Heidi Montag is hinting that a duet with Britney Spears was scrapped during the early days of her pop career.
“It’s too messy to get into, but it’s a whole thing,” she teases on Page Six’s “Virtual Reali-Tea” podcast while promoting her partnership with Hydroxycut.
Spears, 42, recorded a song called “Dramatic” for her critically acclaimed fifth studio album, “Blackout.” But the track — produced by Damon Elliott (Beyoncé, Jessica Simpson, Mýa) — was not included on the final cut of the LP, released in October 2007.
In March 2008, though, a version of “Dramatic” with both Spears and Montag’s vocals was sent to Ryan Seacrest, who premiered it on his radio show.
The sexy single — shimmering with pulsating synths and provocative lyrics — never got an official release. The Grammy-winning superstar’s then-label, Jive Records, went so far as to assert in a statement at the time, “This was never a planned song or duet in any way.”
Fifteen years later, Montag suggests there is more to the story.
“Yeah, it’s a whole interesting story. And [my husband] Spencer [Pratt] just brought that up to me the other day. He was like, ‘Maybe we just put out “Dramatic” without Britney in it and you record those parts,’” she says.
“I didn’t ever fully record the song myself.”
Montag — who eventually dropped a full-length album, titled “Superficial,” in January 2010 — did, however, record the Lady Gaga-penned song “Fashion” by herself.
But, as she recalls on “Virtual Reali-Tea,” Mother Monster, now 37, snatched the track back for herself once it was chosen for 2009’s “Confessions of a Shopaholic” soundtrack.
“This was supposed to be one of my main songs. Then I recorded it and RedOne put out a statement of how great it was and how great he thought it was,” she says of the producer and frequent Gaga collaborator, whose real name is Nadir Khayat.
“And [Gaga] lost it and freaked out,” Montag claims, “and RedOne had to put out [another] statement of, like, ‘Oh, I take it back,’ after he got, like, yelled at by Gaga.”
The “Hills” alum — who recorded music while filming the hit MTV reality show that catapulted her to fame in the mid-2000s — admits she “wasn’t there” when Gaga reclaimed “Fashion,” but has a theory about how it went down.
“That was my song. And then ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ came because they heard me [on] it and wanted … the song. And I think what happened … she was like, ‘No, that’s my song. I’ll record it,’” she surmises.
One song Montag never had the chance to cut was Hilary Duff’s “Reach Out,” the lead single from the former’s 2008 “Best Of” compilation album.
“Hilary Duff was just bigger and she was a singer and had the track record and definitely had the priority. So once I wanted it, the A&R were like, ‘Sorry, Hilary’s people just took it,’” she says. “I was like, ‘OK, well, sure. No problem.’”
Instead, Montag was given “Body Language” — an earworm with sparkling production and a “very expensive” sample from Yaz’s 1982 hit “Situation” that her then-distributor, Warner Music, paid for, she notes.
“I think I would rather have ‘Body Language,’” she says of the song, which she performed live at the 2009 Miss Universe pageant. “I thought that was better. I actually love ‘Body Language’ more [than ‘Reach Out’], so I’m not mad about it.”
Montag is also not mad about the resurgence her album, “Superficial,” has seen in 2023. Creating the body of work from 2007 to 2009 drained $2 million from her and Pratt’s combined wealth, but they’re finally making a return on the investment today with the recent viral boom of its standout single “I’ll Do It.”
Thanks to TikTok, the dance-pop track co-penned by Stacy Barthe (Spears, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry) has racked up more than 34 million streams on Spotify and brought more than a million monthly listeners to Montag’s artist page.
“I love music, I love pop, it’s always been the biggest dream of mine,” the “Speidi’s 16th Minute” podcast co-host says. “So to see if have such success has been the biggest blessing.”
It’s inspired Montag to unleash more music from her “Superficial” vault, including “Bad Boy” which hit streaming platforms last week.
“I love ‘Bad Boy.’ It was one of my favorite songs. With the rebirth of ‘Superficial,’ basically, and ‘I’ll Do It’ becoming so internationally trendy, [we were] like, ‘OK, let’s just bring some things out of the vault,’” she says.
“There are a few more in the vault coming out and we’ll see where it goes from there.”
