SHERMAN OAKS — TV choppers overhead, are you listening?
In the lane, paparazzi lenses glistening.
A celebrity sight,
We’re the big news tonight,
Walking in Paris Hilton’s wonderland.
Gone away is the jailbird,
Here to report is a news bird
He sings a sad song,
Of all the bling gone,
Walking in Paris Hilton’s wonderland.
Maybe Christmas carols playing in her home might have frightened away whoever broke into Hilton’s Mulholland Estates mansion around dawn Friday morning and stole a reported $2 million in jewelry and other possessions.
Armed guards at the gate, wrought iron fencing surrounding the exclusive homes and security video equipment certainly didn’t deter the burglar or burglars -- including a man described by police as wearing a hooded sweatshirt and gloves who forced entry through the front door and ransacked Hilton’s bedroom.
Fortunately for hotel heiress’ personal safety, she still had not yet come home to her 7,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style estate on Clerendon Street from a night of dancing at the Hollywood club Bar Deluxe, according to People magazine.
But by mid-morning, as detectives from LAPD’s Van Nuys division conducted their investigation in Hilton’s home, the sleepy community with a Beverly Hills zip code but overlooking the San Fernando Valley had become another California celebrity roadside attraction.
“
A slew of paparazzi befitting her place as a tabloid queen hung out most of the day along Mulholland Drive, along with television cameras, all hoping to capture Hilton leaving or arriving in her car.
“She’s a person who is famous for being famous, and it’s part of the business of attention paid to her just because she seeks it and when she professes not to want it, it belies belief,” said Elizabeth T. Adams, professor of popular culture at California State University, Northridge.
“So much of our celebrity culture feeds itself. Like this robbery. Now people are not just paying attention to Paris but to police as they investigate the robbery of her jewelry.”
Indeed, one French photographer was so obsessed in finding a colorful subject that he asked a taco truck to juxtapose the vehicle next to the Mulholland Estates gate -- so he could shoot a likeness of the Virgen of Guadalupe on the side of the truck seeming to watch over the entrance.
One queen of the angels watching another or something like that.
The media circus that descended on the exclusive compound that is also home to actor Charlie Sheen and singers Tom Jones and Avril Lavigne, among other celebrities, thrust Hilton back into the paparazzi glare she sought to avoid when she moved there in September 2007.
It was part of the “new beginning” she had promised on The Larry King Show that summer after the notoriety of a highly publicized jail sentence for violating probation on a driving while intoxicated conviction.
But Quintana said he doesn’t believe some of her bad habits have changed, such often inviting people she has barely met back to her home.
“She’s sort of an easy mark,” said Quintana. “She’ll invite random people back to her home just because they’re hot or cool.
“She parties at home, and a lot of times there will be 100 people at her home, most of whom she doesn’t know.”
Hilton’s publicist did not return e-mail and phone requests seeking comment.
But in a more timely sense, said Professor Adams, this burglary at Hilton’s mansion may have been a much-needed Christmas gift to the rest of us.
“In times of economic troubles, people get occupied with the minutiae of celebrities’ live so they don’t have to think about their own,” she said. “Even more so when those celebrities have money and loses some of it.
“Of course, nobody is say, ‘Oh, poor Paris.’”
Ah, yes.
When money’s tight, ain’t it thrilling,
Though your purse gets a chilling
We’ll gossip and pray, the celebrity way,
Walking in Paris Hilton’s wonderland.
