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Burning Q's: Paris' Promises & Stars' Real Ages

Tue., Jul. 8, 2008 5:46 PM PDT by Leslie Gornstein

PacificCoastNews.com

It's been a year since Paris Hilton got out of jail and made all sorts of promises to change. Has she made good on any of them?
—Jen

Item by item? M'kay.

She told Larry King she would "love to work with" Mothers Against Drunk Driving. But a spokeswoman just told me she "has not reached out to us."

She said she wanted to open a halfway home for troubled women. No home so far, halfway or all the way.

But to her credit, Paris has done something charitable since she was released from jail last year. The 27-year-old party giraffe made an "extremely generous" donation to help build a new medical tower at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, hospital officials said last month. The building opens in two years.

Oh, look! I see we have a fresh stack of your Burning Q's here...

What is the deal with ages in Hollywood? I saw a magazine the other day in which an actress who was on TV when I was in middle school said she was three years older than I was. I was in middle school more than 15 years ago, and I know there is no way she could be that young. Why does no one call them out on the age thing?
—Julie

As I've reported before, investigating an actor's real age requires serious money. We're likely talking thousands of dollars spent on private investigators or trips to a star's hometown to pull birth records. And this is the reporting industry. The same one that pays bloggers $10 per post.

Then again, even if a magazine did spend that money to track down a real age, a second, bigger hurdle would still have to be conquered: The star's raging publicity machine.

If a celebrity endorses a product in commercials or in magazines, does it mean that they really use the product?
—Becca

Let's put it this way: The celebrities have to swear they use the product. And then they can use whatever they want. Beyoncé's L'Oréal hair contract stipulated that she use "the L'Oréal hair and cosmetic products" endorsed. The contract didn't say she couldn't use other stuff in secret.

Got a question about Hollywood? ASK IT!

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