Kim Kardashian ‘set up pap shots & owes her fame to turning up to the opening of envelope’ say The Hills Spencer & Heidi

SPENCER Pratt and Heidi Montag have told The Sun that Kim Kardashian set up paparazzi shots and owes her fame to “turning up to the opening of an envelope” in a bombshell new interview.

The married couple, known as Speidi, shot to fame on trailblazing MTV series The Hills in 2006, laying the blueprint for all reality shows that came afterwards – including Kim’s E! series with her family, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, which launched the following year.

But 37-year-old Spencer downplayed the importance of The Hills in shaping the Kardashians’ huge success during a chat with The Sun, insisting that both she and him took inspiration from socialite Paris Hilton.

Paris and Kim were best friends before finding fame, and Spencer told us that she coupled with Kim’s momager Kris Jenner made the perfect recipe for success.

He explained: “Kim owes it to Paris. Maybe Kim learned a lot from us, and Kim was around us a lot, but I feel like Kris Jenner, even if Speidi didn’t come along, would have had that whole family, rich and famous and successful regardless.”

Heidi, 34, added: “But I do remember a conversation that [Kim’s sister] Kourtney had with my sister and she’s like: ‘What does Heidi do with paparazzi? Scott and I are trying to do the same thing’.

“I think without paparazzi styled like our setups were, and what we would do in the beach bikini photos… Other people will go out to the beach, they wouldn’t set it up and work with the photographer.

“So I do think a lot of that blueprint they emulated, which was very smart and that was kind of the standard that we set for the industry and I feel like people still do that.”

Spencer agreed, adding that the Kardashians would work with a paparazzi agency to ensure that they were pictured at the start of their fame.

He said: “I know for a fact that they copied our paparazzi set-up deal with the same agency we worked with, obviously they won’t say that but I can say that.

“They have the same partnership, they probably had a better end deal but whatever.”

But Heidi heaped praise on Kim’s work ethic, sharing: “They used to say Kim would go to the opening of an envelope, literally she would do multiple events in one night, sober, and know everybody’s name and do everything like she was a machine.

“From the moment I met her, too. So definitely, Kim was going to be successful one way or another.”

Spencer marvelled: “I used to literally say it was either opening an envelope or she’d be at the opening of a drawer.

“I was always thinking like: ‘I gotta hustle’, and I was looking at Kim like: ‘If we worked as hard as Kim…’ and this is before she was even famous!

“She was at events that I felt like we were too good for – now give me a time machine, I would have been anywhere for that red carpet and camera like she did.”

Despite revealing Kim’s secret tactics to catapult herself to fame, Spencer and Heidi hold no judgement or ill feeling towards the Kardashians.

Spencer concluded: “Anyone who is famous has earned it. It’s so hard to be famous is what I’ve learned over 15 years of continually try to be 15 minutes of famous.”

• The Hills: New Beginnings S2 launches tonight at 8pm on MTV