Tate Carmichael is the star of her own memoir, Lindsay Lohan Stole My Life, which depicts perhaps a more honest view than most of the period known as the aughts. The Opiate Books does not necessarily agree with or condone the opinions expressed and contained herein (complete with what many would call “strong language”), however we believe in freedom of speech and that, as Paris says, “The people who hurt you don’t get the last word. You get to tell the story of you, and your story has more power than you can imagine.”

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I get it. Except, okay, not really. But sure, I “get” it. Paris is a “name,” a “brand,” an “icon.” “The moment,” as Gen Z poseurs have taken to saying (along with “iconic”). The type of person one (albeit a daft one) would theoretically be interested in reading about thanks to her “lurid” 00s exploits. All of which were a result of my presence and influence. But wouldn’t you know it? She didn’t mention me at all within the pages of her sordid little sob story (called, what else, Paris: The Memoir). And it is mostly that—intermixed with random plugs about some of the schlock she’s trying to sell. I’ll even give you an example of such a non sequitur comment: “Whenever I see a hummingbird, I feel [my grandma’s] arms around me, and when I did my first NFT drop—trying to bring fierce, talented women artists into this powerful new space—I collaborated with Blake Kathryn on ‘Hummingbird in My Metaverse,’ which featured planets in flux and a hummingbird in flight.” Wow Paris, thank you for that stunning depiction of your shitty, environment-destroying NFT. It really gave me so much insight into how much class you’ve lost as the twenty-first century has gone on, truly shameless about how you’ll “imperceptibly” self-promote. Shit, it’s like Kim Kardashian has been schooling her, not the other way around. But I guess Paris learned long ago, at that “residential treatment center,” adapt or die.

And, speaking of that, her two-ish years at Provo Canyon were pretty hush-hush. Even Nicole and I didn’t know about it, buying that boarding school cover story everyone else was given by her psycho parents. But I suppose I’m not one to call anyone else’s parents psycho. Not in the rich person’s community, anyway. Being mentally ill is, after all, a prerequisite for perpetuating a moneyed lineage. Anyway, Paris’ time at various CEDU-operated facilities dominates a large bulk of the memoir, and while that’s super sad and all, I can’t help but feel like it’s kind of taking up too much valuable paper in the book (but, again, Paris clearly doesn’t give a fuck about the environment, what with her private jets and NFT-shilling). Where are all the rehashings about what a cunt Lindsay is, or what the real cause of her falling out with Nicole was in the mid-aughts? Or how gross it was to fuck Nick Carter and that guy from Sum 41? And honestly, the audacity for Nick to say in his own memoir, “Paris was the worst person in the world for me to hook up with. [She] fed my worst impulses as far as partying.” What a fuckin’ pussy. Like, take responsibility for your own shit—it’s not as though Lindsay Lohan stole your life. Anyway, I think Paris might actually have worse taste in men than me, which is probably why she mostly talks only about her most prized pet throughout the book: Carter Reum. That’s probably why she could have also titled this book something like: Trading Up: From Nick Carter to Carter Reum.

Based on this “memoir’s” content though, she apparently doesn’t want to think about too many of her past conquests. But who could forget her seedier stints with Stavros Niarchos (who Lindsay “stole” as well…a.k.a. had no trouble being runner-up to Paris)? Or Benji Madden? That was obviously her attempt at trying to get close with Nicole again, who had already started dating Benji’s twin, Joel. The whole thing was super creepy, especially when Paris told David Letterman in 2008, “We’re like sisters and they’re twins, so it works out well. Nicole and I would be sisters-in-law. We talk about it. I’m so happy. I’m so in love.” Yeah, yeah. We were all “in love” in the mid-00s, weren’t we? Back when everyone wasn’t so fucking poor. Now, even rich people are poor. It’s a super bummer. Like Gordon Comstock said in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, “It’s impossible to think about fucking when you don’t even have eight bob in your pocket.” Or something to that effect. But anyway, you get it. When you’re worried about money, the last thing you can think about is sex or being sexy. That’s why not having money is so unsexy.

However, that’s not something Paris would understand, despite her pathetic bids to relate to the commoner as she keeps being sure to mention that she knows she comes from privilege, spewing shit like, “Believe me, I was fully aware of how blessed and fortunate I was.” She says that right before diving into some frivolous anecdote about going to the Hamptons with her family. Clever bitch, but still…totally transparent. We all know she keeps being sure to mention how grateful she is for her privilege because we live in a way more “eat the rich” milieu than ever before. Or at least, not since the French Revolution has it been so chic to despise rich people. But it’s like Gretchen Wieners said, “I’m sorry that people are so jealous of me, but I can’t help it that I’m [rich].” Same, girl, same. Paris doesn’t want to own that like she used to, instead pandering to this pathetic “rebrand” that no one else can seem to see through but me. She’s “adjusting her attitude” to fit in with the “be humble if you must be rich” times. Back in the day, though, she would have run over a homeless person for fun. Especially since TMZ wasn’t around yet.

Luckily for Paris, by the time it did “invent itself,” Lindsay had come onto the scene and proven herself to be a way bigger trainwreck worth documenting. Which brings me to the one good part about Paris: The Memoir—and that is Paris shading Lindsay for a TMZ video featuring the paparazzi asking Paris if she hit Lindsay. For context, Paris explains, “…a day or two earlier this weird video came out where [Lindsay] said that I hit her elbow and dumped a drink on her. I still have no idea what that was about.” What it was about is: Lindsay is a fucking nutter. But Paris doesn’t have the ovaries to announce that in her book. Not in this climate. And no matter what Paris claims about “things being good” with Lindsay now, she’ll forever secretly hate that puta. I, on the other hand, see no reason to be secret about anything. “Girl world” or not, I can’t hide my feelings for people who have been little assholes the entire time. Even as everyone from the 00s tries to reanimate into some marketable “beacon of goodness” for the Gen Z set—capitalize on all this “00s nostalgia” before it’s gone and people move on to find something worth romanticizing about the 2010s (though certainly not Lena Dunham’s Girls). Paris isn’t actually sorry, of course. She just knows she needs to seem that way in order for a new, far more lily-livered and easily scandalized generation to accept her and therefore buy her shit. Ergo, the cycle of “Paris-curated” consumerism continues. While never directly alluding to all the well-documented racist shit she said throughout the 00s (and who knows how much undocumented shit was said), she basically claims it was all part of her “trauma” from being at that facility. For fuck’s sake, let’s not keep using “trauma” as a catch-all excuse for everything. She might as well tell people, “Yeah, I said ‘nigger’ a lot because someone tortured me so much it became my coping mechanism.” To quote the immortal Cher Horowitz, “As if.” Does she really expect people to believe that she approached a camera after dancing with her sister, Nicky, to Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize” and proudly announced, “We’re like two niggers!” because she went to Provo Canyon? Unless the fucking Mormons conditioned her to say shit like that, I don’t think so, bia. Not a viable “explanation” apart from the fact that you know you need to “rebrand” to survive cancellation if enough Gen Zers studied that footage. Some of which was Paris’ own fault for getting leaked. After all, if she had just paid that $208 storage fee (which is literally like less than a penny to her), no one ever would have been able to start a website called parisexposed.com, where all her personal possessions were able to be accessed because she was foolish enough to let some little trolls gain entrée to her storage unit and auction off the items. Really, talk about assuming you’re “untouchable.”

At least one can call Paris an “equal-opportunity racist”—she also had plenty of comments about Jews and gays, too…some of which came out in the “storage unit tapes.” But really, it was all about “niggers” for her. As Brandon Davis commented (long after his epic comment about Lindsay’s firecrotch that shits freckles), “Every Black person she referred to was a nigger. She uses the word all the time, and I’ve known her all her life.” Brandon, in contrast to Lindsay saying, “She’s a nice person,” would simply go on to say, “She’s just not a nice person.” Worse than that, she’s fake as fuck—and this memoir just solidifies that reality for me. Even her baby is fake, manufactured to go with her “perfect” image. Yet still, she wants to excuse her intrinsically racist personality (what with growing up Republican) by saying, “I’ve done some things I’m not proud of… Am I standing by these choices? Would I make the same choices again, knowing what I know now? Of course not! None of that reflects the person I am now.” Why doesn’t she just pull the James McAvoy line from Split where he deflects, “That wasn’t me. That was Patricia”? It would somehow ring truer. She keeps explaining away her unchecked privilege of being racist when it was still “allowed” by adding, “People evolve. We have the capacity to learn. And we all make mistakes when we’re young.” That old chestnut. Billie Eilish is gonna use that one a lot, I’m sure.

After pretending to be all “zen” and “wise” about her past, pages later, she reveals her true self by expressing gladness over one of her blackmailers hanging himself as she chirpily notes, “Karma’s a bitch.” First of all, so much for being “evolved” and, second, I think you and I both know Karma isn’t all that bitchy, otherwise my book would be number one on the New York Times Best Seller list, not Paris’ overly sanitized “memoir.” But whatever, that fucking rag is not nearly as important to me as the Los Angeles Times. And just in case you couldn’t get the message: I fucking hate New York. Not just because Lindsay was born in (on?) Long Island, either.

When the book isn’t about Paris’ “trauma,” it’s about how “savvy” she is. Though I would love to see how well that “savviness” would have played out without the Hilton name behind her. Just like Kim insisting she pulled herself up by her bootstraps by being a celebrity closet organizer. And yes, Paris is sure to bring that up for undercutting demeanment purposes by recalling, “Kim had started a business where she went into the closets of famous people, took whatever they didn’t love and sold it on eBay.” So fucking desperate. But then, Kim has always been unapologetically that way, lest you forget about her gleefully showing up for the opening of some public restrooms sponsored by Charmin (ergo, “the Charmin restrooms”) in Times Square. Talk about admitting to being on the same level as shit. Even Paris has never sunk that low (I feel like there’s a pun there).

Other than a handful of nods to Kim, Lindsay and Britney, the few and far between mini-anecdotes about nights out in 00s L.A. aren’t nearly as titillating as they should be to make up for what a load of bollocks this entire whitewashing attempt is. Paris even has the audacity to faux-somberly note, as though she didn’t have a hand in sanctioning it, “Social media became the new reality. Selves became selfies. Privacy was commodified. Our collective attention span became ad space. An entire generation grew up numbed by Ritalin and somehow managed to reinvent the art of connection.” For whatever reason, she seems to think that after that sentence, it’s apropos to add, “I was carried by a tide of empowerment… I was working hard to shed my skin and leave behind the character with the baby voice. I wanted to be the woman Marilyn never had a chance to evolve into: It Girl gone Influencer.” It is right at this moment that I vomited for the umpteenth time while reading this utter bullshit. Can every damaged goods bitch please stop bringing Marilyn into their narrative? My God, let the woman rest in peace (when some necro isn’t trying to dig up her ever-dwindling remains).

Paris’ botched “endeavors” to pretend to understand “sympathizing” with the commoner also comes out in a line like, “For Carter and me, quarantine was an oasis, but it was terrifying to see the death toll rise.” Yeah bitch, you sound like you were really fucking terrified while you were getting railed by your Ken doll and probably still taking trips to exotic locations. Also, Carter is definitely gay in case Paris can’t read between her own lines when she writes, “Not long ago, on our monthiversary [sidebar: vomit], he set up the patio with couches, pillows, presents, hors d’oeuvres and a big movie screen for an outdoor showing of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” This “gentleman” of hers most definitely prefers just that…in a man. And can we talk about how much it sounds like she just finally decided to settle for whoever simply because he was there and his “pedigree” matched her own. It was as though she was finally ready to activate her “Kathy and Nicky Hilton” mode by surrendering to the “Perfect Family” trope. To that point, Paris mentions of her background, “I was born at precisely the right time to exactly the right people.” Of course she would fucking think that—but one doubts she would feel that way if she was born into a “nigger” (Paris’ word, not mine) family with no financial clout.

I suppose what’s most striking about the book though is how willing Paris is to “date” herself by making mention of old technology/no-longer-relevant ephemera like the Motorola Razr and the T-Mobile Sidekick II. Or how she got pissed at her manager for not letting her get in on the ground-floor of being one of the first celebs to “publicly” use Facebook. I would have thought she might have tried to be more discreet about calling attention to her age (read: withered frame…and fame, for that matter). But no, she’s constantly mentioning old pop culture that “inspired” her or whatever. Like Big Daddy. Needless to say, it’s no wonder she still comes across as having the intellect of a dodo (regardless, Paris’ “breed” has yet to go extinct). Even when she tries to sound smart by explaining what capital is. I had to keep from retching (once more) when she brought up an appearance of hers on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where she explains to him what an NFT is. She then goes on to “enlighten” her unfortunate readers, “…let’s use that as an example: Jimmy Fallon offers a joke and receives laughter in return. It’s a transaction, one thing exchanged for another. The audience wants to experience the feeling they get from laughing; Jimmy wants the audience response that raises his stock as a comedian. So, the joke and the laughter both have real value.” Yes Paris, please explain more to me about how capitalism works, and has tainted everything.

She keeps prattling on, “I love me some cash, but value doesn’t always mean as much as money.” You don’t say? Well I think the plebes working min wage might disagree. They might also feel the urge to pelt Paris with fries when she asserts, “Time is the most valuable natural resource we have.” Uh huh. And you know who gets it? Not the “Little Hiltons,” but rich bitches like Paris and me. She could at least have the decency to address that in her hollow bid to sound “relatable.” Doesn’t she understand that the thing that makes rich people special is that they’re not relatable at all? Then, of course, to ensure her place in the politically correct present, she’s certain to give some #MeToo stories—not just about Harvey Weinstein, but about her junior high teacher hitting on her to the point where she ended up kissing him in his car. Bitch, I kissed that teacher too. And I fucked him. You were just his prudish sloppy seconds. But no, we can’t admit to having enjoyed a little May-December romance anymore, can we?

As for that and the Provo Canyon debacle, I know she thinks she went through this big deal trauma, but honestly, it’s like the only thing she has going for her to defend herself against the ever-mounting hate toward those born into family money and inherent privilege. And trying to pretend she’s Team Poor Person now makes her a disgrace to rich people and socialites everywhere. Because committed socialites would never “subtly” apologize for their station in life by trying to masquerade as some kind of “activist.”  

So, as you might have noticed, unlike the aughts themselves, I absolutely cannot recommend this book. Especially if you have an allergic reaction to total phonies (à la Holden Caulfield—in which case, call me Holdena [pronounced “Hol-Dina,” but don’t let that make you think of Dina Lohan] Caulfield). What I recommend instead is my own (duh). The unbridled truth about who all these freshly “woke” hoes really are, no matter how much money they put into their rebrands in an attempt to obfuscate the past. But let me tell you, sweetie, the past is always present.