The 'Speidi' Chronicles

Viewers loved to hate him for it, as Min saw. What those people didn't see in Season 2 and still don't see as Season 3 closes, Spencer said, was him falling in love with Heidi. "I was -- and am -- so in love with Heidi, and that stuff stops mattering. Our real world is right here." He gestured at the space between them.

The show only became more popular, and got more attention for all of its stars. And when Heidi and Lauren's friendship ended -- over allegations about a sex tape that has been covered seemingly as ceaselessly as the coming presidential election -- the feuding spun pageview-gold for Us' online business. Min said: "The number of comments, the amount of traffic generated -- it was pretty huge for us. That's when I thought, 'You know what? Let's just take a risk on these people.' "

Spencer said, "We were all of a sudden in pages next to Brad and Angelina and TomKat."

Maintaining that position is of paramount importance, so they bend over backward to accommodate. "Janice Min at Us Weekly is like a family member to us," Spencer said. "We love her. If my mom and her are e-mailing me at the same time, I'm like, 'Uh, Janice or my mom?' "

Their accessibility coupled with their ambition will lead, they hope, to opportunities for Heidi's music. Heidi said, "I want to be as big as Britney Spears and Madonna." There are also future television possibilities -- such as their own rumored MTV series -- as well as their current financial bread and butter: bookings for club appearances. According to Spencer, they "make up to $50,000 for two hours in club appearances -- each."

To ensure their place, they pose [see accompanying story]. "We have done story after story poking fun at them, and in some cases just trashing them for their ridiculously staged conduct," Levin said. And yet, he ran into them recently "and they hugged me!"

They do embrace the haters, which, from experience, Hilton sees as a key part of their strategy. "At the end of the day -- and I think this is part of their appeal -- Heidi and Spencer love being famous."

The criticism of Paris Hilton was once that she was famous for doing nothing, which, though it was never actually true, had a certain sting. But what Heidi and Spencer do -- and there are others with their kind of fame, such as E! celebutante Kim Kardashian -- can't possibly be called nothing, since using reality television as a starting point is now so entrenched. Not to mention competitive -- in their view, generating the material, on "The Hills" and in the real world, is the hardest work of all.