Paris leaves jail in style Can Paris Hilton redeem herself by globetrotting to third-world refugee camps to help the poor and adopt African and Cambodian orphans? With Angelina Jolie serving as Hollywood's leading humanitarian lady, image consultants say Paris could do worse for herself. In fact, similar work might be the route for the hotel heiress to make over her career.
That's the challenge facing Hilton if she's to be taken seriously after her 23-day jail stay, which was expected to end with her release in front of a blitzkrieg of television camera lights early this morning. "Go do something that makes a difference," said Ashley Rothschild, who has consulted on image makeovers for celebrities and politicians for a quarter-century. "Look at Angelina Jolie.
Look what she does with her life beyond acting. She speaks her mind. She makes a difference in the world.
We can all make a difference." What the 26-year-old star of "The Simple Life" reality show should do on her release has become an issue in the wake of her own claims that jail time has changed her and the realization that her past life in the fast lane is what landed her behind bars. "What I would say to Paris is, `When you're in a hole, stop digging,"' said Michael Levine, who has served as publicist for dozens of celebrities, including Michael Jackson and Bill O'Reilly during their respective troubled periods, and Barbra Streisand.
"`Don't do things that got you in trouble in the first place. You can't afford to end up in jail again. The advice of professional image consultants ranged from dedicating herself to humanitarian efforts like Jolie, to leaving L.
A. and the spotlight of the paparazzi altogether. "Where do you go from here?
" Levine said he would ask Hilton. "What do you want your career to look like five years from now?" But few of the image consultants interviewed appeared convinced Hilton truly plans to change her ways, especially given the Las Vegas party her parents reportedly have planned to celebrate her release.
"I don't think she will ever be taken seriously as anything but the child of great privilege and wealth," said New York image consultant Amanda Sanders. "If anything, I think the public is already empathetic to her, and her sentence was pretty harsh, even with what they did - letting her out, then sending her back. "But as far as damage control, it's not as though young children looked up to her.
We didn't look upon her the way we view Britney (Spears): virginal and then in a downward spiral." Still, this is a young woman who is more famous for where she partied and who she partied with than for any talent as a singer or actress. Her jail stint for violating a drunk-driving conviction has turned her into just another in a long string of bad-behaving celebrities.
"She now has to do something that helps people, something that does not make you a joke in society," Rothschild said. "(But) what is she qualified to do professionally? "The world is a mess, (and) so many arenas are not workable today, from abused children to hunger in the world.
I would say to her, put yourself where you are visible and where people are listening to you. Rothschild and other image consultants all agreed that Jolie has become the modern benchmark for celebrities who want to be taken seriously, with her humanitarian work as an accomplished ambassador for the United Nations Refugee Agency. Jolie's commitment to refugee causes in Cambodia, Pakistan, Africa, Thailand and other parts of the world helped solidify her standing as a serious actress after cultivating a bad girl image and two failed marriages, including one to actor Billy Bob Thornton that played itself out in the supermarket tabloids.
"Angelina Jolie is a good role model for Paris," said media image consultant Michael Sands. "There was a time when she was immature. But Paris is not a tenth of the actress that Angelina is.
"But then Angelina hasn't been in jail." And jail, said Sands and others, provides Hilton with an immediate cause she could take up - that of women ex-convicts and women doing time, an issue she reportedly has told friends she wants to champion after her release. "She has to show me that she truly wants to help ex-convicts," Sands said.
"She has to show her remorse. She could do this by also working with abused women, drunk drivers, kids hurt by drunk drivers, making public service announcements for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Not by showing up at events for the almighty dollar.
" Get out of spotlight Sands and other image consultants were also critical of Hilton's media handlers, including her parents, for so quickly sending her out on the press circuit, like her scheduled televised interviewed with talk show host Larry King planned for Wednesday night. "Paris," Sands said, "needs to show she has learned from the experience by fading from the party scene for a while." Sanders went so far as to suggest that it might be time for Hilton to leave L.
A. "She should move to New York and lay low for a while," she said. "In New York, the paparazzi are not as aggressive as it is in L.
A. Celebrities who (live in New York) can actually have a life." Ultimately, Hilton will be judged by whether she in fact changes her lifestyle, as she reportedly says she will.
"From my experience, celebrities respect wisdom but they obey pain," Levine said. "When they feel the heat, they see the light.
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