It was eleven years ago tonight that one wild evening in Hollywood sent the paparazzi of TMZ and beyond into a frenzy. An epilepsy-inducing amount of flashbulbs went off as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton exited Guy’s of West Hollywood, then one of the most relished clubs of the 00s. But it didn’t end there for Paris and Brit–the duo soon after felt inclined to meet up with Lindsay Lohan, fresh off the shame of her second clunker in a row, Just My Luck, to continue the night in drug-addled glory.
The best place for an after hours rendezvous for this trio? The Beverly Hilton, of course, where no one has more clout than the namesake herself. And, considering bars and nightclubs close at two a.m. in California, the most famous women in tabloid culture of the moment needed a place that would extend their hours to accommodate various coke habits (primarily Lindsay’s).
Departing from the hotel sometime after four in the morning (Gwen Stefani-style), the “girls gone wild” weren’t done feeding the paparazzi with ample ammo for their online and print rags. From Lindsay adamantly explaining, yet again, that she and Paris were good friends to Britney flashing her uncovered snatch in a trend that would become all too common for her and other tween idols over the next few months, every facet of this pop culture moment was iconic. What’s more, the sudden addition of Lindsay to what the New York Post would, the following day, dub the “Bimbo Summit” (ah, to still live in such a politically incorrect world) was, indeed, rather out of left field.
After all, it was only the previous night that Lindsay publicly declared that Paris hit her with a glass at a party she wasn’t expecting to see Lindsay at. And while Britney had been hanging out with Paris on the reg for the past month–enough for Paris to look back fondly at their period of photo taking together and falsely declare that the two had invented the selfie during their friendship honeymoon–this alliance, too, was a hair on the random side. All in all, it seemed that Paris was simply trying to fill the void of losing her irreplaceable bestie, Nicole Richie, of whom she declared in 2005, “Nicole knows what she did, and that’s all I’m ever going to say about it,” after also publicly declaring that the two were “no longer friends.” And yet, had it not been for whatever cardinal sin against best friendery that Nicole committed, Paris might never have sought to hollow out the emptiness with these two fizzling shooting stars, both doomed to have arguably the worst personal and professional year of their lives following 2006.
Furthermore, by March of 2007, all feelings of friendship and goodwill seemed to disappear as Lindsay was interviewed briefly about her opinion on Britney’s decision to file for divorce from Kevin Federline, only to callously respond, “I didn’t even know that, actually. That’s bad of me, I’m sorry, but that’s none of my business. I really don’t care, to be honest. Britney Spears is not, I mean, I’ve met her twice.” As for LiLo and Paris, the two weren’t even photographed at the same Fourth of July party after each coming off of rehab stints that apparently didn’t leave either of them experiencing the zen that’s supposed to come with detoxing.
The tenuous friendship reached another low in ’08 when they got into an argument at a pre-Grammy party centered around vying for Timbaland’s producing skills for their nonexistent forthcoming albums. In the end, only Madonna could snag him for Hard Candy earlier that year. Spears, meanwhile, fled to Vegas and was never heard from again save for a bizarre turn as a painter. But they’ll always have the strange, underwearless magic of that night in ’06, when the stars literally aligned to provide a photo session that has launched more than a thousand responses via varied artistic mediums.
