Hollyweird Babylon: Fire Crotch
2006. It was a different time.
Although May 16, 2006 was shaping up to be an unremarkable Tuesday evening in Los Angeles, the paparazzi had dutifully woven themselves into sidewalks and parking lots of the Sunset Strip. Josh Levine was the photographer for a celebrity-themed website that had launched the previous year, TMZ.com. His boss, Harvey Levin, had given him one directive: “If Paris breaks a nail, you be there.”
Tabloids were scrambling to salvage their dying print publications by dialing up sensationalism to overkill. But TMZ focused on raw footage of unsolicited public encounters with famous people, which could be confrontational as often as they were congenial. Along the way, celebrity feuds, largely choreographed by studio publicity departments, had been a stable of the Hollywood hype machine since the days of silent films.
That Tuesday, Levine was staked outside Hyde Sunset in West Hollywood. His camera rolled as he spotted Paris Hilton leaving the nightclub. But while no nails were broken that night, the inebriated mutterings of one of her entourage would go viral the next day. Brandon Davis’s verbal assault on Lindsay Lohan caught the public off guard for being seemingly completely unprovoked, nihilistically vicious, colorful and ultimately inane. But as it happened, this less-than-dignified moment in pop culture history would stand at the convergence of reality TV, social media, e-celebrity, trolling and call-out culture alongside the classic misogyny-driven Hollywood hype machine. It was Old Hollywood trying and failing to stay on top while playing by new rules of the 21st century. It was a story from the intersection of fame and wealth.
At the center of it all;
A 19 year old who’d known only the entertainment industry since she was 3. Her volatile freefall from the pinnacle of stardom was playing like a reboot of Marilyn Monroe or Judy Garland on fast-forward.
A 25 year old who’d spent her life in extreme privilege and appeared to be motivated solely by attention. Behind a public facade of vapid superficiality, she quietly rewrote the book on celebrity culture at the dawn of a new era of digital media.
This is the story of fire crotch.
August Halvorson Hilton was 15 years old when he and older brother Nils immigrated to America from Norway in 1870. Gus made his way to Fort Dodge, Iowa where he later met and married 23 year old Mary Laufersweiler on February 12, 1885. On December 6 that year, the newlyweds gave birth to a daughter, Felice, the first of eight children. The newlyweds relocated to New Mexico Territory, where the local economy was flourishing from post-Civil War settlement. Gus operated a successful dry goods store in San Antonio, later supplementing income by renting out rooms in the back of the store to boarders.
When New Mexico was granted statehood in 1912, Gus and Mary’s oldest son Conrad served as a representative in the state’s first legislative assembly. He quickly became disenchanted with the open fraud and swindling that saturated the political climate and declined to seek reelection in 1916. With World War 1 underway, he instead enlisted in the Army as a second lieutenant and served in the Quartermaster Corps in Paris. While he was overseas, Gus was killed in an auto accident. After the war, Conrad looked to take advantage of the oil boom in Texas. He’d originally planned to open a bank, but instead Conrad bought his first property, The Mobley Hotel, in Cisco for $40,000 in 1919. He began offering eight-hour rates for rooms, and it soon became the most popular option. Sixty years later, when Conrad Hilton passed away in 1979, his estate was valued at $100 million.
Conrad’s son Barron had served in World War II as a photographer in the Navy before joining his father in the hotel business. As vice president of Hilton Hotels, Barron took charge of franchising and successfully expanded the hotel chain worldwide. Barron’s son Richard had married in 1979 shortly after graduating from the University of Denver. Kathy Avanzino had worked as a child actor in film and television along with some modeling. At Montclair College Prep School in LA, she became best friends with classmate Michael Jackson, and the two remained close throughout the rest of his life. On February 17, 1981, Richard and Kathy gave birth to their first of four children, Paris Whitney Hilton.
Five years later, on July 2, 1986, Lindsay Dee Lohan was born. Like Paris, she was also the oldest of four. Her father Michael Lohan was a day trader on Wall Street and her mother Dina was…
Kris Jenner claims to have coined the term “momager,” a portmanteau of mom and manager. Whether or not this is so, Jenner did trademark the term in 2015. But the momager trope has always been shaded by toxic, codependent and parasitic parent-child relationships. The disappearance and murder of JonBenet Ramsey in 1996 and ongoing speculation around it had begun a dialogue about sexualization of prepubescent children and the predatory environment of child beauty pageants. Patsy Ramsey’s role in getting her six year old daughter involved in this world continued to be heavily scrutinized as the years passed and JonBenet’s murder remained unsolved.
By definition, the dual role of parent and talent manager leads to inevitable conflicts of interest, such as weighing the safety and wellbeing of the child against the ruthlessness necessary to compete in show business. Adding to this is the prevalence of the momager who lives vicariously through her child’s career after her own failed attempt at stardom earlier in life.
In 2007, The New York Post reached out to Radio City Music Hall for verification of the oft-repeated claim that Dina Lohan had been a member of the Rockettes. A spokesperson for the company reported a thorough records search turned up no evidence this had ever been true, adding that executives were indignant that anyone would falsely claim to be a part of the prestigious dance troupe. “It’s like claiming to have a degree from Harvard when you don’t,” the spokesperson said. “It’s kind of a big deal.” They asked Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Film, Television and Radio Actors if they had membership records. Both SAG and AFTRA denied neither Dina Lohan nor Donata Melina Nicolette Sullivan had ever been a member.
In 1990, Michael Lohan was investigated for insider trading, and wound up sentenced to three years in prison for criminal contempt. That same year, three year old Lindsay began her professional career, signing with Ford Modeling Agency. At 7, Lindsay made her acting debut on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light in 1993. At ten, she had a recurring role as Alli Fowler on NBC’s daytime drama Another World. She appeared semi-regularly for a year before landing the lead in Disney’s remake of their 1961 live-action hit film The Parent Trap. Haley Mills’ portrayal of identical twins Hallie and Annie in the original was a truly iconic performance in film history. To fill the shoes, director Nancy Meyers wanted a “little Diane Keaton.” 13 year old Jena Malone won acclaim for her performance in that summer’s blockbuster hit Contact opposite Jodie Foster. Disney courted her heavily for the project but Jena repeatedly declined. 11 year old Mischa Barton was the first of hundreds to auditioned for the spot. None of them had worked out so far. When Lindsay arrived for her audition, the casting director immediately felt like they’d found “little Diane Keaton.”
In 1992 Paris made her first uncredited screen appearance in Wishman. I couldn’t find out much about Wishman online or how the 11 year old ended up in it. Writer-director Mike Marvin’s better-known work was on the 1982 Kenny Rogers comedy “Six Pack” as well as “Hamburger: The Motion Picture”. While everything about Wishman seems to strongly suggest it was made as a direct-to-video release, according to imdb, it did have a theatrical run.
Utah has more facilities that serve at risk youth and troubled teens than any other state in the country, due in large part to its willingness to place religious freedom above governance. Since its opening in 1971, Provo Canyon School has been dogged by allegations of abuse and negligence. Thanks to Utah’s favorable regulatory climate, Provo Canyon and other facilities like it have been allowed to continue its allegedly harmful practices for decades with little interference.
In 1998, the Hiltons had 16 year old Paris placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold and committed to Provo Canyon for an extended period. In 2020, she went public with allegations that she was physically and emotionally abused by staff while there. Her account was consistent with reports from other patients before and since. So what kind of destructive behavior or severe emotional disturbance was Paris experiencing that was so troubling that her family, who had arguably more access to resources than most of the world, felt they had no choice but to resort to such extreme measures?
During filming of The Parent Trap in 1997, Michael Lohan flew from New York to be with his daughter on set in Napa, California. Michael was still on probation following his release from prison in 1993, and had failed to get prior approval from his probation officer to travel out of state. Michael’s probation was revoked, and he was sent back to serve another year in incarceration.
Disney had already begun to explore the revenue potential in recycling old properties, and live action remakes of their animated classics The Jungle Book and 101 Dalmatians had been passably received and highly profitable. The Parent Trap proved Disney could do the same with their older live-action catalog. Lindsay proved she had the talent and presence to make the role her own while still giving a nod to Haley Mills’ work before her.
Overnight, 11 year old Lindsay Lohan became Disney’s top star. She starred in two made-for-TV movies, Life Size, which aired on ABCs Wonderful World of Disney, and the Disney Channel original Get a Clue. As Lindsay’s 16th birthday drew nearer, Walt Disney Pictures saw their window of opportunity grow narrower, so they started combing the back catalog for more IPs to remake. They had already revisited the Freaky Friday franchise as a Disney Channel Movie in 1995, but the solid performances from Lindsay and co-star Jamie Lee Curtis were enough to carry the theatrical reboot, which was another box office success for the House of Mouse.
By this point, Disney’s pivot from all-ages content to targeting teen and tween audiences was in full swing. Dan Schneider had stepped out of the shadows of Dennis Blunden and Howard Hessman with a string of teen-oriented comedy series for Nickelodeon, beginning in 1994 with All That. Disney responded in kind with live-action and animated sitcoms centered around adolescent characters like Even Stevens (2000), Proud Family (2001), Lizzie McGuire, Kim Possible (2002) and That’s So Raven (2003).
Paris was able to leave Provo Canyon on her 18th birthday and a month later, she and sister Nicky attended the premiere of Cruel Intentions. She signed with Donald Trump’s modeling agency T Management and her profile rose quickly to icon icon status in early 2000s couture fashion. She started dabbling more in acting, and made a cameo appearance in 2001s Zoolander. At the time, the 20 year old was dating a 32 year old recently divorced father of two named Rick Salomon. Salomon was a crack cocaine enthusiast, low level drug dealer and aspiring bookie who floated around the fringes of the Hollywood party scene. In 1995, Salomon married actor E.G. Daly, best known for her work as Dotti in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure as well as the voice of Tommy Pickles on the Nickelodeon cartoon series Rugrats. They had two daughters, Hunter and Tyson, before divorcing in 2000.
An unapologetic womanizer and serial philanderer, Salomon enjoyed videotaping his sexual conquests and exhibiting these tapes to friends. Salomon had repeatedly pressured Paris into letting him videotape her engaging in sex acts. In May 2001, the two were staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel when she relented, took several quaaludes and participated. A couple months later, Paris and Salomon broke up. Salomon went on to briefly marry notoriously tempestuous actor Shannen Doherty in 2002.
The idea of blurring the lines between television entertainment and real life had been around since at least the 1940s. While hobbyists and professional moviemakers had been documenting real-world scenes since the advent of the motion picture in the 19th century, in the days when most people could only watch films in cinemas, unscripted, unstaged footage was confined to newsreels. As TV sets came into America’s living rooms, audiences went from stepping out once or twice a week for a few hours at the movies to having content playing on several channels from 7 am to 11 pm.
On August 10, 1948, Candid Camera debuted on NBC. The premise was fairly simple; pull different kinds of pranks on the public while hidden cameras capture the action. Not knowing they were being filmed allowed for more authentic reactions from the unwitting participants, resulting in moments unlike anything that could be written.
From its launch in 1987, the Fox Channel heavily targeted teen and young adult audiences with programming that favored raciness and edge over family-friendly appeal. In 1989, the network introduced Cops, which consisted entirely of camera crews on ridealongs documenting law enforcement encounters with suspected criminals, and America’s Most Wanted, where host John Walsh featured active cases of fugitives and missing persons. Both shows were hits with audiences; America’s Most Wanted aired until 2011 while, as of 2023, Cops is in its 36th season on Fox.
By the early 2000s the success of prime time competition shows like CBS’s Big Brother and Survivor had solidified reality TV as a mainstay of network television. Fox took the format to yet another level with Joe Millionaire.
Joe Millionaire pulled in 18.6 million viewers for its debut on January 6, 2003, and around 35 million for the February 24 season finale, making it the highest-rated non-Super Bowl TV broadcast since the 2000 premiere of Survivor.
Faced with the task of trying to top this coup, executives at Fox had given their comedy development department a challenge: to come up with a vehicle for comedy outside the conventional sitcom format. Their idea was a fish-out-of-water reality show inspired by Green Acres, where well-heeled, pampered cosmopolitan types are placed in rural, working-class scenarios and hilarity ensues. Paris Hilton was already in talks with Fox to develop a project when the concept was pitched.
In April 2003, Paris and childhood friend Nicole Ritchie began shooting the first season of The Simple Life in Altus, Arkansas. That summer, Rick Salomon started a company called Beverly Hills Pimps & Hos, which started out with the goal of being a video production outfit. Salomon talked about producing a “documentary about the lifestyles of the rich and famous,” or, the “Girls Gone Wild” of A-listers. Along the way, a run of promotional hats and t-shirts Salomon had made up for the videos took on a life of its own, and Beverly Hills Pimps & Hos became a fashion line.
In August, rumors of a Paris Hilton sex tape first began to surface. E! Network reported that Salomon was talking about selling the tape. Paris, who was dating Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis at the time, denied any such tape existed. On 8-23-2003 a one-time roommate of Salomon named Don Thrasher signed a licensing deal for the tape for $50,000 with Marvad, Ltd. a Seattle-based adult entertainment company. In October, a photo circulated online of Paris in which her bare crotch is exposed underneath her skirt. In November, Marvel posted a 37 second preview clip of the tape to sexbrats.com. Several media outlets, including Entertainment Tonight, were forwarded the link.
The Hilton family filed a lawsuit against Marvad for releasing private footage of their teenage daughter being taken advantage of by a middle-aged man while in a compromised state. Rick Salomon sued Marvad for copyright and the Hiltons for defamation over being characterized as a rapist and a child predator. He claimed to have no knowledge of how Thrasher got a hold of the tape. In an affidavit, Thrasher testified that he and Salomon were in agreement of the deal and had split the proceeds. Salomon’s claims were dismissed, while the Hiltons were awarded $400,000. In April 2004, Salomon released the full video as 1 Night In Paris through Red Light District Video and on his own website: trustfundgirls.com.
When the tape was first leaked, Paris was reportedly in shock. The Simple Life was set to debut in two weeks, and she already had several months of engagements scheduled for promotion. The only real precedent for her circumstance had been in 1997, when an explicit video of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee was released reportedly without their consent. In 2003, the notion of revenge porn had not yet come into the public discourse, and Paris’s privileged background seemed to give the public extra license to slut-shame her for participating in the video in the first place. Although the persona she had cultivated up to now had been broadly amoral, immodest and hedonistic, her disaffected detachment worked because she was not beholden to the usual powers that be. While the good old boys club continued to exploit their latest crop of aspiring starlets, Paris Hilton came into the business already wealthy, and fame seemed to be coming effortlessly to her.
Ultimately, after hiding out for a couple months, Paris picked up her chin and push forward. The strategy paid off for her. 13 million tuned in for the premiere of The Simple Life on December 2, most notably an increase of +79% among the cherished 18-49 year old demographic. Viewers still didn’t quite know yet what to make of this new trend of reality television and generally tended to view these programs more as documentaries than entertainment. They took the depiction of Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie as profane, entitled adult children thumbing their noses at true salt of the earth Americans at face value. The two had never had to work for anything in their lives, and now they were making a farce out of the very notion itself. By design, Paris and Nicole were off-putting, abrasive and mostly unsympathetic.
The initial blow to her public image from the sex tape and the residual denigration she experienced were manageable. Hampered in part by her own substance use and lack of on-screen presence, Nicole would be relegated to sidekick. Paris emerged as a new type of celebrity villian; seemingly famous for no particular reason, obnoxiously condescending and shamelessly catty. Soon enough, Paris’s love-to-hate-her brand of abrasive distastefulness had mostly neutralized the embarrassment of the sex tape. Having come through the experience largely intact, Paris recognized that surviving the next scandal would require her to innovate if she didn’t want to end up another casualty of the Tinseltown flesh factory.
Disney stablemate Hilary Duff was reportedly approached first to play the lead in an adaptation of the novel Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen but turned it down. The studio had already whipped up drama between Duff and Lindsay around their both having dated singer Aaron Carter (1987-2022), and semi-choreographed confrontations at the respective premieres of Cheaper by the Dozen and Freaky Friday cemented the rivalry. The free press from the prefabricated feud helped to make Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen a box office success in spite of its poor critical reception.
Tina Fey became Saturday Night Live’s first female head writer in 1999, and her tenure has been widely regarded as some of the strongest seasons in the 48 years-and-running history of the show. She began developing a script based on Rosalind Wiseman’s book about female intersexual competition Queen Bees & Wannabees. Up to then, the teen comedy genre continued to be saturated with lowest-common-denominator sex romps tailored mostly to male audiences that had evolved little since the 1980s. The relatability and sophisticated satire of Mean Girls immediately resonated with audiences, and it quickly became a cult classic.
The Lohan home had long been turbulent. Lindsay’s career had been both a cash cow for the family as well as a cloak for Michael and Dina’s escalating substance use and domestic violence. Lindsay turned 18 in 2004 and soon after left New York to live in Hollywood. Her triumphant turn in Mean Girls locked her in as an A-lister and seemed to mark a strong transition towards adult roles. But any hope Lindsay had of escaping her toxic family life in New York evaporated after Dina followed her west, looking to capitalize on the moment by spring boarding younger sister Ali’s career. Dina and Michael filed for divorce soon after, and the two began battling over how the now-adult Lindsay’s career was going to be managed. Michael advocated to have Lindsay sign with a professional agency. Dina was convinced no one would represent her daughter’s best interests as well as she could.
The second season of The Simple Life continued to perform well, with 9.8 million tuning in for the premiere. The third season had already been shot by the end of 2004. Paris was branching out, launching her own jewelry line and perfume that year. Nicole, meanwhile, had lost a noticeable amount of weight since the show began. Much of the attention she received centered around speculation over whether drug use or an eating disorder was behind it. When Paris was scheduled to host Saturday Night Live in February 2005, her costar was not invited along. Instead, on the night of the show, she hosted a viewing party where she screened a copy of 1 Night In Paris to guests. Whether this was done out of spite or was just a bad joke done in particularly poor taste, the two had a public falling out as a result. The Simple Life was cancelled by Fox but picked by E!. For the fourth season, the show’s format was retooled to allow for the two to film their parts separately.
For Lindsay’s next project, Disney returned one more time to the well of their back catalog. Herbie: Fully Loaded was a revival of the Herbie the Love Bug franchise from 1967 to 1980. The movie performed well, but Lindsay’s enthusiasm for the project during promotion was visibly waning.
After eight years of unwittingly enabling Disney’s snowballing dependence on remakes, Lindsay was ready to take on more mature work. Unfortunately, her next film, Just My Luck, underperformed considerably. Meanwhile, the newly-emancipated 18 year old began taking in the Los Angeles nightlife and all it had to offer a celebrity with her cache. The content-starved tabloids made the most of the former child star now running wild on the town. Lindsay’s career took another hit when it came out she had been hospitalized after becoming “overheated and dehydrated” while shooting her next film, Georgia Rule, in the summer of 2006. News of her repeated absences and difficulty on set were confirmed by costar Jane Fonda.
In 2004, a 24 year old freelance writer and one-time Hollywood hopeful named Mario Lavandeira had taken up blogging about show business. He developed an online persona that drew heavily on Paris Hilton’s over-the-top caricature, adopting her camp aesthetic and crass vulgarity to his own queer flamboyance. Traffic for PerezHilton.com exploded in 2005 after he was the first to post photos of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a couple. At the time, the tabloids still considered magazines to be their main product. When sales had started to dip in the late 90s, the industry did not recognize the web as a threat. Instead, The Enquirer and its cohorts began running weekly editions in hopes of boosting volume and reader retention. The demand for content to fill pages necessitated exaggerating and manufacturing controversy, conflict and drama. Perez Hilton was able to combine the immediacy of an online platform with public appetite for parasocial voyerurism in a way that proved to be popular. He was also able to put snarky unsubstantiated innuendo and shock above journalistic integrity far more efficiently than the burnouts at Us Weekly. He enjoyed outing men he believed to be gay, but he saved most of his venom for females, ruthlessly mocking them for their appearance, body size and perceived promiscuity. Photos often included penises and jizz crudely drawn over subjects in MS Paint. He also saw potential problems with substance abuse and eating disorders as fair game for ridicule. One of Perez’s favorite targets in particular was Britney Spears.
25 year old petroleum heir Brandon Davis was not a household name per se, but his presence as a somewhat brotherly protector figure around the elite party circuit in Hollywood made him a familiar face to the paparazzi. His novel euphemism for Lindsay’s pubic hair quickly went viral, and overnight people wanted to know, who was this sweat-soaked douche?
While laughing along uncontrollably, Paris appears to be coaching Brandon at several points on the footage. His half-hearted effort at improvisation seems to support the likelihood that “fire crotch” had been fed to him by Paris. Also supporting the likelihood that Paris actively orchestrated the tirade is the tabloid framing of their feud as driven by Lindsay befriending Nicole Richie and, most recently, reportedly hooking up with unremarkable trustafarian Stavros Niarchos only days after he’d broken up with Paris. However much if at all these reports genuinely bothered Paris, the nastiness of the attack seems as much in line with the backhanded terms of endearment that she had popularized.
While the anonymous echo chamber of the online hate mob magnified the humiliation and scorn towards Lindsay, Paris appeared to be unseriously playing into the tabloid narrative with a mean-spirited but superficial piece of Hollywood catfighting. The public quickly enough moved on to the next update on Michael Jackson’s ongoing legal battles, and the episode would be largely forgotten.
Between her career downturn and Dina’s counterproductive efforts to mitigate it, it’s unclear how “fire crotch” affected Lindsay personally. The nature of the attack reflected society’s permissive attitude towards dehumanizing and devaluing females for entertainment at the time. In this instance, Lindsay was degraded for both her sexuality and her signature red hair, two qualities over which she had no control that nonetheless evidently determined she was fundamentally unworthy of affection.
And Lindsay had already seen this true Hollywood story.
The Olsen twins had been born just weeks before Lindsay, and were primetime TV stars before developing object permanence. After ABC ended Full House in 1995, the nine year olds carried their momentum into a multimedia and merchandising enterprise. While the twins expanding franchise paid off exponentially, the media seemed to grow impatient to start sexualizing the girls well before they became teens. By 2004, at least seven websites dedicated to the countdown to their turning eighteen were running. In truth, Mary Kate and her sister spent June 13, 2004 finalizing paperwork to formally assume control of their production company, Dualstar. Their elation over the moment had been dampened by their latest release.
Produced by Dualstar and distributed by Warner Brothers, New York Minute was the twins theatrical debut following a long run of commercially successful straight-to-video titles, and the timing of its premiere just ahead of their 18th birthday suggested a goal of moving towards larger-scale vehicles. Instead, New York Minute was beat out by the previous weekend’s release Mean Girls. It set a new record for the lowest opening weekend of a release in 3000 or more theaters. According to Box Office Mojo, it currently sits at number 35 in this category. A week after their 18th birthday, news came out Mary-Kate had sought treatment for an eating disorder. A panicked California Milk Processor Board immediately pulled the twins from their then-ubiquitous Got Milk? Campaign. Their retreat from the public eye left the tabloids callously mocking Mary-Kate with feigned concern and speculation over her weight.
Following the incident, Brandon Davis issued a statement:
“My behavior on May 16 was inexcusable. What started out as a joke got completely carried away and I am horrified at the words that came out of my mouth. I consider Lindsay a friend and I hope she accepts my sincere apology for my reprehensible actions last week.”