Amongst the many companies with offices in Manhattan is a multibillion-dollar French conglomerate that handles "diversified commodities, energy, shipping, real estate, manufacturing, and communications." The owner, Gerard, is one of the richest men in the world, and, at 75, his children and grandchildren stand to inheirit a tidy sum of perhaps half a billion each upon his passing. Unless you've been in a cave for a few decades, one of them has — given syndication, perhaps even daily — been making you laugh for a long, long time. A heiress and princess who you first met live from New York (where she met her husband), then a yuppie in a movie of Christmas indignities, and finally in a small, barely aired show about, er, nothing ... meet Elaine Julia, the multibillion-dollar heiress, Northwestern dropout, Emmy-winning actress, and even a distant relative of Richard Dreyfuss. And then compare her to a certain other celebrity heiress.
posted by WCityMike on May 2, 2007 - 52 comments

The Trash Princess: Why Americans love to hate Paris Hilton. "You don’t need to share Osama bin Laden’s view of America to see that Paris mirrors us at our contemporary worst. But something still doesn’t compute: Why, if Paris says so much about us, do Americans—not just college professors and the commentariat but celebrity watchers and tabloid junkies—hate her so much? And why, if she is so offensive, is she so ubiquitous?"
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese on Nov 21, 2006 - 142 comments

"Were there U.K. publications?" Hilton responded: "No... there is stuff in London." Hilton's lawyer, Larry Stein, jumped in: "London is a U.K. publication." Her retort: "Right. U.K. Whatever."
posted by The Jesse Helms on Jan 20, 2006 - 58 comments

Paris Hilton and John Ashcroft are #1 and #2, respectively, on the list of fake names used by people ordering pizza. In other news, people with Dean bumper stickers on their car tip more than those with Bush bumper stickers. And 42 percent of Americans will have pizza on New Year's Eve, while only 2 percent will have caviar. (All this courtesy of a Domino's Pizza survey.)
posted by Vidiot on Dec 29, 2003 - 7 comments

What would you do if you had a multi-million dollar trust fund and the knowledge that you would one day inherit a billion dollar empire?
Lots of coke and champagne apparently. Then, of course, you'd build a website to show everyone how much fun being sickeningly rich is.
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger on Dec 6, 2001 - 53 comments