This Generation's Donald Trump

Paris Hilton deserves more than an apology for that false World Cup pot bust

Paris Hilton could have really raised a stink about her false arrest. Instead,she let it go.
Not all blondes are the same. Jennifer Rovero — a former Playmate — copped tothe pot.

Paris Hilton is at least as smart a businessperson as Donald Trump and George Steinbrenner (and that's no knock on either Trump or Steinbrenner, who like Paris both had mega-rich fathers).

Paris built herself into a powerhouse international brand — without relying on the family name. She's not famous because she's a Hilton. She's famous because she's Paris. That's a hard trick to pull off, one that requires much more skill than any once-supposed blonde bimbo could ever possess. Yes, Paris was always smarter than you thought.

Which made her arrest for pot possession at the World Cup hard to believe from the beginning. (It's not hard to fathom Paris smoking pot, it's the doing it in the midst of the world's biggest sporting event in public, blatantly enough to get caught, part that made it dubious. Again, Paris is not dumb).

So, it's no big surprise that all the charges against Hilton were dropped within hours of the incident. Of course, by then Paris Hilton's name and arrest had been in headlines around the globe on the Internet. The South African police made the unusual step of coming out and apologizing to Hilton for the misunderstanding, but that's really not enough.

Paris had her name besmirched in the international press for something she had little to do with. Jennifer Rovero — a former Playmate who works for Paris as a photographer (yes, Paris has Playmates with legit jobs in her entourage) — copped to the marijuana and was told to pay $1,000 or spend 30 days in jail.

It doesn't matter if you think that Rovero is just covering for her boss or not (dubious), can you imagine if a Trump or a Steinbrenner were put in the same situation? They'd be banging their fist on a podium at a news conference, demanding that someone pay.

Paris? She just sweetly tweets, "Hey guys, there's a lot of crazy rumors going around. Just want you all to know the truth. Everything is completely fine. I was not charged or arrested, cause I didn't do anything."

That's Paris Hilton, brilliant and forgiving.

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Movie Review

Billie Eilish takes fans behind the scenes in immersive 3D tour film

Photo by Henry Hwu/courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Billie Eilish in Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D.

In 2021, at the tender age of 19, singer Billie Eilish was already the subject of a documentary, The World’s a Little Blurry. At that point, she had only released one album, so the film threatened to feel too early for such treatment. The ensuing five years have only made her a bigger star, though, so in many ways that movie now feels prescient for the person on display in the new concert documentary with the unwieldy title of Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D.

Directed by Eilish and blockbuster filmmaker James Cameron, the film takes viewers inside Eilish’s 2024-2025 tour in support of her latest album, 2023’s Hit Me Hard and Soft. Filmed mostly at her series of shows in Manchester, England, the movie is a showcase for Eilish’s music, but it also serves as a smaller exploration of the type of person she is, as well as the impact she has had on her legion of fans.

The draw of the film is the use of Cameron’s beloved 3D technology, which he has employed in each of the three Avatar films. Unlike in those films, where the 3D has the odd effect of making the visuals too realistic for their own good, the technique brings an intimacy to the large-scale show that underscores the unique bond the singer has with her supporters.

Eilish and Cameron go back and forth between performances at the concert to behind-the-scenes sequences, detailing the enormous effort it takes to put on a show like that and how Eilish spends her time getting ready for it. As in The World’s a Little Blurry, this film continues to portray the singer as down-to-Earth, someone who yearns to maintain the connection to her fans that she’s had since she released her first single, “Ocean Eyes,” 10 years ago.

And as the many emotional songs in Eilish’s concert playlist prove, the feeling from the crowd is mutual. While Eilish has multiple bangers like “Bad Guy,” “Therefore I Am,” and the Charli XCX collaboration “Guess,” it’s the sad songs like “Everything I Wanted,” “Happier Than Ever,” and the Oscar-winning Barbie anthem, “What Was I Made For?” that hit the hardest. The depth of feeling emanating from her many sobbing fans singing along to crushing songs cannot be understated.

For audiences of the film, though, it’s the breadth of camera angles and shot choices that make it truly dynamic. There are cameras everywhere, including in the crowd, inside a cube at the center of the stage that rises and descends, following Eilish as she traipses every inch of the long, rectangular stage, and even a small one Eilish uses to bring an extra personal touch to the in-arena screen. Combined, they capture the complete energy of the concert, something that is not always the case in a film of this type.

Eilish has almost as many movies — two — as she does albums — three — which borders on overkill for a singer of her age. But both her music and the movies show her to be a person who knows the responsibility of being a celebrity, someone who understands that her fans are the reason she’s famous at all. Her career may go up or down from here, but it’s clear she’s already made a huge impact on those who love her most.

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Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D opens in theaters on May 8.

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