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Heidi And Spencer For Hire
People take great joy in knocking reality show stars and no one more than MTV's "The Hills" stars Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt. After meeting them this week, at a gaming convention called E3, I'm on the fence whether or not I think they are worthy of all the negativity.
On the one hand, I have little to no respect for anyone who over-hypes themselves by attending what I refer to as, "the opening of an envelope." These are the young Hollywood celebrities (I use that term loosely) who attend any event they are invited to take part in. Unveiling of a new clothing line... sure. Hot new restaurant... absolutely. Sponsored birthday party for someone you have never met... of course. Latest scream fest movie premiere... why not? Weekly magazine "hot" list party... you betcha. Beach house party sponsored by a company whose product you probably have never even heard of... yes!
It's like -- come on people… can't you spend one night curled up on the couch with a good book (or, at the very least, watching yourself on Tivo)? When it comes to these type of Hollywood events, I'd say Heidi and Spencer keep it to a better level as opposed to their "Hill"s rivals LC, Lo, Audrina and the rest of the gang whose names pop up on just about every tip sheet (a release given to the media alerting them to who is confirmed to attend) sent out. This is not to defend H&S by any means. They could stand to lighten up on the event load too. For example, I think someone who keeps it to a respectable level would be Hayden Panettiere.
The second thing I take huge issue with are celebrities (again, using the term loosely) who shill themselves out to club organizers for money. Spencer especially gets major negatives from me for this. He famously told David Letterman he doesn't go to any club for less than $100,000. Why anyone would pay to get into a club just to catch a glimpse of someone like him is beyond ridiculous to me. So, I guess that's really the club owners I disrespect for shelling out this amount of money for someone. Although let's be honest If someone paid me $100,000 to go to a club for a couple of hours I probably would go too.
Sadly, it's moved beyond just club appearances though. Companies are shelling out major bucks for people to show up and help pitch their products. Heidi and Spencer attended the E3 convention on the dime of Ubisoft. For the record, I have no evidence they were actually paid for this appearance but I'd be willing to bet $100,000 they were. H&S show up to the Ubisoft meeting room and essentially played a few games and then talked to the media about how much they love their gaming products. This isn't anything new. Many celebrities have done similar deals. We always go under the guise that we will talk to them about the product they are pitching and then get some other type of personal news out of them. The personal news is the only stuff we care about and the product mention is simply the favor for the interview. They go hand and hand.
So, knowing this, I have all sorts of questions lined up for them. Unfortunately, they have decided they are going to deflect any of my questions back to gaming. They also insist of having a female gamer called a Frag Doll stand with them in the interview (she's the one on the left in the picture). I ask Heidi about her friendship with Megan McCain and they deflect back to gaming, I ask about her clothing line versus LC's clothing line… and they deflect back to gaming, I ask about news that Heidi wants to make a gospel album and they deflect back to gaming.
This is where my confusion lies about whether I love them or hate them. Either they are really smart, or really dumb. Most celebrities don't know how to self edit. So, when a personal question comes up they look at their publicist for help and the publicist then shoots us down. Instead these two are somehow able to not really answer my personal questions. It could be a smart decision on their part because they are being paid and are just doing their job – OR, it could be a dumb decision because they should know that in order to get the information about the product they are being paid to pitch they have to give out some personal info. Because they chose not to play ball, so to speak, the segment will never make it onto our TV show. Smart or Dumb? You tell me.
For the record, I don't think H&S aligning themselves with a gaming company did them any favors. Walking with them through the convention hallways you could hear people mumbling nasty comments about them under their breaths like, "Why are they here?" The gamers were not impressed.
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