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Los Angeles Mayor Race: Spencer Pratt Shakes Up Primary In Wary City

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Among plenty in Hollywood, the race for Los Angeles mayor isn’t so much a question of who to support, but rather how did it come to this?

“A continued mess,” laments one top industry donor.

With less than two weeks to go before the city’s crowded primary, polls point to incumbent Karen Bass and reality star Spencer Pratt emerging as the top two heading into a November runoff. Councilmember Nithya Raman, meanwhile, is hoping to break through.

Each of the candidates has shored up constituencies in recent weeks ahead of the June 2 election: Bass has lined up union support in particular, including the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, yet she is likely to remain the focal point of long-simmering anger over issues ranging from homelessness to last year’s fire response.

Raman has drawn heavy donor backing from writers and others in the creative community, yet she has slipped in polls since a so-so showing in the primary’s marquee debate.

Pratt has seized on the fervor for an outsider with a knack for drawing attention, with some prominent Democrats backing his campaign. Yet he faces doubts that he can emerge the ultimate winner as a Trump-ish candidate in a November election that likely will be a referendum on the president.

“Angelenos are frustrated and angry and they are looking for a place to direct those feelings,” said Dan Schnur, professor at USC’s Annenberg School as well as Berkeley and Pepperdine. “Karen Bass is the incumbent mayor and is definitionally part of the political establishment. So much of that rage gets directed toward her. What is still unclear is the extent her opponents take advantage of that.”

How L.A. Got Here

Four years ago, Bass was engaged in a highly competitive campaign against real estate developer Rick Caruso, who tapped into voter discontent over the city’s homelessness crisis. But Bass, a well-respected member of Congress and, earlier, the state Assembly, also sounded the alarm as an outsider to the city establishment, and handily beat Caruso in the general election.

She started building a reelection war chest early and, even in the midst of the tumultuous summer of the 2024 presidential election, was able to draw an extensive list of contributions from longtime entertainment industry donors including J.J. Abrams, Marta Kauffman and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

The January 2025, fires in particular put Bass’ future in doubt, as she was in Ghana as the inferno destroyed much of Pacific Palisades. Since then, her prospects have seemingly ebbed and flowed, as Caruso took to social media to relentlessly hammer rebuilding efforts, while Bass took a defiant stance as Donald Trump’s ICE agents conducted raids across the city last summer.

Caruso, who looked to be Bass’ primary rival in a rematch, ultimately decided not to run, passing not just on a mayor’s race but also a gubernatorial bid. Another rival, Austin Beutner, dropped out. But on the day of the filing deadline, Bass found herself with a surprise opponent, Raman, who had been an ally and stood to run to her left in the heavily Democratic city.

Raman’s district encompasses the Hollywood Hills, Studio City, Sherman Oaks and nearby areas, with a significant contingent of the industry’s creative class among her constituents. She has been able to line up donors including Ed Zwick, Colin Jost, Chelsea Handler and John August, as well as David Mandel, who earlier gave to Bass.

All of the candidates have made boosting film and TV production in the city a priority, even if the real impact likely comes from production incentives at the state or federal level.

Raman recently told Deadline, “I sit in City Hall every day and I feel a rudderlessness in the building. There is a lack of creative thinking. Besides all the new projects and programs suddenly being announced because there s an election, there is a lack of ambition for the future of this city.”

RELATED: Battle For L.A.: Mayor Candidate Nithya Raman On Production Crisis, Bass Attacks, Pratt Stunts, LA28 & Paramount-WBD Merger Dangers

Bass told Deadline that Raman “has never initiated one thing for the industry, and has recused herself from everything. I understand she has a familial connection, but… she has not shown any leadership at all while being on council, so it’s hard for me to understand how, then, you show major leadership as mayor.”

By April, reports showed that Raman and Pratt slightly outraised Bass, further evidence that the race remained competitive.

But the dynamics shifted with the May 6 mayoral debate, as Pratt exceeded expectations given his lack of political experience, as his most prominent role has been as a love-to-hate reality star on The Hills and social media influencer.

Since then, Pratt’s candidacy, which has seized on the possibilities of AI-generated political videos, has caught the attention of the national media, whether it be ABC News or TMZ, along with a slew of laudatory coverage on the right including Fox News Digital and the California Post. That has helped elevate the mayoral race to the point where, in response to a reporter’s question earlier this week, Trump expressed his backing of Pratt, adding, “I hear he’s been a big MAGA person.”

Pratt has managed to draw support from Democrats, including prominent industry donors like Haim Saban, the longtime mega-fundraiser for the party, and other figures including Laura Wasserman, the music supervisor and former wife of Casey Wasserman. David Foster and his wife, Katharine McPhee, hosted a fundraiser for him earlier this month, and figures like Brett Ratner and Bobby Kotick are among his other donors.

Director Spencer Kahn posted on X this week that Pratt was “very smart. He’s got a political science degree at USC. He also has one thing any leader of LA should have: charisma. That’s my crystal power, reality tv, USC poli sci, burnt down house, common sense, high energy, good dad, unite the city, I Love LA Mayor.”

Mathew Littman of political strategy firm HowLitt credits Pratt with understanding how to break through with a communications message, something many Democrats do not. “People were not paying attention. Spencer Pratt has forced people to,” he said.

Even so, he said, “people like Karen Bass personally and that probably will bode well for her in a general election.”

Pratt and Raman, Littman said, are “vessels for the anger” over what has happened in Los Angeles.

“It is the Donald Trump thing — ‘I am going to blow things up because it can’t get much worse.’ But it can be much worse.”

While Pratt is only the latest in a long line of outsider candidates seeking to shake up City Hall, he has name ID and a narrative tied to the city’s recent trauma: His home was destroyed in the Palisades fires, something he blames squarely on Bass.

“Everything I am saying is common sense,” he recently told CNN. “We’ve just lost it in Los Angeles.”

Pratt’s Reality Check

As he has risen in the polls and prominence, so too has his past as a brash, reality TV persona.

Jon Vein, an entrepreneur and former entertainment executive and longtime donor and activist in Democratic politics, recently posted a lengthy warning on Facebook about Pratt.

Vein’s brother, Larry, a Palisades resident who was behind the Pali Strong recovery campaign, had become a point person for fire recovery information. He was awarded FireAid charity funds and those funds were transferred to a non-profit. Because Pali Strong did not have 501(c)(3) status, Larry was required to submit for approval any expenditures which he wanted to make in accordance with his grant, Vein said. In many cases, such as a community wide event at the Santa Monica Pier, Larry Vein went significantly out of pocket, he said. However, Pratt targeted Larry, sweeping him into unfounded controversy, adding substantially to other interpersonal and financial stresses, Vein said.

Jon Vein wrote, “On a personal level, Spencer Pratt publicly brutalized my brother Larry on social media. He spread falsehoods about him and targeted him purely to elevate himself online. He is a bully, and our family is considering possible actions to hold him accountable. As many of you know, Larry took his life a couple weeks ago.” His death was ruled a suicide.

From a qualifications level, among other things, Vein pointed out Pratt’s financial challenges as well as Pratt’s association with Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist who was found liable to parents for a conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax.

Vein wrote, “His fame was built largely on provoking conflict, humiliating people, and creating outrage for entertainment and personal gain. That may work in reality television and social media culture, but it is not leadership, and it is certainly not qualification to run one of the largest and most complex cities in America.”

Pratt did not respond to a request for comment.

In the recent debate, Pratt was asked how his experience would qualify him to manage a $14 billion budget. “I’m humble. I’m going to surround myself with the smartest people in the world,” he said.

If he makes the runoff, Pratt’s biggest challenge may not be any past reality TV controversies but something more structural: Running in a city where Democrats hold a lopsided voter-registration edge, The mayor’s race is nonpartisan, but the last Republican to be elected mayor was Richard Riordan in 1993, winning another term in 1997.

In the CNN interview, Pratt was asked about why he became a Republican, and he cited the need to buy a gun for protection after he emerged as a “hated reality star” amid his role on The Hills. He said that Republicans were the only ones who supported concealed weapons permits. Asked to name a political role model, Pratt named Jesus Christ, but after anchor Elex Michaelson asked him for a modern choice, he named Barack Obama.

As Pratt’s candidacy capitalizes on the dismay of Angelenos, the voter pool of the November election will likely be far different that the primary, a referendum on the president. As one Democratic fundraiser put it, if Bass and Pratt are the choices, “I think it’s her,” despite the anti-incumbent sentiment. “She’s very lucky.”

“From Bass’ perspective, this is a campaign about fire and ICE,” Schnur said. “If she is able to convince voters that her pushback on Trump is a defining characteristic, then she will probably win.”

“Whether Pratt has a chance of winning or not,” he said, depends on whether the fire response are the issues that are “front and center.”

To some, the state of the race, though, reflects years of dismay over the level of enduring civic involvement in the city and the need for a more robust base of private and individual support. The irony is that Los Angeles will soon be on the global stage with the World Cup and the next mayor will preside over the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Donna Bojarsky, the founder of Future of Cities: Los Angeles, said, “The malaise surrounding this election speaks to the deep frustrations across the city. Despite all these international events, I would say there’s little joy in Mudville.”

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Obama Relives Tan Suit Debacle In ‘Life, Larry & Pursuit of Unhappiness’

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As Larry David‘s comedic trip through U.S. history comes to an end, he took credit for one of the nation’s more recent presidential scandals.

On Friday’s season finale of the HBO sketch comedy miniseries Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, President Barack Obama made a surprise appearance as himself in a sketch set in 2014, as David advised him to wear the now-infamous, outrage-inducing tan suit during his live press conference on military response to ISIS.

Following some banter on how the POTUS avoids stains, David accidentally spills juice on Obama’s suit jacket when he leaves the room. When the 44th president returns, the comedian recommends he wear the tan suit that Obama planned on taking it to Turin for NATO Summit, for “a daytime event, it’s outdoors, a little more casual.”

“First of all, it’s a gorgeous suit,” David declared. “And this is casual Friday!”

“It is a great suit,” admitted Obama, as David told him, “Oh boy, oh boy. I think this is the move. … Old lips won’t let you down. You’ll thank me!”

As Obama models the look, David gives him his signature, “Pretty good! Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.”

“You sure about this?” asks Obama, as David assures him, “Never been more sure about anything in my life. People are going to be talking about this for a long, long time.”

Obama’s cameo in the finale comes as David marks the United States Semiquencentennial with the seven-part sketch comedy limited series, which recounts major events in U.S. history through the comedian’s signature observational humor.

David’s longtime Curb Your Enthusiasm partner Jeff Schaffer, who serves as an executive producer on Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, previously told Deadline that Obama, who produced under his Higher Ground banner, reached out to his buddy David to ask if he’d be interested in making the show to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday.

“When you’re doing a show about American history, you want to do it warts and right now we have this orange saggy wart that we wish would go away,” said Schaffer. “But the nice thing about having President Obama produce this and be a part of it is that this country’s had a lot of fuck ups, we’ve seemed to have learned very little, but we’re still moving forward sometimes, and then we move back a little bit, but we always move forward again. While Larry’s pointing out a lot of the steps back, the President is telling us we can still step forward.”

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Matthew McConaughey Performs “Quill” From ‘Rivals of Amziah King’ — Watch

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Matthew McConaughey shows off his vocal skills (and some hidden banjo talents) with his latest role in The Rivals of Amziah King.

On Friday, Lakeshore Records released the single and music video for “Quill” from the original motion picture soundtrack, performed by the Oscar-winning and co-star Ben Hardesty, also featuring Miranda Zickler, Angelina LookingGlass and Andrea Pister.

Set in the backwoods of Oklahoma, The Rivals of Amziah King follows the musically gifted Amaziah King (McConaughey) and his bluegrass-playing band of misfits while overseeing the premier honey-making operation in town. When Amaziah’s estranged foster daughter unexpectedly returns, he leaps at the chance to reconnect and create a family business. But the honey game is ruthless, and Amaziah’s rivals threaten to destroy everything he has built.

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Premiering Aug. 14 in theaters, the Andrew Patterson-written-and-directed drama also stars Angelina LookingGlass, Cole Sprouse, Jake Horowitz, Tony Revolori and Kurt Russell.

Producers are David Heyman, Teddy Schwarzman, Jeffrey Clifford, Michael Heimler, James Montague and Will Greenfield.

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Jane Schoenbrun On Tackling “Toxic Soup” Of Slasher Genre In ‘Camp Miasma’

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With their latest directorial outing, Jane Schoenbrun used subtle pieces of nostalgia to deconstruct the slasher genre.

The Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma writer/director explained to Deadline that they wanted to create “a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary,” noting the frequent symbolism of candy and junk food as providing an atmosphere “that’s actually safe” while diving into a horror movie or exploring sexuality after trauma.

“There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe,” said Schoenbrun, who is non-binary. “Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, ‘Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.’”

In Schoenbrun’s latest film, Hannah Einbinder stars as queer director Kris, who is tapped to helm a new installment of the long-running Camp Miasma horror franchise. While courting Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), the actress who played the “final girl” in the original film, to reprise her role, the pair spirals into a psychosexual frenzy as the slasher’s killer, Little Death (Jack Haven), comes to life.

Acknowledging the problematic trans representation of horror films like Psycho (1960), Sleepaway Camp (1983), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995), Schoenbrun admitted the genre has been “catnip to me since I was 10 years old,” and they jumped at the chance to direct their own.

Jane Schoenbrun at the
Jane Schoenbrun attends the ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ premiere on Aug. 5, 2026 in New York City.

“So many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals … And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy,” they explained.

“But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants,” said Schoenbrun. “It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language.”

Read on about Jane Schoenbrun’s love letter to the slasher genre with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, now playing in theaters.

DEADLINE: It was really fun to see the slasher genre through your eyes. Tell me about finding inspiration in that genre and “final girls.” 

JANE SCHOENBRUN: I mean, it was the easiest thing in the world because it’s just one of those genres that has been catnip to me since I was 10 years old. I just raided the horror section of the video store as a kid from an age when I really shouldn’t have been doing that, like in 5th grade, I watched in the span of about one week, every Nightmare on Elm Street movie. I think that I was always drawn to movies and really anything entertainment where it felt forbidden in some way, like the thing on the tape, how is that even allowed? And that’s the thing that I love about a lot of my favorite slashers. Don’t get me wrong, I love like brutal ones, like I love Texas Chainsaw, that’s a nasty movie at its core, and that’s what’s so special about it. But so many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals of, OK, what’s the most outrageous way that like these like dumb kids can get killed? But watching it, it’s not about fear a lot of the time, it’s about joy and celebration. And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy. But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants, whether that be Norman Bates or Buffalo Bill or Sleepway Camp or Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface in drag. It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language. 

‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ (2026)

DEADLINE: I’m curious about the symbolism of all the processed junk food and the chandelier of wrappers.

SCHOENBRUN: The junk food in the movie, I forget when it found its way in there. It’s like so much of the movie is about, like I said, ritual, about being in a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary, whether that be Kris [Hannah Einbinder] in bed, with, you know, with Raisinets and the popcorn, watching a schlocky horror movie, or the two characters learning how to be present and enjoy sex after a lot of trauma. There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe. Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, “Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.”

DEADLINE: And one thing I really love—I just feel like it’s a theme in your work—is how it depicts the way media and entertainment influence us. Why does that inspire you? 

SCHOENBRUN: I think it comes from a fascination and sensitivity to the complex relationship between what we think of as fiction and what we think of as reality, which we tend to, as a society, think of as pointing in one direction. Like, reality dictates fiction, not vice-versa, but when you actually look at the way the world works, it’s like one echoes off the other. And I think a complicated, sometimes terrifying and sometimes beautiful way, where the fiction, the cultural norms, the things we grow up looking at on our screens, the roles that we’re told people play, they kind of inspire us to create reality. There’s something liberating when you start thinking in that way. I think it’s a way of thinking that we as a culture, could do a lot more of. To think about the idea of fiction inspiring reality just as much as reality is inspiring fiction, is a potential path to liberating us from this hellscape that they’re telling us is the only way the world can be. 

Gillian Anderson in ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ (2026)

DEADLINE: And I know you have the Secretary reading. Tell me what it’s been like prepping for that and why you all chose that movie. 

SCHOENBRUN: I mean, that was such a huge influence on on Miasma. There just aren’t that many fun and funny movies about deviant sex. And just the way that movie is like feather light while talking about really raw and taboo things, it is just really inspiring to me. And the dynamic between those two main characters is definitely one that had a lot of influence on on Kris and Billy’s [Gillian Anderson] relationship in Miasma. And it’s already to me a very queer movie in its way, but having Gillian reading the James Spader part and Hannah reading the Maggie Gyllenhaal part, I think it’s just gonna be like a very unique joy. Honestly, we’ve been prepping a little bit, but I think it’s just gonna be about getting up there and feeling the chemistry of it all, and just letting these folks who we have all gotten to know each other really, really well, but we haven’t actually done anything wacky and creative like that in a while, like as a reunion, it’s gonna be a real blast, I think.

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