Celebrity Mound

Paris Hilton is on trial in Miami, accused in a federal lawsuit of not doing enough to promote her 2006 sorority hijinks movie, “Pledge This!”

The lawsuit filed on behalf of some film investors claims the 28-year-old Hilton didn’t honor her contract to promote the DVD release.

The lawsuit seeks more than $8 million from Hilton and her entertainment firm. The film was an abject failure at the box office, making about $2.9 million worldwide.

Hilton contends she did everything she could to plug the movie.

The trial begins Thursday, and Hilton is expected to testify Friday. She’s been in Dubai filming her “My New BFF” reality show.
The lawsuit was filed by a court-appointed receiver for a defunct Miami entertainment company that invested in the movie.

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Paris Hilton hated her 2006 movie “Pledge This!” and refused for months to make promotional appearances for it despite a contract requiring her to do so, lawyers for the film’s investors said as trial opened Thursday in an $8 million lawsuit against her.

“During the six-month period, at no time would she take 10 minutes to do a phone interview,” attorney Bryan West, who represents the investors, said in opening statements.

With Hilton nodding vigorously from her defense table seat, her attorney Michael Weinsten insisted she did numerous appearances for the movie but was unavailable to meet many requests by the film’s producers because of her extremely busy schedule. Hilton also had the right to refuse some promotion events that might harm her “brand” and never agreed to plug the DVD release of the movie from December 2006 through May 2007, he said.

“Paris Hilton is a promotion machine,” Weinsten said. “For 2 1/2 years, she relentlessly promoted that movie.”

One of the movie’s executive producers, James DiLorenzo, testified that Hilton’s handlers rejected a series of suggested promotion efforts, including popular late-night TV talk shows and interviews with magazines, newspapers and radio outlets in the U.S. and abroad.

“In order to make the public aware of the product, she was the most powerful way of doing that,” DiLorenzo said.

Hilton, a 28-year-old heiress, actress and model, is expected to testify Friday. She traveled to Miami for the trial from Dubai, where she has been filming episodes of her “My New BFF” reality show. Wearing a sleeveless black-and-white dress with a large bow on the back, Hilton sat quietly at the defense table during opening statements, occasionally taking notes or fiddling with her twin ponytails.

The lawsuit is being heard by Chief U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno, who has a well known sense of humor. Moreno at one point asked West whether the contract allowed Hilton to refuse even the most outrageous promotion requests.

“If you said, ‘She has to parade nude down the Champs-Elysees with a Pledge This! banner’ … and she said no, would that be breach of contract?” Moreno asked. Then, answering his own question, he added, “No, of course not.”

The lawsuit seeks $8.3 million in damages, essentially to recoup the money spent to make and distribute the film. It was filed by attorney Michael Goldberg, a court-appointed receiver for a now-defunct Miami company that was the movie’s key investor. That company was shut down as a $300 million Ponzi scheme by the Securities and Exchange Commission, with its operator now living in Brazil.

Weinsten acknowledged that Hilton wasn’t pleased with the final cut of “Pledge This!” – which concerns the antics of a fictional sorority at equally fictional South Beach University – but he said she did what she could to plug it. She was paid $1 million to act in the lead role, yet the movie only made about $2.9 million and appeared on just 25 theater screens.

The investors claim it could have done much better as a DVD release if Hilton had done more promotion, particularly in Japan and Europe where she is a huge star.

“It might have made a difference. It would have done better,” West said.

Not content with finding a ‘best friend forever’ in the U.S. and Britain, Paris Hilton is now searching for a companion in Dubai.

The heiress arrived at a press conference there last night to launch My New Best Friend Forever – Dubai, dressed in a lime-green, traditional flowing Arabian gown complete with dazzling jewellery and an ornate headdress.

The series will see her audition for friends in the United Arab Emirates, where she is currently staying to film the show over the next four weeks.

However she will have to tone down some of the racier elements of the show, so not to fall foul of the country’s strict morality codes.

The socialite will be filming scenes in Dubai’s waterfront Festival Centre during her stay as wannabe hangers-on are put through a series of challenges to prove their worth.

Currently in development, the centre already boasts around 400 shops and teams of restaurants and cafes.

Paris acknowledged the press last night with the traditional Arabic greeting ‘Asalaam Alaikum,’ and said she was delighted to be in Dubai for the first time.

‘Dubai’s really hot,’ she said, using her well-known catchphrase. ‘It’s an amazing city and the women are beautiful out here.’

She added: ‘A lot of people in Hollywood are fake and I am looking for someone who is very loyal and a real person I can trust.

‘And I’m going to come up with a new catchphrase while I’m here – using some Arabic words!’

Her arrival to Dubai made front page news and the 28-year-old star also left gushing posts on her Twitter page.

‘I love Middle Eastern culture and fashion, so beautiful!’

And in another Tweet, she wrote: ‘Dubai Rocks! yay,’ in response to an article about her in the local press.

The second season of the American version of the show is currently airing on U.S. television.

Brittany Flickinger was the winner of the show’s first season in December of last year however she and Paris are no longer ‘best friends’ or even friends for that matter.

Paris said: ‘I loved her and I trusted her, but sometimes people get too caught up and they change.’

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Richie Rich and Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton and Doug Reinhardt broke up Tuesday night after the heir-head made a huge scene at the Darkroom club in Los Angeles by hurling fruit and ice cubes at a younger, hotter blonde.

According to a spokesperson for Texas beauty queen Kendhal Beal, Paris went into “a tirade” because Beal was partying with Reinhardt, Hilton’s beau of six months.

The rep told us, “Kendhal and a friend of hers ended up at Darkroom, where Doug and Brody Jenner were hanging out.”

Beal and Jenner have been reported to be dating on and off since last year.

“Kendhal knows Brody and Doug, and so they were talking and catching up. They all took a shot and were watching the Lakers game,” said the rep. “But Paris got word that Doug was at the bar, and she showed up and started going at it.”

Beal’s rep told Page Six, “Paris was picking up ice and fruit and throwing it at Kendhal — she was the victim. Kendhal did nothing offensive or aggressive. Paris was throwing accusations, calling her names. It was the same thing you always hear about Paris and her tirades.”

In true Hilton fashion, by the next night she had already moved on to another guy, Madrid Real soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo.

On Wednesday night, Hilton went to restaurant Nobu in West Hollywood around 10 p.m. with her sister, Nicky, and then hit nightclub MyHouse, where the soccer stud met up with them.

Photos have circulated online showing Hilton, with her skirt hiked up, all over Ronaldo, and Web site X17 reported, “They “couldn’t keep their hands off of each other.”

A rep for Hilton told us, “the events of this night are being greatly exaggerated. Paris and Doug had an argument but there was no one else involved.” Reps for Reinhardt and Jenner didn’t return calls.

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Paris Hilton finds a lot of things “hot,” but the idea of once taking part in a lesbian sex show is not one of them.

For the past six years, the heiress has done her best to prove she’s more than a girl who … well, you know what she did on that sex tape that her skeevy ex-boyfriend sold.

But now, having gone on to a half-dozen movie roles, two books, a CD, and fragrance and footwear lines, she’s fending off the claim of a woman who says she and Paris once stripped for high-rollers in Vegas.

“[Hilton] flew down to Vegas,” Mark Ebner reports Elizabeth Jawhary as saying on HollywoodInterrupted.com. “We partied pretty hard.”

According to Jawhary, some Hollywood players would “pay for girl-on-girl action. I’d be there. And they’d pay to watch.”

Jawhary alleges that, on at least one night, Paris joined in. “Paris got naked, and the girls would get naked,” she claims.

She says the guys would pay her $5,000 for a private show, though she never saw Paris accept any money, according to Ebner, author of “Six Degrees of Paris Hilton.”

A rep for Hilton tells us that claims that the heiress was involved in any such adventure are “totally untrue and a complete fabrication.”

Jawhary, now 30 and living a different life in Texas, couldn’t be reached for comment.

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Dubai is synonymous with glitz and excess – but can the Middle Eastern hotspot handle the likes of Paris Hilton?

The fame-loving heiress is about to make her first trip to Dubai. The city, located in the United Arab Emirates, will be the location for an upcoming edition of her reality series “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF.”

Producer Michael Hirschorn said Wednesday that filming will begin later this month and last some three weeks. The finale will be filmed in Los Angeles.

Hirschorn said the show – and Hilton – will respect the culture of the region, and will be “walked through in great detail what is expected” and allowed.

Casting is under way to find contestants to compete for the chance to be Hilton’s new best friend forever – or BFF.

Hilton, 28, wants to expand her brand in the Arab world, said Hirschorn.

He said the plan is to build “My New BFF” into a global franchise, with Hilton searching for BFFs around the world.

Hilton previously filmed two seasons in Los Angeles for MTV and one in London for British television. The second season of the American edition premiered Tuesday.

The Dubai version is “intended for broadcast throughout the Arab region, so it will be sold to networks throughout that area,” said Hirschorn. “The hope is to sell it internationally, (in) Europe and Asia and the United States if possible.”

No air date has been set, he said.

This time, Hilton will bring her boyfriend, Doug Reinhardt.

“She’s very aware that she’s not going to be going and pointing fingers and laughing at anybody,” Hirschorn said. “She’s gonna be respectful. But also, if anything, (she) will be poking fun at herself. I think some of the comedy will come out of the learning about the dress and the behavior.”

So who wore this Alexander Wang dress best?

It’s every girl’s nightmare. You spend all day getting ready – choosing the perfect dress, picking the shoes to match, perfecting hair and make up for the occasion.

Then, as you waltz into the party feeling a million dollars, you bump straight into a rival- wearing the same dress. Suddenly a million dollars feels like a million lira – especially if said rival looks better in the dress than you do.

So while Paris and Rihanna, both in their own individual way a darling of the social circuit (and the fashion world), weren’t spotted at the same party in the matching dresses, they were both pictured out in the same city wearing the same dress.

Paris Hilton, 28, last night out with current beau Doug Reinhardt chose the strapless Alexander Wang corset dress to watch the Rock of Ages musical on New York’s Broadway after appearing on the David Letterman show.

But she’d been pipped to the fashion post. If she’d been checking the news, she might have seen 19-year-old Rihanna stepping out in Manhatten, New York, two weeks ago, dressing to the nines to visit the apartment of rapper and producer Kanye West, with whom she is rumoured to be romantically linked.

For a mere mortal, a contemporary rocking the same dress as us in a city the size of New York zone wouldn’t be a problem. But for international stars like these girls, all the world’s a stage – and as far as media coverage is concerned, it’s the same stage.

Fortunately for Paris and Rihanna, both are, as Paris would say, hot, and both wore the dress well.

But who wore it best?

Paris went for a statement yoke necklace, round-toed platforms and matching half-moon clutch. Her hair was left loose, but the bouncy, glossy lengthy bob in high-maintenance blonde speaks of plenty of time spent in the hairdresser’s chair.

Rihanna let the dress speak for itself, eschewing jewellery, simply quiffing her hair into an enormous bouffant bun on top of her head, and throwing a low-slung silver bag over her shoulder.

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