Celebrity Gossip

Thanks largely to constant reports on Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton, the year to date ratings for ‘Showbiz Tonight’ are up a whopping 64% over the same period in 2006, which CNN Headline News says is the most growth of ANY cable new

Paris Hilton has been flaunting her new grown-up image during a promotional trip to Berlin, Germany. “I changed all the light bulbs to energy-safe light bulbs and I’m buying a hybrid car right now,” the 26-year-old celebrity heiress said on Wednesday

AP - Paris Hilton is making a personal contribution to protecting the environment.

Barbara Walters tells Reuters why she didn’t include Britney Spears or Paris Hilton in her ‘The 10 Most Fascinating People’ special which aired on Thursday, but instead focused on other topics. “I am not going after the tabloid stuff, I don’t do it,”

Paris HiltonParis Hilton is one of America’s most famous women today.  She is most well known for her frequent appearances on television, including shows of her own such as Fox’s hit reality series ‘The Simple Life‘, and for her reputation as a partier.  An actor, model, singer and heiress to the Hilton Hotel fortune, Paris Hilton has become a household name throughout America.

Parish Whitney Hilton was born on February 17, 1981 in New York City to Richard and Kathy Hilton.  She is the oldest of four children, next in line being her younger sister Nicky, followed by her brothers Barron and Conrad.

Paris Hilton grew up living in a few different affluent homes, including one in the Hamptons, one in Beverley Hills, and a suite in Manhattan’s Waldorf-Asotria Hotel.  She attended a high school in New York but eventually dropped out, going on to earn her GED instead.  Opting not to go on to college, Paris instead began working as a fashion model for Catherine Maladrino and Marc Bouer in an advertising campaign for an Italian label.  She also had several brief appearances in movies, such as Zoolander and The Cat in the Hat.

Though already a well-known name, it was a sex video staring her and her friend Rick Salomon that really began Paris’s rise to the celebrity status she holds today.  The video leaked out onto the Internet and Paris Hilton’s fame skyrocketed.  Salomon went on to release the video on DVD, only to be sued by Paris shortly thereafter.  The suit was resolved with Paris receiving a substantial cash settlement and a portion of the DVD’s profits.  

Her newly found fame landed her a number of supporting parts in movies, commercials, and television shows including the aforementioned ‘The Simple Life’ series shown on Fox.  Her fame has also found her rising criticism, and she was even negatively parodied on a ‘South Park’ episode.  Her status as a celebrity and her effect as a role model for American girls is an almost controversial issue all on its own; she is widely discussed on tabloids and in magazines, and more than likely will be for some time to come.

In spite of criticism, or perhaps because of it, Paris Hilton is a popular icon in America today.  She has her own line of jewelry, her own record label, and is releasing her first album shortly.  Now styling herself as an entrepreneur, only time will tell if her business ventures meet with as much success as her acting and modeling career has.

Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie

Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie take quite a bit of criticism, but if we think about it, maybe they more than likely are smarter, better PR planners, and better humored than we give them credit for.

Paris Hilton is rich, appalling rich.  So rich she can dress her dog in jewels we could live a year on were we to hawk them.  So rich she can draw the disgust of viewers worldwide, keeping them hooked to her spending habits alone.

Paris Hilton is also beautiful.  If you analyze her latest ad for Paris Hilton cologne, for instance, and if you forgivingly skip over her eyes being too close together and her head being a tad misshapen—according to the socio-anthropologists who identify the most mateable characteristics are found in symmetry and the like—you will note her lithe length and powder-silk skin, combined with her fantastic choice of dress (a powder blue tango-style number) most appealing.

Nicole Richie is also wealthy, having before her the legacy of a legendary (adoptive) father, Lionel Richie, of Commodores longstanding fame and having her own resources, such as being spokesperson for Bongo Jeans and appearing on such popular shows as Mad TV.

Nicole Richie is also gorgeous: she can appear alabaster pristine or with an Egyptian sheen.  She walks in confidence, tilting and swishing where necessary, and she has eyes that can penetrate or playfully tease, depending upon her mood—and mindset (which is, again, quite sharp).

She also has knowing eyes.  Smart-alecky and rebellious, Richie reveals with her visage an impish, tongue-in-cheek attitude and a trouble-making approach.  Nicole Richie is seemingly the more dimensional personality, the instigator, the attendant to the wit.

Maybe the two are simply spoiled brats with way too much money and time to play with that money, but more, there is some seeming understanding that giving people what they don’t know they want is the key to staying sane and alive in the belly of the beast that is Hollywood. 

The series, “The Simple Life,” exposed this notion, when the two socialites are sent across country (in vehicles they can’t operate well or on buses they have no business needing to ride) to live temporarily with excited but unsuspecting families and to work for simple, undeserving of their antics employers.

The brats tore up meat-packing plants, destroyed bakeries, crashed car wash customers’ cars, spent farmer’s finances on small-town grocery store knick knacks, and flirted their way in and out of men’s—and women’s—lives.  They made eyes at virgin boys, rolled eyes at honest jobs, and showed that devil-may-care in their eyes when scampishness offered more fun than stuffing sausages or swilling pigs.

Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie were filmed falling off horses, fu—ing up french fries, and fussing with family values.  They punked out little kid’s hair, turned out little girls’ wardrobes, and pranked on the most withdrawn, anal retentive, and religious of sorts.  And because the premise of the show required they have none of their usual funds, all along the way they flirted men at gas stations out of money, men at fast food restaurants out of dough, men on the streets out of cash.

Their beauty and status worked in their favor, and they knew it.  They had to.  But their humanity came through all the foibles and furs, too.  At the end of a stay at a family’s ranch, Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton would send the neglected wife and stifled husband out and set up a romantic affair of roses and candles and poetry and wine.  They would feign illness so a family would go on an outing without them, and when the family returned would share their having turned a walk-in closet into a boys bedroom for the little one who had been sleeping on the floor in the hall.

And at the series finale, live on a set/stage in Hollywood, Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton would reunite with a favorite (and especially abused) family, one who, for example, had had their truck beat on and temporarily stolen and made fun of by the better-thans.  And they would set up a “we have a token of appreciation” for you scenario, presenting the needful family with a brand new truck.

Evidently, the “cast” of “The Simple Life” tore up towns along the way.  They tear up towns across the globe, too.  And while we bitch or laugh about their seemingly addle-brained antics, I suspect they knowingly look at each other, nod, and take the proceeds on a simple four- or five-thousand dollar lunchtime shopping spree for a few dozen pairs of shoes.