"People love feuds," says Spencer, taking a chomp of quesadilla. "Who were Paris and Nicole before they weren't friends? That's when they became superstars. If Lauren and Heidi were friends, people wouldn't tune in."

Every rivalry needs its black hat, however, and Heidi, through Spencer, has eagerly, and perhaps too ingeniously, complied. The pair now operate, sometimes to the dismay of MTV handlers, like a MySpace edition of Bonnie and Clyde — courting reporters, vacuuming paparazzi attention, and deflecting Hills hype to outside projects like Heidi's Heidiwood clothing line and her would-be music career, not to mention her new nose and breasts ("It was the right thing for my life," she says unabashedly). This winter, a homemade video Spencer shot of Heidi prancing on a beach to her dance single "Higher," groundbreaking only in its lack of self-awareness, quickly got more than 1 million Web hits. The pair engender eye-scorching animosity on the Internet, but in their minds, at least we're paying attention. "Good girls are so vanilla," Heidi says. Spencer is routinely referred to as "the most hated man on television" — but he wears the title like a badge ("Who is that person they always compare me to, on Dallas?" he asks).

"It's jealousy, man," Spencer says. "It's human. I'm jealous of Jay-Z, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch. I feel for these people who wish they could be on reality television and not in their cubicles. You got to thank your haters."

"You have to understand, we have so many fans," Heidi says. "The haters are the ones who ask us for photos. The haters are the ones who are downloading songs." She looks out at the restaurant, which is packed. Don Antonio's has always been a popular joint, but since she and Spencer started eating here on The Hills, it's getting crazy, she says. "The world works on haters now."