Hills, a 2006 reality show with the same director as Selling Sunset, following the lives of twenty-something-year-olds living in Los Angeles.
Upon his introduction, Pratt was immediately cast as the show's villain, with storylines seeing him drive a wedge between Montag and her best friend, Lauren Conrad, and even bearing the blame for allegedly going to the press, claiming she'd made a mythical sex tape.
Quickly, Speidi then found themselves in a position where not only did their rocky reputation play out on TV, but in real-life too.
"Yeah, it bums me out because people are judging me and they don’t even know me. I’m in the show for spans of 10 seconds and people are like, 'I hate that guy!' based on seeing clips of my life with some sad music playing in the background", Pratt said in an interview with the New York Post at the time.
"If this was The Truman Show, I would have a lot more chances for people to really see who I really am."
But they didn't, because in the years following a number of instances saw the duo labelled as "everything wrong with America" - from an unfinalised 2010 divorce used to boost Montag's career, openly calling the paparazzi on themselves, and even being labelled "Herpes 1 and Herpes 2" by Chelsea Handler. They literally wrote a book on how to be famous, for God's sake.
They didn't pick up much other work outside of Montag's album, Superficial, which allegedly sold just 1,000 copies in its first week, and fell off the radar of most pop culture lovers.
And so it seemed, that would be their legacy.
That was, until, they were two of the stars (along with their two children) unfortunate enough to lose their Pacific Palisades home in January 2025, after a number of fires broke out across Los Angeles.
Where others shied away, Pratt and Montag, now both 41 and 38 respectively, documented their grief, as everything they'd worked for was pulled from beneath them.
"I just want to go home", Montag sobbed in a video, admitting that she only had "two pairs of jeans" left with her when they fled, while her husband toured the charred remains of their home.
Nothing stood where their lavish pad once did, with only the burnt-out shell of a cooking pot to show for it.
But during this time, we've witnessed unwavering support between the couple, with Pratt doting on his wife of 15 years, begging his remaining followers to help get her old music into the top 10, to help them rebuild their lives - and somehow, it's worked.
'I'll Do It', along with her 2010 album, Superficial, has now taken over the likes of Chappell Roan in the charts, Diplo has filmed himself streaming it for an entire flight, and Montag's music even made it into an episode of Love Island - not least because it's a total bop.
For the first time, people are seeing the couple as humans, and not characters.
Suddenly, the Speidi the world once knew is a distant memory, with some even calling for the duo to get their own reality TV show, sharing the real sides of their personalities, years on from the show that made them famous.
But what changed? We're finally getting to see who they really are, emotions and all.
"It's the opposite of cockiness and arrogance. We're seeing them at their most vulnerable, and then [suddenly there's] all of this support as Heidi's old recordings are shooting up in the charts once again", Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at the Newhouse School of Public told USA Today.
"I saw one clip where Pratt's reduced to tears in happiness for her. Those are kind of all the usual modes of operation for not only a redemption story, but even a first act."
The reality stars themselves seem appreciative of the grace they've been shown throughout this sad ordeal too.
“We spent all of our money on this album, Superficial. 15 years ago, three days ago, so January 10, 2010, it came out,” Pratt said. “We weren’t trying to be reality stars; we were like, ‘We are gonna make Heidi a pop star.’ We were a team.
"Do you know how many times we’ve cried and how much regret we’ve had about spending all of our money and investing it and believing in Heidi’s music even though we knew it was so good, and for it to finally come out and be a f***ing hit."
The star even joked that a photo of them picking up essentials at the grocery store was the first time they "hadn't called the paparazzi on themselves".
It would seem Montag is on the same page. “It’s really refreshing to have everything we did be vindicated years later and to have people see what we were seeing and have a different insight and perspective,” she says. “Not everyone gets that. It’s really nice to have had that all unfold within time. People always say, ‘Time tells all,’ and it does.”
So, could this be the opener to their career redemption? It's a shame it took a tragedy to get there. Consider us sat patiently for Amazon Prime to get the deal done.
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