Spencer Pratt: `Heidi and I tried to buy fame`

The former Hills star previously revealed that he staged a divorce from Montag in a bid to keep her career going. He said their decision to live beyond their means has left them in serious debt.

'We felt the fleetingness of 15 minutes of fame so we were trying to buy fame,' he told The Insider.

'I know it's the dumbest thing ever spending money on things. But it's like, if we didn't, we wouldn't have got this [interview], or we wouldn't have got this picture in the [Life & Style] magazine, and then we wouldn't be famous at all, and that's the only thing we had going for us at the time.'

He also confessed that when MTV decided to axe The Hills earlier this year, he had no back-up plan in place.

'For me to think I was going to be famous and continue at that level of income on a steady basis, was... naive, egotistical, and just foolish... I can't have a long-range plan because I'm so hated I don't see anywhere I could go.'

The couple are believed to have squandered $10 million and are now on the verge of bankruptcy.