What’s a girl to do when even the Hollywood party scene just isn’t enough? Road trip! Hollywood.com joined a bevy of beauties as they hit the road to whoop it up. We’ve got Paris’ bedhoppin’ b-day in Sin City, Ashlee Simpson and Carmen Electra hard rockin’ with Hoobastank in San Diego; and Beyonce ballin’ in Houston for NBA All-Star Weekend.
PUREly Paris
You wouldn’t imagine that Paris Hilton would spend her 25th birthday in bed, but she did.
Of course, that bed was set smack at the heart of Caesars Palace’s PURE nightclub in Las Vegas, surrounded by her personal party posse, Patron tequila shots and a passel of Pussycat Dolls–and, oh yeah, a capacity crowd of Sin City visitors hoping to help celebrate Paris’ quarter-century mark.
“You guys are so hot! This is so much better than going to a strip club where they take everything off,” Paris told the Dolls, who gave a private 30-minute performance for the heiress and her dozen-member entourage, which included her sister Nicky, her runway model BFF Caroline D’Amore and MTV wild boy Steve-O (Paris’ current beau, model and shipping heir Stavros Niarchos, was not-so-conspicuously absent, the subject of a city-wide ban from all Vegas clubs and casinos). Paris, who revealed that the Dolls’ creator/choreographer Robin Antin would be crafting her moves for Paris’ upcoming music video, was unabashed in her praise: “The Pussycat Dolls are the sexiest bitches in Vegas.”
Soon enough, Paris was vying for that title as well. After the Dolls harmonized a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday,’ Ms. H and her pals were off to PURE’s VIP section, where the Dom and Patron flowed forth like water as they lounged on a trio of pillow-filled white leather beds–but there’d be no laying around on Paris’ 25th as she gleefully bounced up and down and vampily peeked out at the surrounding crowd from the white see-through curtains encircling her crew.
Bounding over to an eight-inch wide platform, Paris kicked off her shoes and bumped and grinded as her girl Caroline DJ-ed at the Club, kicking out old school 80s fare like George Michael and Madonna as the heiress got her groove on and teased the onlookers. Paris even grabbed a mic and sang along to the Material Girl and requested that Caroline spin one of her fave tunes, Britney Spears’ “Slave 4 U.”
Paris’ mom and pop Kathy and Rick joined her for a celebratory birthday toast and a truly massive birthday cake was brought out as Paris thanked everyone for joining her birthday bash and asked the clubgoers to sing one more round of ‘Happy Birthday,’ and they happily obliged. Of course, in Paris’ world there are more than 24 hours in any given day, especially her birthday, so at 3 a.m. she and Nicky extended the celebration with a trip to Sin City’s other sizzling celeb hot spot, Tao at the Venetian.
Photo Gallery: Paris Hilton’s 25th Birthday Party at Pure Night Club in Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas
A Hard Rock and a Hard Place
For its latest venture in sun-soaked San Diego, the Hard Rock Hotel may not exactly deliver on rock star-trashable hotel rooms (it’s actually a super swank luxury condo development) but it did serve up more than its share of hard rockin’ at its opening night party hosted by one half of pop music’s sexiest sisterhood, Ashlee Simpson, and one of the smokin’-est rock wives ever, Carmen Electra.
The guests partied like rock stars–literally in some cases, as Good Charlotte’s Benji Madden and members of Velvet Revolver and Yellowcard rubbed elbows with a local crowd that provided plenty of eye-popping eye-candy (beach bunny blondes, sky-high stilettos, impressively presented cleavage and lots of lots of exposed skin were the order of the evening) as the Yin Yang Twins and Hoobastank took the stage to blow the roof out of a Gaslamp district club converted into a temporary Hard Rock.
As San Diego Chargers wide receiver Kassim Osgood had to resort to showing a pair of stern security guards his ID to prove he was indeed very important enough to get into the V.I.P. section, I settled into a private booth (which I later found out was reserved for the then-onstage Yin Yang Twins—sorry about the vodka, Twins!), offered a drink to Benji Madden and watched the show alongside Carmen, who was perched atop the neighboring booth in her teeny white Monique Lhullier dress with a daring neckline that showcased her electra-fying figure and partied the night away with Ashlee and Jessica’s hairstylist pal Ken Paves.
Meanwhile, Ashlee–looking perfectly rockerish in her curve-clinging black Juicy dress and Chloe shoes and jewels–a gaggle of gal pals and one extremely large bodyguard by the name of Big Ron, squeezed into another nearby booth to get a better view of the stage as her friends Dan Estrin and Douglas Robb of Hoobastank took over. Earlier in the evening, as I checked into the Omni, Dan and Doug had been hanging in the lobby and greeted the also-arriving Ashlee with hugs as she rolled into town.
“I’ve performed at quite a few Hard Rocks in America, and it almost feels like home in a sense,” Ashlee Simpson, told me. “It’s amazing to have one here in San Diego–they have a lot of cool signed things. We were looking earlier at stuff from Joe Walsh, which is my friend here Lucy’s dad, so we were pretty excited about that.” Ashlee’s personal picks for the most awe-inducing music memorabilia: “I love Aerosmith–anything like that makes me go ‘Aaaahhh.’ And Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin.”
Extra blonde and especially tan, Ashlee just got back from seven days in Hawaii (“I learned how to surf!”) and I wondered if, now that her big sis Jessica is continuing to step before the cameras if Ashlee would be taking a break from making music and getting back to acting any time soon. “Eventually I’ll get back to acting whenever I have time to focus on it, but I’ve really been enjoying focusing in the record,” she told me. “I’ve been overseas quite a bit and I’m going on a summer tour.” One thing she’s looking forward to is heading into the recording studio with her sister someday. “I’m sure one day we’ll perform together.”
Carmen told me she and her husband Dave Navarro were considering purchasing one of the Hard Rock’s pads. “I’ve had many fun nights at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas–fun or crazy. I was actually thinking about designing sort of a Goddess Suite, a luxury suite that would be geared for women,” she said. “There’s so many good restaurants, the nightlife is great here and the people are really cool, so it’s going to be interesting bringing that rock and roll edge here. There’s an incredible music scene that’s coming up here, so I think it’s a good fit.”
While Carmen’s memorabilia of choice includes “Jimi Hendrix and the artists that aren’t here anymore,” she has a soft spot for anything once owned by her husband. “Dave has stuff up, and it’s so cute! I’m so proud of him that he has memorabilia up!”
Having something you once played mounted with a plaque and hanging on a wall in a Hard Rock, any Hard Rock, was definitely a sign that you’d made it, according to Hoobastank’s Estrin. “Were actually in a Hard Rock in Portugal and we saw my guitar,” he told me. “It was really strange to me being in Portugal and looking up and seeing my guitar and a photo of me that I don’t remember taking. Seeing it in the Hard Rock was very cool. It’s become like a McDonald’s–you can find a Hard Rock in every corner of the world. It’s dope because you can go there and feel almost at home.”
Photo Gallery: Launch of Hard Rock Condo-Hotel in San Diego
Houston’s Hoops Hoopla
Beyonce bounced into Houston for NBA’s All-Star Weekend with her man Jay-Z and Destiny’s Child gal pal Kelly Rowland in tow, to check on the Ultimate T-Mobile Experience party just in time to catch Snoop Dogg jumping up to join Pharrell Williams onstage. Of course, given the b-ball bent of the weekend, it was really more of a Boys Night Out, with a crowd that included Jermaine Dupree, Donald Faison, new Superman Brandon Routh, former Bachelor Andrew Firestone, Chingy, DJ Vice, Warren Moon and Vegas’ Palms hotel magnate George Maloof. The guests also got to practice their hoops skills on custom pop-a-shot machines and hit the official basketball court-shaped dance floor.
And since we started this party tour with a birthday blow-out, let’s end with another one: hoops legend Michael Jordan celebrated his 43rd at his very own Air Jordan XXI Launch Party at Houston’s 1001 McKinney Building, celebrating the debut of his latest sneaker ($175 a pair, BTW) and his “Happy Birthday” chorus may have made even Paris a bit envious: Grammy-winning singing sensation John Legend led the crowd—which included Diddy, Jimmy Jam, Fat Joe, Jermaine Dupree, Jadakiss, Terrell Owens, Mark Cuban, Chi McBride, Dominique Wilkins, Amare Stoudemire, Orlano Pace, Warren Sapp, soul singer Goapele and Beyonce’s mom Solange Knowles—in the celebratory serenade.
