Celebrities uncovered
With the multitude of video-and-audio-recording weapons on the market, it's hunting season year-round on stars doing stupid things
By JIM SLOTEK -- Toronto Sun
Paris Hilton
Imagine you could have a celebrity salary -- say upwards of $50 million a year.
Now imagine you traded your privacy for it -- such that virtually any minute of your day (but invariably only the most ignominious ones) could be recorded and released on the 'Net.
To quote the philosopher Howie Mandel: Deal or no deal?
Welcome to the world of celebrity "viral video," in the era of YouTube, iFilm and TMZ.
It's a world where, if you're Avril Lavigne, you can no longer walk out of a club, spirited and loud on your birthday, sign some choice "F-bombs" for the autograph hounds, jump in your limo with your husband (Sum-41's Deryck Whibley) and hock a loogie at the paparazzi through the open window without expecting millions of people to see it and pass judgement the next day.
Such was the case at the L.A. club Hyde a few weeks ago, the night the, ahem, "pride" of Napanee celebrated her 22nd.
Now I think most of us can look back and recognize that being caught at the end of a night of drinking at age 22 would not have been a recipe for a flattering video record.
But enquiring minds wanna know -- and THEY WANNA KNOW NOW! Which is why on the very day North Korea announced it had tested a nuke, there was still headline space for the story that The Simple Life co-stars Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie have kissed and made up. (See? There is hope for peace among nations). The proof: Video of the two of them entering Dan Tana's Steak House arm-in-arm.
Hyde, incidentally, is the same club where life-style casualty Tara Reid was video'ed being turned away by a doorman for not being famous enough, while her erstwhile "best friend" Paris blew past her with a "G'wan right in, Miss Hilton."
And it's the same club where Brandon Davis -- the son of deceased media billionaire Marvin Davis -- was captured exclaiming churlishly about Lindsay Lohan's private parts (while his gal-pal, yep, Paris Hilton, snickered).
This is the kind of vibe that used to be confined to the high school hallways of the world. Now it's the sort of social humbling anybody with a computer and a broadband connection can enjoy witnessing.
At this rate, the word "allegedly" is fast becoming a thing of the past. Steve-O from Jackass decides to take a leak on the Jackass 2 red carpet? Smile for the cellphone cameras, Steve-O.
Can you believe that only 13 years ago (the anniversary is next Monday), a star like River Phoenix could die on the sidewalk in front of a major club like the Viper Room, and there'd be no video evidence?
These days, in fact, it's remarkable when the electronic record is withheld from public and eventual Internet consumption. Like the audio of Mel "I own half of Malibu" Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic tirade, which the L.A. County Sheriff's Department elected to keep under wraps. Or the video of Steve Irwin's fatal stingray attack, which the producers of Crocodile Hunter have laudably decided should remain in the vault. Could you imagine how fast either would have flown around the world and onto people's screens?
With that, here's our top-5 incidents of celebrities' lives being infiltrated. And not necessarily legally.
1. Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman's cellphone argument
Picked up by somebody's scanner in 1999, the soon-to-divorce couple were caught saying things like "NICOLE: We've been hanging on by a f-----g thread, OK? A thread. You know it and I know it. TOM: Nic, I want this relationship, OK? You know that and I have been making an effort. I have been! NICOLE: (sighs) Tom, you know you haven't."
2. The Pam/Tommy Lee honeymoon video
No point in recapping the single most-watched celebrity sex video ever, except that I don't think it's ever legal to steer a boat that way. The video was allegedly stolen from their home by a reno guy.
3. The One Night In Paris video
The next most-watched celebrity video involved Paris having bored sex with then boyfriend, producer Rick Saloman, a sometime husband of Shannen Doherty and a man of sterling reputation and entrepreneurial skills.
4. Prince Charles and Camilla's amorous cellphone talk
Some comment about wanting to be reincarnated as her tampon. Picked up, yet again, by somebody's scanner in 1992.
5. Princess Diana and boyfriend James Gilbey, New Year's Eve, 1989
That scanner again. Gilbey: "OK then, Squidgy. I am sorry you have had low times. ... try, darling when you get these urges -- you just try to replace them with anger like you did on Friday night, you know." Diana:"I know. But you know what's really quite un.... whatever the word is? His grandmother is always looking at me with a strange look in her eyes. It's not hatred, it's sort of interest and pity mixed in one. I am not quite sure. I don't understand it. Every time I look up, she's looking at me and then looks away and smiles."