Paris: The Memoir(37)
They kept asking—Did you hit her? Did you hit her? Did you hit her?—because a day or two earlier this weird video came out where she said that I hit her elbow and dumped a drink on her. I still have no idea what that was about.
“No,” I said. “Ask her. She’s right there.” I pointed to Lindsay Lohan, who’d left the party shortly after we did. “Lindsay, tell them the truth.”
She was walking with Elliot Mintz. People always referred to Elliot as my publicist, but he used to say, “My role is more what I would describe as crisis management.” Our relationship was a lot like the Dragon Queen and the little guy in Game of Thrones.
“Paris would never,” said Lindsay. “She’s my friend. Everyone lies about everything. She’s a nice person. Please, leave us alone. We’re friends.”
“You’re friends?” they said. “Lindsay, you’re friends?”
Elliot brought her over to the car and opened the door. To get her out of the rain, maybe? Or maybe to clear up any crazy rumors that might be flying around?
“She never did that,” said Lindsay. “She’s a good girl. A nice person. I’ve known her since I was fifteen. Please.”
And then Lindsay got in the car, which was kind of awkward because I was driving a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren that had only two seats. She got in, and Britney kind of wedged up on the middle thing where, ideally, you would put your purse. On a video that captured this moment, there’s a collective gasp, and then one of the paps says, “Oh, this is gonna be classic!” And they go at it, snapping their asses off, holding their cameras over the hood of the car. The raindrops on the windshield lit up like BeDazzled-time.
“Paris! Paris! Wipe the windows! Wipe the windows!”
I pulsed the wipers. Insane snapping frenzy.
“Thank you, Paris. Lindsay? Look over here?”
I put the car in gear, but the constant flashing on the rainy windshield was blinding, and I was always paranoid that someone would put their foot under the tire and claim I ran over them, because that’s the kind of fucked-up thing people do in LA. Elliot stepped out in the street and waved me out of the parking space the way the guy with light sabers waves a private jet onto the runway.
“Let them out. It’s raining,” he said.
They shuffled aside, and we drove away. I don’t remember where we went. Does it matter? All anyone cared about was that moment. The next day, the iconic shot of Britney, Lindsay, and me ran on the cover of the New York Post with the words BIMBO SUMMIT in gigantic type under our faces. I didn’t love the wording, but my bangs looked super cute. How often can you nail that, really? Bangs are tricky.
The pap was right; it was an instant classic.
All these years later, I still see these pictures on T-shirts, posters, birthday cards, coffee cups, boxer shorts, glittery clutch purses—all kinds of merch. My favorite is the fold-out laminated sun shade that goes inside your windshield when it’s hot.
Fifteen years later, Carter and I were honeymooning on a private island in the Maldives. We were busy ignoring the rest of the world, and when we finally sneaked a peek at our devices, every message app was blowing up with stuff about the fifteenth anniversary of the “Holy Trinity.” I looked at the photo and laughed. We look like Charlie’s Angels.
I appreciated Joy Saha’s article in Nylon—“Paris, Britney, & Lindsay: The Triumph of the Bimbo Summit”—about why the mean-spirited Post headline hadn’t aged well and how the It Girls of the aughts were reclaiming their narratives. I’d just gotten married and was running a massive media and lifestyle conglomerate. Britney had recently ended the outrageous thirteen-year conservatorship that exerted control over her finances and personal life. Lindsay had just gotten engaged and was working on a professional comeback. I was glad for her. We’re not close, but I always wish her well.
I understand why the media wanted to pit us against each other. It sold papers. It generated clicks. That blizzard of flashing lights created a dozen or so versions of a classic photo—each with a slightly different perspective—and those images have generated millions of dollars in licensing and royalties.
Not for us, of course.
Britney, Lindsay, and I get exactly zero of those dollars. But somebody else bought a house with one of those pictures. Somebody put his kid through college. I understand what motivated them. I have a harder time understanding what motivated everyone who piled onto that headline with nothing to gain but the brittle satisfaction of a bully.
Joy Saha wrote: “In 2006, society had yet to grasp the concept of empathy, allowing for a broken system that thrived off incessant exploitation.”
So, there was that.
I tried to stay out of the alleged “feuds” the tabloids were always whipping up. They constantly printed complete BS about my “bitter feud” with a friend I had no issue with or my “catfight” with some stranger I stood three feet from on a red carpet. Sometimes it was so ugly, it took me back to the roar of the Rap.
Pitting us against each other, Weaselmug drained our energy and stole our identities. That noise distracted us from some hideously real shit going down—shit that caused those boys to suffer and die. We did hear rumors about how they disappeared, but it was mostly in the context of a don’t go into the woods kind of cautionary tale to keep us from running off. We didn’t want to think about it. We were scared to think about it. And it was easier to not think about it when we had the Real Housewives of Running Springs to distract us.