Paris Hilton Stuff

» Paris Hilton - From Jail Bait to Jail Bird ...
07/07/07 19:35 by Nasanji Parker for SuperModelCalendars.com

Ah, Paris Hilton. Omnipresent, overexposed Paris Hilton. Is there anything about her -- any part of her body -- that all of America is not already all-too-familiar with?

She's the quintessential celebrity of the 21st century, famous just for being famous. She's not known for being a singer, actress, model, designer, author, or entrepreneur, though she is all of those things. She's known just for being ... well, Paris Hilton.

She was born in 1981 in New York City, heiress to the Hilton hotel fortune. (Her great-grandfather was the company's founder.) As such, she has always led a privileged life of outrageous luxury. Her early years were divided between the family's homes in -- where else? -- Beverly Hills and the Hamptons.

So how did she become famous? After all, there are plenty of rich, vaguely attractive people in America, and most of them aren't on the front page of the tabloids every week. What did Paris do to become such a well-known figure?

It could have been her modeling career, which she began professionally at age 19 (she signed with Donald Trump's company, of course). It could have been her frequent appearances in the New York social scene, where she showed up regularly at swanky events and parties and quickly became a fixture of the New York newspapers' society pages.

But no, the real reason Paris Hilton became famous is that she was filmed having sex.

One Night in Paris, as it later came to be called, hit the Internet in 2003, suspiciously close to the debut of Paris' reality TV series The Simple Life. Between the sex tape and the TV show, Paris was now a permanent fixture in the pantheon of American celebrities. And almost instantly, many people hated her for her haughtiness, her dumb-blonde persona, and her wealth.

Since then, she's done several more seasons of The Simple Life, appeared in a few films (notably House of Wax, where audiences were delighted to see her murdered), and even released an album. She co-wrote a book in 2004, has designed jewelry, purses, and perfumes, and opened a chain of nightclubs.

She went to jail in 2007 for driving with a license that had been suspended after a previous drunk-driving incident. America was gripped with &qout;Ha-ha!&qout; fever, pointing and laughing at the shallow, skanky, dim-witted rich girl they'd despised for so long. Media coverage was hilariously intense and over-done.

But consider this. Paris Hilton was born a multi-millionaire and will always be one. She could have spent her life doing absolutely nothing. Instead, she takes on all these business ventures and creative projects, earning (according to Forbes Magazine) about $6 million a year on her own. Granted, a lot of these projects are vain and foolish, and she may be only tangentially involved in actually &qout;designing&qout; anything. But the fact remains, she works as an entrepreneur, and she gets paid for it. If you were a multi-millionaire and had the option of doing nothing or going out and working hard, what would you do? There might be more to Paris after all.