Paramount Global executives spent Monday morning fielding panicked calls from regulators after former reality star Spencer Pratt threatened to immediately relocate his non-existent production footprint out of California.
The town woke up to a perceived seismic shift after the *The Hills* alum posted a blistering 45-minute video from the driver's seat of his car, laying out a heavily filtered ultimatum to Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta. Citing the state's ongoing regulatory scrutiny of the legacy studio, Pratt warned that California’s political climate was "crippling" the industry, forcefully declaring he would no longer develop, pitch, or shoot any of the zero television shows he currently has set up at the Melrose lot.
Sources close to the impending Paramount-Skydance merger confirm the studio’s legal department was completely blindsided by Pratt’s decision to aggressively litigate the matter directly to Sacramento via Instagram Live. Pratt's reps reportedly spent the afternoon assuring nervous state officials that their client does not currently possess the green light to relocate any Paramount soundstages, nor is he actively authorized to speak for the board of directors.
We appreciate Spencer's deep, sudden passion for corporate consolidation, but we are asking the Attorney General to please disregard his threats to move our physical infrastructure to Atlanta.
Despite the studio's frantic public distancing, tracking suggests the unhinged rollout has generated massive buzz in the C-suite. At press time, a source close to the production noted that Skydance CEO David Ellison was privately impressed by the raw leverage, and had reportedly asked his team if Pratt was available to film a follow-up rant aimed at the FTC from a crystal shop parking lot.