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Al Roker weighs in on Speidi ‘attack’

It started with what should have been an innocent discussion of a reality show and turned into another reality show that could be called “You Call Them Celebrities? Get Them Out of Here!”In the middle of it all is TODAY’s co-host Al Roker, who fired back Tuesday after being attacked by Heidi and Spencer Pratt, better known to celebrityphiles as “Speidi.”Roker never said he’s madder tha
/ Source: TODAY contributor

It started with what should have been an innocent discussion of a reality show and turned into another reality show that could be called “You Call Them Celebrities? Get Them Out of Here!”

In the middle of it all is TODAY’s co-host Al Roker, who fired back Tuesday after being attacked by Heidi and Spencer Pratt, better known to celebrityphiles as “Speidi.”

Roker never said he’s madder than hell, but on Tuesday he made it clear that he isn’t taking any more of it. He seemed particularly amazed that Heidi would accuse him of being hostile to women.

“C’mon. I’ve interviewed hundreds of woman on this program, never had a complaint … They are so unused to people actually asking them a real question that they didn’t know how to handle it,” Roker told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira.

Speidi on TODAY

It all goes back to the Pratts’ short-lived but action-packed tenure on NBC’s reality show “I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!” They quit the show, briefly came back, accused the producers of torturing them, and ultimately left the Costa Rican jungle again — in Heidi’s case, after spending time in a hospital for what turned out to be ulcers.

During their brief stay, Spencer struck another contestant, was baptized by Stephen Baldwin, squabbled with everybody and acted as if he was astonished that anyone would make him the least bit uncomfortable on a reality show whose operating principal is to make people uncomfortable.

After returning to the luxuries of home and recovering, Speidi visited TODAY on Monday to talk about their Costa Rican misadventures with Roker. During the interview, Roker asked Heidi, “Are you proud of all of this?”

“It was a very hard situation,” she said.

Since she didn’t answer the question, Roker repeated it: “Are you proud of this — of the way you guys behaved in this program?”

“I’m not ashamed. I don’t think anything was wrong,” she said.

“Are you proud of it?” Roker tried one more time.

“Uh, sure,” she said.