On the one hand, it’s just a tale of two frivolous LA party girls from
opposite ends of the social spectrum enjoying razzy nights out in West
Hollywood. On the other, it is a worldwide obsession, a gossip volcano
erupting out of control.
News of the friendship between Paris Hilton (hotel-chain heiress, playgirl and
multimillionairess) and Britney Spears (pop tart, teen icon and, natch,
multimillionairess) began circulating on underground internet sites on
November 19, after the pair were spotted, arm in arm, with matching hair
extensions, on the kind of girls’-world party weekend in Las Vegas that most
teenagers would die to attend. Before long, the story was splashed across
the front of the red-tops.
“Paris was in Vegas to hire the Pussycat Dolls’ choreographer for her tour,”
says Merle Ginsberg, an LA journalist and co-author of Hilton’s
autobiography. “And Britney was recording her album at the Studio at the
Palms.” The Vegas party sessions were an I Will Survive moment for Spears,
who, at 24, had just dusted off the divorce papers for her second marriage,
to the aspiring rapper Kevin Federline. “I don’t know whether Britney was
actually looking to piss off her husband,” Ginsberg says, “but there’s no
better way for you to find yourself single in LA than with Paris on your
arm.”
As the press enthusiastically latched onto the story, the pair rose
pictorially to the occasion, as if each had been given a spoonful of
photo-opportunity Viagra. The first snaps of the girls falling from the Hyde
Lounge and Guy’s nightclubs, in Hollywood, soon morphed into Paris touching
Britney’s leg affectionately in a car. By then, they were hand in hand, and
had been joined by their fellow party princess Lindsay Lohan. Spears’s
seeming inability to wear a bra in her emancipated party-chick state was
quickly gazumped by an “up-skirt” picture of her leaving a limo without her
knickers. “The crotch shot is now obligatory,” says Jessica Coen, former
editor of the gossip blog Gawker.com. “Although I do not understand what
would possess a woman to show her vagina to the world, however neat her wax
job.”
Within days, the pair were photographed in matching T-shirts emblazoned with a
self-absorbed take on personal empowerment: “I’m Paris Hilton. I can do
whatever I want ...” Yet their camaraderie had already been cemented when
the LA police department was called to Hilton’s Bel Air mansion at 7am,
after neighbours complained about the noise. The exchange with two cute cops
was handily caught on camera.
In the space of a few weeks, Britney and Paris have gone from being virtual
strangers to an inseparable sister act. “I love her,” Hilton gushed to Us
Weekly magazine while shopping in Malibu recently. “She is the sweetest girl
I know. She’s so down to earth. I just want her to smile and be happy.”
They’re so close that Spears is reportedly now dating Hilton’s ex, Brandon
Davis.
What’s it all about? Cynicism is one way of looking at it. “They know,” Coen
says, “that, with no discernible talent between the two of them, the only
way for them to remain in a position to make any money is to continue to be
photographed.” Despite her two years in the wedded wilderness, Spears still
has gold pop status, something Hilton had in her sights with the release of
her ill-received debut album this year. And what’s in it for Spears? For a
girl with Louisiana hick roots, being ushered into the court of Queen Paris
must be like being anointed by the hand of the cheerleading captain at high
school.
These girls understand that the brand extension of a famous new pal increases
the prominence of both. They know that two blondes in a photograph snatched
outside a club at 2am are worth twice as much as either on her own.
According to Darryn Lyons, owner and chairman of the picture-syndication
agency Big Pictures, a good shot of the pair together can command “up to
$250,000” in worldwide rights.
“I am certain that they both knew exactly what a media storm they would cause
with this,” Ginsberg says. “Britney is Paris’s type, too. She likes kitteny
girls. But, yes, of course they knew they would be a walking sensation.”
There are about 100 British paparazzi operating in LA, and they are well aware
that Hilton knows the game. “She is the best media-trained tart in the
business,” one says. “And she knows the value of friendship in
attention-deficit-disordered Los Angeles. About six weeks, usually.” Who
knows? Perhaps this one will be even shorter.
Lyons also acknowledges the media savvy of both Hilton and Spears. “The girls
make no secret of where they are at any given minute in any given day when
they want the publicity.”
Manipulating these two public marionettes are some serious puppet masters.
First up is Larry Rudolph, dumped as Spears’s manager in 2004 but now
advising her on her prospective comeback. After two years in maternity
clothes, that includes a lot of “making sure you look hot when you are in
public, and reaching out to the teen audiences”, as one insider said
recently. “She kept that up for a week, and then the southern gal came out
again and she discarded the bra. She said it was cramping her style.”
The second éminence grise is Elliot Mintz, a former journalist
who has opted to spend his middle years marshalling Hilton. Mintz is
irresistibly sincere when he declares that she and Spears are soul mates,
and all in less than a month. “They are really becoming like sisters,” he
says. “Britney looks up to Paris and is extremely grateful that she has
taken her under her wing. And Paris has inspired Britney to make herself
over.”
Undoubtedly, this is a beautiful piece of co-marketing for an
ever-more-convoluted celebrity world. Yet before we denounce it as a cynical
exercise in brand- building, we should consider our fascination with this
unholy alliance. Each generation gets the stars it deserves, and, as 2006
wends its way towards an inevitable, if trashy, celebrity- dominated end,
Paris and Britney are ours. The two blondes from opposite sides of the
tracks are a walking parable for our times and proof that anyone is a
sitting duck when it comes to that most modern of addictions: the oxygen of
publicity. “Together, they represent the full spectrum of awfulness in
American pop culture,” says Jessica Coen. “Paris has that whole new-money,
socialite, talentless garbage, and Britney embodies everything that thinking
America despises about itself. Though people pity Britney more than they
hate her. They just hate Paris.”
The image of Hilton and Spears tottering together on precarious heels through
the Cristal playgrounds of the Hollywood Hills is the frothing climax of a
culture that has become a victim of its own appetite for celebrity
tittle-tattle. The sheer blonde ambition of the duo — and their ability to
command attention from the world’s paparazzi — is the zenith of what it
means to be a celebrity in 2006. It is no longer reserved for the
celebrated. It is also for the vilified. Paris and Britney — two of the only
women in the world who truly understand what it is to be caught in its
vacuum — just plain need each other.
“To be that cynical and to push a fake friendship as far as they seem to have
pushed it suggests a deeper intellect than either of them possesses,” Coen
says. “They are neither of them complex enough for that level of cynicism.”
Perhaps this weird obsession of ours is merely a case of dissecting the
monster of our own making. “These kinds of celebrity are there to make us
feel better about ourselves,” Coen adds. “However despicably we behaved last
night, we know we haven’t done anything as bad as those two.”
The celebrity milieu is now peopled by a vapid type of cartoonishly sexual
female antihero who is followed with a near-religious fervour. Paris and
Britney are stepping up to the pulpit and delivering their sermon. And they
are doing it wasted, from the church of Guy’s nightclub, LA, in the secular
robes of outsized sunglasses, leopard print, bleached hair extensions and
flashing gussets. In a godless world, these are our new idols. As the girls
teeter toward becoming truly iconic, we must accept at least some of the
blame.
Additional reporting by John Harlow
