Getting Yelled at By Celebrities at Sundance Stardust Memories
Part 4 The Final Chapter: Paris Hilton
Previously: James Gandolfini, David Boreanaz and Pierce Brosnan
In the fourth and final chapter of this saga, I once again am not literally yelled at. Instead I face a form of yelling; an inaudible yell that came from an ancient place inside the rotting soul of a celebutante.
As mentioned in the previous episode, I spent my time at Sundance one year using the MySpace Cafe as a sort of headquarters for my interviewing. The free-for-celebrities cafe drew a near constant stream of the famous and near famous wanting to be near other celebrities drawn by the free hamburgers and rare treat of getting to be at a simple diner behind a velvet rope.
The MySpace folks were kind enough to let me work out of there for the week, so when they asked if I would mind interviewing MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolf about his new global initiative/charity thing, I was happy to sit down with him. The charity was some plan to rebrand MySpace - then at its height - not as a place for perverts to stalk ill advised, under-clothed young women but as a hub for giving back, getting involved; a place where people would come to find a community of like-minded openhearted souls who were looking for ways to help the Earth and its downtrodden. One of those. History has of course shown how successful that rebranding effort was for MySpace, but anyhow, towards the end of a lunch hour, I was summoned over to speak to Chris DeWolf and approached his table.
Just as I was inches away from sitting down however - in my memory my hand is actually outstretched to greet him - the front door blew open and in sauntered Herself, Miss Paris Hilton who walked right in front of me to DeWolf’s table and plopped down next to him. DeWolf turned his attention to his friend and the publicist assured me it would just be a few minutes, if I could just hang on, pretty please.
It should be noted at this point, Paris was at the very height of whatever that particular mountain she climbed was. The height of her stardom? Success? Fame? Some combination of those. The cafe was filled all day long with a pretty dazzling line of stars, but when Paris walked in at that moment, everyone stopped. The whole room instantly revolved around her. With her smirky brazen idiocy, she somehow made the world dance to her tune. I saw this later in the week where nightclubs and parties going at 70 mph would screech to a stop when she walked in…walked in and did, absolutely nothing. Whatever one might say about her, on the basis of no skills, no grace, no real sexiness she marshaled an unbelievable power over humanity.
So Paris and Chris DeWolf sat talking, and I perched on a stool at the end of their booth, waiting for the interview, pretty much in both of their faces. And I waited and waited while they talked. Other than rebranding himself as the savoir of the planet, DeWolf to all appearances was one of the most committed party boys one could find at a festival filled with extremely committed party boys. He sauntered around in a floor length fur coat and had this expression in his eyes that went beyond bleary; he had the look of one whose excesses the night before had actually broken something inside him, something that was never going to be fixed.
I waited and waited and glared, and shifted and waited. I would have left far earlier into this but as I say, I felt grateful to the place for letting me work there all week so I didn’t want to be rude and storm out just because he was making me watch him talk to Paris Hilton for an hour. 90 minutes passed and they both managed to pretend they didn’t see me sitting at the end of their booth glaring impatiently at them and finally Paris got up and in a grand sweep departed, carrying the hopes and dreams of the MySpace Cafe with her.
Completely flummoxed by this point, in disbelief that I had spent 90 minutes waiting for Paris Hilton to traipse away, my manners and gratitude failed me when I sat down with DeWolfe. I couldn’t shut myself up and even knowing we were sitting down so he could tell me what a great humanitarian he was, the first question that came out of my mouth was: “Can you just tell me, what could you possibly talk to Paris Hilton about for ninety minutes?”
It’s hard with eyes as bleary as DeWolfe’s to express rage and complete and utter disgust. But he pulled it off. The grayish skin turned red. The sleepy eyes bulged and for a good long few moments I wondered if he was going to strangle me. Finally he answered, “The same thing I talk to all my friends about.”
The top five most obvious answers to that raced into my head, but fearing for my life, I commanded my tongue and duly changed the subject so we could settle down for an awkward and uncomfortable interview about how he was saving the planet.
That night, I was with my friend and colleague, journalist Chris Lee, standing and chatting in front of one of the nightclubs that had been set up outside of town, when a car pulled up and out plummeted Paris Hilton. Walking with all the swagger that can be mustered when you are walking through a foot of snow in high heels while completely inebriated she made a bee line straight for the two of us. We looked at each other in shock. Was Paris coming to talk to us? Had it been anyone else, I might have thought she was coming to apologize for tying up DeWolfe that afternoon, but I knew in this case, that was not possible. Stumbling across the snow she continued to chart a path straight for us and we braced ourselves for whatever impact was in store. But then instead of stopping, she barreled directly through the 18 inches of space between us. In the middle of an open lot, walking straight in the middle of our conversation without ever once looking at us or acknowledging that we were standing right there, where she was walking, admirably sending us the message of our non-existence.
Outside the club, there was a little snow covered hill set up as a tobogan run, which people slid down in inner tubes. In high heels and mini-skirt, Paris climbed to the top of the hill and seated herself in a tube, feet hanging over the side as one might if you were riding a tube down a river. She slid down the hill, screaming all the way and the tube came to a rest about three feet from where Chris and I were standing. Paris lay in the tube, giggling, and looked right directly through us. But neither of us were prepared for what came next. This it should be noted was the era of the Paris-Britney-LiLo famed upskirt photos, where they would be shot getting out of limos revealing their lack of undergarments. It was much speculated upon in those innocent times whether these poses were accidental or not.
Well, after laying back on the inner tube at our feet giggling to herself and looking through us for about 30 seconds, Paris made a creative choice. All of a sudden, her legs were thrust dramatically akimbo, revealing as she had famously in the past, that she lived a life that transcended undergarments. And all the while, her smirk fixed on her face, she still managed to look directly through us, making it clear with this statement that on no level when we were in the famed Miss Hilton’s presence, were we to think of ourselves as actual living, breathing, human beings.
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