Paris: God can wait - I need a hair extension
Paris Hilton got out of jail, then immediately got back to...well, being Paris Hilton, summoning a hair-salon van and, by her mere presence, creating a huge traffic jam that maddened the neighbours.
It appeared that socialite Hilton’s plans to serve God, perhaps by creating a halfway house for former ex-convicts, would have to wait at least a day as she readjusted to the simple life of fame and celebrity yesterday.
“There’s not going to be a press conference today. I just spoke to Mr Hilton. They have no plans to make any statement,” police Sgt Anthony Roberts told the media scrum outside the front gate of her grandparents’ estate in Los Angeles as the newly-freed heiress kept a low profile inside.
Although Hilton, 26, kept out of sight, her presence was still clear up and down the block, from the TV satellite vans that took up so much room on the narrow street that cars could not pass to the fast-food luncheon that was passed along to the assembled masses outside.
“Delivery for Paris from Taco Bell,” one of two delivery people who arrived with bags of food said into the intercom outside the front gate.
“Thank you. Give it to the media and the police,” a voice from inside the mansion replied.
Her transition back started hours earlier when she was let out of jail shortly after midnight yesterday, local time, in a seedy section of Lynwood. Hilton managed to transform the event to almost the equivalent of a red-carpet arrival.
With cameras flashing, she walked from jail to a waiting sport utility vehicle by smiling, waving and strutting past the assembled masses in tight jeans and white stiletto heels.
From there it was a quick drive to fashionable Holmby Hills, home to Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner among others, and a stop at her grandparents’ house.
As she stayed inside throughout the day, more than a dozen cars pulled up to the gate and were quickly buzzed inside, their occupants declining to talk with reporters. One of those who entered was her spokesman, Elliott Mintz, who declined to comment.
Hilton will break her silence early tomorrow, UK time, with a Wednesday night interview on CNN’s Larry King Live.
At one point yesterday, a black Cadillac Escalade carrying balloons and a cake with the words “Welcome Home” in pink frosting arrived at her grandparents’ home. At another, a van from DreamCatchers Hair Extensions, for which Hilton is the celebrity pitchwoman, passed through the gates. DreamCatchers receptionist Crystal Armijo confirmed the heiress was having extensions added to her hair.
A make-up artist arrived on foot with a little trolley filled with cosmetics. A stylist also walked up to the gate carrying several full designer bags.
Early-morning walkers found the scrum of paparazzi photographers and journalists amusing, but as the day progressed and traffic picked up, however, people trapped in the street in their cars with horns honking all around them failed to see the humour.
“I’m trying to get my daughter to her dance class,” an angry Mindy Mann said as she called police on her mobile phone.
Hilton failed a field sobriety test after being stopped last September, then was caught twice driving with a suspended licence while on probation for reckless driving.
She reported to jail on June 3 after walking the red carpet at the MTV Movie Awards but was sent home under house arrest four days later after Sheriff Lee Baca said she developed psychological problems while in jail.
But she was ordered back to prison by her sentencing judge and remained locked up for another two and a half weeks.
As Hilton was unwinding, Baca appeared before the county board of supervisors to angrily defend his original decision to release her.
He said Hilton had developed a psychological condition that could be life-threatening and that her mental state was “decompensating”, or deteriorating. Exacerbating her condition, he said, was the fact she could not tell jailers exactly what medications she had been prescribed and a disagreement between her own doctors on how she should be treated.
“Our doctors said that we had no solution for her medical problem. None,” Baca said. “Now I’ll say this. I think we all in this room know something about suicide, I think we know something about inmates killing inmates, I think we know something about inmates dying in our jails. As the sheriff of this county, I’m not going to let any inmate die on this, in our jails.”
But supervisor Don Knabe questioned whether Hilton was really that ill.
“She looked pretty healthy at the MTV awards before going to jail,” he said.
The board took no action.
