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Reality television star Heidi Montag opened up to Us Weekly in an exclusive interview about what she took — and what she wishes she didn’t leave behind — while evacuating the L.A. wildfires.
“I didn’t know what to do,” The Hills alum told Us on Wednesday, January 15, referring to the moment she realized she and her family had to flee the uncontrolled fire burning through the Pacific Palisades. “Nothing could have prepared me for that … You just can’t wrap your head around it. I started just packing things that made sense — I wasn’t really thinking about anything else.”
Heidi, 38, and her husband, Spencer Pratt, lost their home in the fire, according to an initial Instagram post shared by Spencer’s sister, Stephanie Pratt, on January 7. Heidi and Spencer, 41, share children Gunnar, 7, and Ryker, 2.
Heidi revealed that in a panic, her priority when packing up their lives was “the kids’ stuff.”
“So I got their teddy bears. I randomly had, from the tooth fairy, Gunner’s teeth that he left in my closet, so I grabbed that,” she explained. “I grabbed a few documents that we had – those pre-packed [ones] from years ago from the [previous] fires. I grabbed two pairs of jeans and two shirts. I grabbed a pair of shoes — a random pair of sneakers.”
In the couple’s haste, they also were forced to leave a multitude of beloved items behind — items that are now destroyed. One item, Spencer explains, was a special Christmas present he had convinced his wife to purchase for herself.
“She got herself nothing,” he told Us. “Then, right before Christmas, she got herself these Golden Goose shoes in the Palisade Village. It was her big gift. I was like, ‘Just get your Golden Goose.’ She didn’t.
Heidi explained that she thought she would be able to “be back for them.”
“It hit me at the end of packing that I might not come back,” she added. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I need to go in the kids’ room and I need to grab their bears. And I had Gunner, he had a 104 fever — he had that for days — and I was just so preoccupied with him … [I was] just grabbing things and worrying and aimlessly wandering.”
In addition to her new shoes, Heidi said she wishes she had grabbed “photos” that she explained she can no longer get back.
“I have no photos,” she said. “I have all these photo albums that I made fo rSpencer before there was Instagram and TikTok and iPhone. These photos [that] I’ll never have again. All these sentimental things are just gone, you know?”
To date, the Palisades, Eaton and other smaller fires have burned a combined 38,600 acres, according to NBC News. At least 27 people have died and 12,000 structures have been destroyed. Multiple celebrities, including Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia, Paris Hilton and Miles Teller, lost their homes in the blaze.
For Heidi and Spencer, it’s not the “stuff” they miss as much as it is their community.
“I miss our friends. I miss our daily life. I miss dropping my son off at school there. I miss our whole world and I’m so sad for all of our friends,” she tells Us through tears. “I’m so sad for our entire community. It’s not just our loss — it’s literally the loss of our city; a community that we all are such an active part of.”
She continued, “[It’s] just the daily routine [that] you miss — waking up in your bed with your mirrors and your pillows and the smells of your house and the children. It’s so hard.”
Check the LAFD website for local wildfire alerts and click here for resources on how to help those affected.
With reporting from Andrea Simpson
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