Lost in showbiz Prat begets Pratt Taylor Swift Ticketing bad blood Thriller The inside story Peter Bradshaw God’s Own Country verdict JamesJames MMurphyurphy onon 7 LCDLCD SoundsysteSoundsystem’sm’s stunningstunning rreturneturn Friday 01.09.17 Friday 12A Lost in Showbiz Is the world ready for Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag’s baby: the fi rst unborn social media superstar? By Peter Robinson hat’s that sound? That Spencer’s scandals; they have sold fake stories tar on the block. But he also found time faint but distinctive proposed about their relationship to the media, to discuss imminent fatherhood. W jangle of loose change, and used reality TV to top up their fame Spencer and Heidi’s son, according combined with distant parenting ever since. It’s a tough job, but some- to Spencer, will be “me times a thou- mooing? It’s impos- style in body has to do it, except nobody really sand. This kid will have an iPhone at sible to say. Anyway, warmest con- has to do it and this pair do it anyway. birth.” Continuing on the podcast, he gratulations to indefatigable reality-TV a word? Back in 2014, parenthood not yet on unleashed a stream of cobblers whose power couple Heidi Montag and Spen- ‘Intense!’ the cards, Pratt was quoted as saying: Snapchat-referencing horror begins cer Pratt, who are eagerly awaiting the “I wouldn’t want to be Spencer Pratt’s badly, quickly takes a turn for the worse, birth of their son – and they have high kid … I don’t want to have my kid hav- plummets downhill, then somehow hopes for this particular Speidi reboot. ing to Google his parents and be like: ramps up its awfulness with each sen- For those oblivious to the tale of ‘Oh my God!’” With a Spencer Pratt’s tence, before exploding in a crescendo Pratt and Montag’s pincer-style attack kid on the way, “Oh my God” is still of grimness. In their own way, these fi ve on the lower end of celebrity (after all, very much the operative phrase. This sentences can be read as a devastatingly it has been four long years since Speidi: week, Spencer took part in a podcast stark form of poetry, and if you thought Scandal, Secrets & Surgery! aired on interview during which, among other Philip Larkin had cornered the market Channel 5), they sank to fame in MTV’s things, he described the sad tale of his for parental warnings in that form, reality show The Hills , and married in hummingbird, Alan, being attacked by here’s a lesson not to underestimate the 2009. Along the way, there have been a rat. Spencer now has 100 humming- spectacle of Spencer Pratt. weak pop singles and weaker sex-tape birds and, he claims, the freshest nec- This Be the Worst by Spencer Pratt I’m gonna teach this kid How to Snap when they’re born. “Put your fi nger here.” You walk around, Everybody’s making their own content All day long. We live in a new world Unfriend Where everyone’s a fame whore, So I’m happy to let him be an advanced level. I would just like my baby To be a professional content maker. Of course it doesn’t end there. How could it? Spencer discusses the diffi culty of naming a child in the social era. “We had to ditch a couple of names,” he states at one point. Too commonplace, perhaps? Too obscure, even? Not exactly. Brace yourself for the fi rst celebrity child with an underscore in their name: Pratt and Montag are not going to settle on the child’s name “until we have all the social media sites”. Pratt hands on misery to Pratt. At birth, Son of Pratt will achieve what so many parents truly wish for their children: the status of advanced-level fame whore. There will be no pivot to video for this gurgling cherub: 2 The Guardian 01.09.17 On the web Participate in these important debates theguardian.com/lostinshowbiz the #engaging omnipresence of aug- if released into the yard. “They were mented-reality bunny ears will be all wrong,” Spencer explains. “Alan stayed he has ever known. He may have no and hung out with me.” Future Spencer choice in the matter, but at the same may do well to cherish that memory time, who would really choose not to of something not fl ying the nest at the be famous? Well yes, 87% of all people fi rst opportunity. who have ever been famous, but that’s not the point. Spencer’s vicarious ambitions are manifold. His son, he imagines, is “go- Should the Pratchett ing to be a player” and there is already steamroller be put romance in the air, with reality star Kristin Cavallari’s daughter Saylor, who to use on Bromans? will be two years old in November. “I’m personally gonna be targeting Kristin Cavallari’s hundred million-plus daugh- ter for my son,” is how Spencer beauti- fully puts it. As for Spencer’s proposed In a week where up increasingly seems parenting style, in a word? “Intense!” like down and purple is apparently This is no silly whim: Pratt merely orange (with Prince’s sister having hopes to make up for his own misfor- made an incendiary claim regarding tune. “My dad was so chilled that he the singer’s real favourite colour ), didn’t prepare me for how hard you there is something reassuring about can fuck up,” Spencer reasons, and the sight of a crushed hard drive. To while that may seem like textbook be more specifi c, the sight of a hard dad-blaming, what you really need drive once housed in Terry Pratchett’s to understand here is that Spencer computer and thought to contain up to mation of Nicole Scherzinger. But could Pratt’s father, a dentist, was wrong and 10 unfi nished novels, being annihilated ITV2’s new eff ort Bromans – “Eight irresponsible to ignore such famous fi rst by a steamroller and then by a 21st-century lads transported back to parenting tomes as Dr Spock’s How concrete crusher , in accordance with the Roman empire to see if they can cut to Bring Up Your Child So They Don’t the late author’s wishes. We were it as gladiators” – be a good test case? End Up Threatening to Leak a Sex Tape left with the author’s fi nal, perhaps In the name of managed expecta- Then Faking a Divorce for Publicity. greatest, creative statement: that there tions, please understand that ITV2 has Spencer Pratt will right those wrongs. should be no room in this world for not spent its Love Island ad revenue He will break the cycle. He will tell his Speidi evolved … substandard art. perfecting the art of time travel. This older son, he says: “Look kid, if you do the couple With news of ITV’s autumn sched- show is pretend. It’s also, necessarily, this, you’re fucked.” emerge from the ules dropping on the same day, it feels tongue in cheek. This primetime “mod- This is a kid who will absolutely Celebrity Big like a waste of a good six-and-a-half ern geezers in the time of Caesar” romp not already have been “fucked” by Brother house; tonne steamroller for such destruction was described by executive producer being dragged into the spotlight before and (above, right) to be restricted to the creative works Ben Kelly using the following words: he even had a name, so it seems like Modina and Kai of the deceased. It may prove futile to “The Romans gave us roads, viaducts a bulletproof plan. Just one question from ITV2’s attempt to eradicate season 76 of The X and basic sanitation but Bromans may remains for this man who has less Bromans Factor: it feels as if this curiously resil- prove to be their greatest legacy.” Fair respect for his future son than he iientent ssinginginging concontesttes will outlast us all, enough, but let us turn this on its head: KEVIN WINTER/GETTY does for his pet hummingbirds. WWhathat tthehe onlonlyy hint ofof humanhu life 1,000 years let’s mix it with Pratchett’s own great- did happen to Alan, the fl ap-happyy ffromrom now consistingconsist of a defi brillated est legacy, and tune in on launch night BARCOFT IMAGES vertebrate who came beak-to-nosee ppainter-decoratorainter-decorator singing Maroon 5 to watch TV executives competing to with that rogue rat? Well, when in a bombed-outb confer- prevent the destruction of tapes con- the wildlife-rescue team returnedd eence room for the taining Bromans’ fi rst series. Then we him, they advised Spencer that benefi t of an ani- will see how much they really believe COVER PHOTOGRAPH COVER PHOTOGRAPH Alan would probably fl y away matronic approxi- in what they’re selling. 01.09.17 The Guardian 3 Hi Noomi. In Unlocked , you play a Speaking of transforming the way you tough-as-nails spy tasked with 30 minutes with ... look, you play a set of septuplets, in preventing a terrorist attack. But the recent Netfl ix release What Happened role was initially written for a man, Noomi Rapace to Monday. How did you do that? wasn’t it? It was the hardest thing I’ve ever Yeah, they kind of rewrote the script The Girl With the Dragon done: a very long shoot , technically, for me. I wanted her to be a real extremely diffi cult.