&34;You can get away with calling me anything with good lighting,&34; the reality TV star quipped. Spencer Pratt reacts to Gayle King calling him a 'douche canoe' on air during CBS Mornings interview &34;You can get away with calling me anything with good lighting,&34; the reality TV star quipped. By Mekishana Pierre :maxbytes(150000):stripicc()/MekishanaPierreauthorphotoed08906b8105488ca1e991de8ac00dec.jpg) Mekishana Pierre Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at . She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on Entertainment Tonight and Popsugar.

"You can get away with calling me anything with good lighting," the reality TV star quipped.

Spencer Pratt reacts to Gayle King calling him a 'douche canoe' on air during *CBS Mornings *interview

"You can get away with calling me anything with good lighting," the reality TV star quipped.

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on *Entertainment Tonight* and Popsugar.

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January 28, 2026 11:17 a.m. ET

Spencer Pratt and Gayle King on 'CBS Mornings'. Credit:

As a well-known reality TV villain, Spencer Pratt has been called all kinds of names, but even he was taken aback when *CBS Mornings* host Gayle King referred to him as a "douche canoe" this week.

Now the *Hills* alum is reflecting on the unexpected moment, admitting, "She threw me off."

"You know, I've been called everything at this point, [but] I haven't been called that," Pratt quipped during an appearance on SiriusXM's* Page Six Radio* on Wednesday. "But my reaction [to] being called everything is pretty good."

The 42-year-old *Celebrity Big Brother UK* alum had appeared on the CBS morning show on Monday to promote his recently released memoir, *The Guy You Loved to Hate: Confessions From a Reality TV Villain, *and he explained that King's comment caught him by surprise because of their pre-show interview.

"She threw me off because we had a 30-min pre [interview] and she had notes, my whole book, all these quotes," he recalled. "So I don't know if she did it to get me soft, you know? If it was a bait and switch — like, she's like a pro, or once she gets in front of the camera? But I was expecting to get gassed up and just be like, 'Oh, this book is like Robert Frost — it's so poetic,' and then she was like, 'You're a douche canoe!'"

Spencer Pratt on 'CBS Mornings'.

During the interview, King brought up the subject of Pratt making a name for himself on reality TV by antagonizing Lauren Conrad and Co. on *The Hills. *

"Spencer, there were so many times where, really, you were just a douche canoe on that show," King said. "And you just seemed to amp it up, amp it up, amp it up. Was there ever a time when you got home, and you'd go, 'I can't believe I just did that or just said that'? Or were you aware of how you were coming across at the time?"

Pratt gamely responded that he was "well aware," adding, "If anything, I probably should have been a bigger douche canoe. I think the rest of the cast should have all tried to be bigger douche canoes."

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Looking back at the *CBS Mornings* moment, Pratt said he wasn't that bothered by the comment. "I'm very humble these days. I'm grateful to be sitting with lights in a studio and not just filming myself."

"You can get away with calling me anything with good lighting," he quipped.

Pratt previously shared that his decision to become a notorious reality TV villain was inspired by his role in 2005's *The Princes of Malibu*, a reality show he co-created with his friends Brody and Brandon Jenner that centered on the lives of the pampered Jenner brothers.

Fed up with their freeloading lifestyles, the brothers' stepfather, the record producer David Foster — — who was previously married to their mother, Linda Thompson, before they separated in 2005 — forced them to get jobs and straighten out their lives.

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Pratt claimed that he never intended to pursue a career on screen, but Foster encouraged him to fully embody the "bad guy."

"David Foster, he was like, 'You need to be the Simon Cowell of reality TV,'" Pratt said of Foster's influence. "And I didn't even watch* American Idol*. I didn't even know who Simon Cowell was. I was like, 'What? What does that mean? What are you talking about?' He's like, 'Be the bad guy. Be the villain.'"

Spencer Pratt visiting SiriusXM Studios on Jan. 27, 2026.

Gary Gershoff/Getty

What Foster failed to explain, Pratt added, was that Cowell's antagonistic behavior was "grounded in, 'I'm trying to tell you you're not talented because it's just the truth,'" he said. "The problem with me being blunt and doing whatever producers wanted is the audience doesn't see [it as], 'He's just telling it how it is.' It's just, 'He's a monster.' So that's what I didn't see looking back. People, they took it very serious."

Pratt rose to prominence as the boyfriend (and now husband) of Heidi Montag on *The Hills, *which ran on MTV for six seasons between 2006 and 2010. He also returned to the short-lived 2019 revival *The Hills: New Beginnings.* He most recently appeared on *The Masked Singer *and *Got to Get Out.*

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Source: Reality

Published: January 29, 2026 at 02:01AM on Source: PRIME TIME

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