Spencer Pratt Criticizes Ben Affleck’s “Suffering as Cure” Addiction Philosophy

Spencer Pratt took aim at Ben Affleck on Monday over remarks the actor made during a 2021 Howard Stern radio appearance concerning addiction recovery. In the resurfaced interview, the 53-year-old Affleck, who has battled alcoholism publicly for years, stated that “the cure for addiction is suffering,” dismissing what he characterized as expensive rehabilitation facilities and other purported remedies.

Affleck elaborated that individuals must endure enough hardship before experiencing an internal shift toward sobriety. He credited hitting personal rock bottom—specifically when his actions began harming his relationship with his three children—as the turning point in his own recovery, saying he has abstained from alcohol since that realization.

Pratt, 42, reposted the clip with a sharp rebuke, suggesting that Affleck visit Los Angeles’s Skid Row and present his theory to individuals struggling with severe methamphetamine addiction. The former Hills cast member questioned whether mere suffering alone accounts for the persistence of addiction across the city’s homeless population.

Pratt, who lost his home in the January 2025 Palisades Fire, launched a mayoral campaign centered on combating LA’s homelessness and addiction crises. Throughout his bid, he advocated for involuntary treatment under California’s expanded conservatorship law and proposed establishing large rehabilitation facilities on federal land rather than expanding housing initiatives.

Affleck first entered treatment for alcohol addiction in 2001 and has undergone additional rehabilitation stays in 2017 and 2018. He has previously attributed his commitment to sobriety partly to his childhood experience with an alcoholic father and his desire to provide his children—Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel, 14, whom he shares with ex-wife Jennifer Garner—with a different family dynamic.