Would Sabrina Carpenter Feel Safer In Spencer Pratt's Los Angeles?

On May 23, Sabrina Carpenter’s stalker breached the security fencing around her home in the Hollywood Hills. William Applegate, a 31-year-old sporting a loose-fitting T-shirt and unkempt hair, had cased her home several times in the preceding month before reaching the property’s front door and pounding on it, forcibly attempting to enter.

He was interrupted by Carpenter’s private security in what would become a nauseating pattern. Applegate returned twice more just hours after being released from custody, in what the pop star described as a “deliberate, calculated, and aggressive” attempt to threaten her physical safety.

“His pattern of stalking, trespassing, and surveillance has caused me severe and ongoing emotional distress,” Carpenter wrote in court documents. “I am in fear of what he may do if he is not restrained by this Court.”

This, unfortunately, is no longer an uncommon occurrence in the City of Angels, which has been plagued by crime and not-so-natural disaster in recent memory. Its violent crime rate remains more than double the national average, and high-profile home invasions, burglaries, and stalking incidents have become familiar headlines for average residents and celebrities alike.

Its violent crime rate remains more than double the national average, and high-profile home invasions, burglaries, and stalking incidents have become familiar headlines for average residents and celebrities alike.

For many Angelenos, safety increasingly feels like a luxury reserved for those who can afford gated properties, surveillance systems, and private security details. Unless, like Carpenter, you have someone standing between you and a stalker at your front door, you're largely left to fend for yourself.

At the same time, Los Angeles County continues to account for a significant share of California’s homelessness crisis, with more than 75,000 people experiencing homelessness in the county’s most recent point-in-time count. Skid Row remains one of the most concentrated unhoused communities in the United States. Encampments, public drug use, rampant animal abuse, and mental health crises have placed sustained pressure on city services and reshaped daily life downtown.

And then came the fires. The January 2025 storms that swept through Los Angeles County burned more than 50,000 acres and destroyed over 16,000 homes and businesses, making them among the most destructive disasters in California history. Economic losses were estimated to be between $76 to $131 billion. Entire neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades and Altadena were reduced to ash.

Just months earlier, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass had approved a budget that reduced the Fire Department’s operating budget by roughly $17.6 million. Questions also emerged about water infrastructure after it was revealed that the Santa Ynez Reservoir, a 117-million-gallon reservoir serving the Pacific Palisades area, had been out of service for months due to maintenance issues. As the fires tore through her city, Bass was on a trip to Ghana despite warnings from the city’s Emergency Management Department.

“Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning, and do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars, Madam Mayor?” Sky News reporter David Blevins asked as Bass stood at the base of the jet bridge. “Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today?”

She stood stone-faced before being ushered away by aides.

Enter reality television star Spencer Pratt. One year to the day that his house lay smoldering on the Chautauqua rim, he announced his unlikely candidacy for mayor. 

The odds were laughable. Pratt was a former reality television villain best known for The Hills, a registered Republican running in a city that has not elected a Republican mayor since 1997, with no governing experience, no traditional political organization, and a reputation built on celebrity feuds, crystals, and tabloid headlines. Even sympathetic observers described his campaign as "patently absurd." 

Yet by late May, CNN data analyst Harry Enten was reporting that Pratt's chances were "up like a rocket," giving him roughly a 27 percent chance of winning and calling him a candidate with a "realistic shot."

Pratt's campaign centered on a simple argument: Los Angeles residents were living with the consequences of failed leadership while city elites remained insulated from them. He spoke refreshingly about issues of public safety, homelessness, government accountability, and what he described as fairness for women and families. 

"Enough is enough," became a frequent refrain on the campaign trail as he highlighted crime, encampments, and the city's response to the Palisades fire. His campaign began attracting serious attention after a surprisingly strong performance in the May 6 mayoral debate. 

"I think that he surprised people in his ability to come up with solutions," Republican strategist Matt Klink told the Los Angeles Times. His team made pithy viral campaign videos amplifying his message, including one that amassed more than 13 million views, while Pratt argued that ordinary Angelenos were being ignored by leaders who "don't have to live in the mess they've created." One such video takes you through the trailer on his property where his home once was while singing Sabrina Carpenter’s House Tour.

Pratt even peeled off a slice of Hollywood for himself. Katharine McPhee and her husband, producer David Foster, threw him a fundraiser at their Brentwood Park home, where McPhee reworked Tina Turner's "The Best" in his honor—"Better than Karen Bass and Nithya Raman." Paris Hilton, Dennis Quaid, Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, and his former "Hills" co-star Kristin Cavallari, who called the campaign "f---ing genius," all lent their names. Pratt went further, claiming Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx had pulled him aside to whisper their support—"Please, Mr. Mayor, we want these streets safe again"—though DiCaprio's representatives denied it, saying he had not endorsed any candidate.

What had started as an anger-fueled pipe dream had become a serious political operation. On Election Day, early in-person counts positioned him in second place, well ahead of socialist City Councilmember Nithya Raman. 

But, as vote-by-mail ballots trickled in over the following days, Raman's numbers steadily climbed. The gap narrowed, then vanished, then reversed. By week's end, Pratt had fallen from second place to third, missing the runoff entirely. Raman ultimately secured approximately 28.5 percent of the vote to Pratt's 25.8 percent, propelled by the same late-arriving ballots that have become a defining feature of modern California politics.

When it comes to stalkers and unsafe streets, LA’s Hollywood contingent might say they “swear they choose me, I’m not choosing them,” as Sabrina Carpenter puts it in her hit Manchild, but the city’s election results and demographic breakdown beg to differ. The industry once again placed its bet on the candidates of the city’s progressive establishment. 

When it comes to stalkers and unsafe streets, LA’s Hollywood contingent might say they “swear they choose me, I’m not choosing them,” as Sabrina Carpenter puts it in her hit Manchild, but the city’s election results and demographic breakdown beg to differ.

Though few publicly supported Pratt, Raman’s campaign was fueled in large part by Hollywood's creative elite, drawing contributions from writers, producers, television executives, and celebrities, including Saturday Night Live's Colin Jost, while reporting showed that much of her early fundraising came from the entertainment industry. 

Together with Karen Bass’s labor unions, industry PACs, and long-standing democratic political organizations, the candidates amassed millions in support from the very institutions that have mis-shapen Los Angeles for decades. Is it bad judgment, bad taste? Are they really satisfied with the status quo? 

Or is it faith that the same governing class can solve problems that emerged under its watch?