Paris Hilton with Johnny Wujek, a gay man who, by her definition, probably has AIDS. (Getty)

This is one of those cases where no one comes out looking good: a cab driver in New York thought it was his lucky day when Paris Hilton flagged him down, and seeing an opportunity to make a couple extra bucks, secretly recorded her entire conversation with a friend to sell to TMZ. Classy! Of course, if the heiress had just been discussing her latest perfume line, or the singularity, or how much money she plans on donating to the Tesla Science Museum (you know, normal Paris Hilton things), than the guy would have gone home empty-handed, like sleazeball citizen paparazzi deserve to.

Unfortunately, Ms. Hilton was interrupted in her meditation of quantum physics by her friend, who brought up the gay men friend finder, Grindr. "Gay guys are the horniest people in the world ... they're disgusting," Ms. Hilton said, according to TMZ, which obtained the tape, obviously. Unfortunately, the quote continues.

Most of them probably have AIDS ... I would be so scared if I was a gay guy ... you'll like die of AIDS.

Amazingly, Ms. Hilton's rep tried to spin their client's homophobia as a safe-sex message:

Paris Hilton’s comments were to express that it is dangerous for anyone to have unprotected sex that could lead to a life-threatening disease. The conversation became heated, after a close gay friend told her in a cab ride, a story about a gay man who has AIDS and is knowingly having unprotected sex. He also discussed a website that encourages random sex by gay men with strangers.

Grindr is a geosocial app geared toward gay, bisexual and curious men, designed to let you meet attractive/compatible guys nearby. If that concept upsets Paris Hilton so much, wait till she hears the one about AIDS Mary. As a reminder, Paris Hilton once had to leave jail because it made her have a herpes outbreak.

Prince Pierre Casiraghi with Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, pre-fight (Patrick McMullan)

Updated: An earlier edition of this item suggested that Ms. Hilton was at the club at the time of the assault. She was in Las Vegas, celebrating her birthday and winning a lot of money. The New York Observer apologizes for the error.

Today's biggest headline in the New York Post wasn't about Jeremy Lin or Cardinal Tim Dolan. How refreshing! Instead, the story of the day is about a spat at the Meatpacking Club Double Seven club on Saturday night, between former owner of Hawaiian Tropic Zone, Adam Hock, and a group of very young adults with very old money. The night ended with a sprained shoulder for Mr. Hock and an alleged broken jaw for 24-year-old Prince Pierre Casiraghi, the grandson of Grace Kelly. Mr. Hock is now being charged with four counts of third-degree assault.

Fights between socialites and bar owners are usually relegated to Page Six. So how did Emily Smith's team make Saturday's punch-up front page news? The answer might lay in a throw-away reference to the rest of the prince's posse.

Hock, 47, said he was just defending himself and the bevy of models seated at his table after Casiraghi, Paris Hilton ex Stavros Niarchos and scenesters Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld and Diego Marroquin became “belligerent” and “aggressive” because he was at a better table than them.

Without getting into the he-said, he-said of the ordeal (Mr. Hock claimed that the kids were drinking his friend's bottle service, while party promoter Nima Yamini said that Mr. Hock "just went nuts") take a look at some of those names. Paris Hilton and her ex-boyfriend Stavros Niarchos were always a terrible combo: those two can't enter a bar without it basically exploding into a flurry of fists. Vladmir Restoin Roitfeld (the son of French Vogue's former editor, Caroline Roitfeld), Diego Marroquin, and Prince Casiraghi, on the other hand, might be well-known party-goers, but their names aren't usually tied to bar brawls.

And reading the testimony of events, it did seem as if the original beef was between the shipping heir and Mr. Hock. While the first Post story assumed Prince Casiraghi as the instigator:

Hock, 47, had been partying with friends — including Double Seven owner Jeffrey Jah, hairdresser-to-the-stars Joel Warren and catwalk stunners Natasha Poly, Valentina Zalyaeva and Anja Rubik — when Casiraghi strolled over to their table with shipping-scion pal and Paris Hilton ex Stavros Niarchos III and two other men at around 2:30 a.m., witnesses said.

...the front-page story today had Mr. Hock switching his story over to blame Mr. Niarchos:

“My friend Peter Bakker [supermodel Natasha Poly’s husband] (editor's note: yes, this would be the same Natasha Poly who just purchased a posh condo at 100 11th Ave) was there at our table with his wife and two other top models. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, I could see there was hostility between Peter and Stavros Niarchos,” Hock said.

"Welcome to Club Victoria," a voice echoed over the sound system. Then the voice said to turn off all mobile devices. "If you have to be on your phone during a show like this, you have other problems."

The highlights were extensive and hard to pick out, or even distinguish, from the entirety of the show. The Victoria's Secret models came out dressed like sailors, peacocks, cowgirls, Nascar pit crews, boxers, Amazon princesses and their natural angel garb — all while managing to wear basically nothing at all, of course. The country club scenery featured Aryan clones sculpted like Greek statues, while jungle scenery featured dark-skinned men with face paint dancing with arms akimbo. The closest the thing came to understatement was when the models just wore underwear.

Akon sang a song while endless pairs of endless legs walked up and down the runway next to him. Katy Perry belted "Firework" as sparkly purple mushroom clouds somehow clung to her as a dress. Vin Diesel fist-pumped in the front row the entire time.

When the spectacle ended, balloons fell from the rafters and lilted unnoticed onto the heads of the unsuspecting audience. No one knew the balloons were falling, because every set of eyes was locked on the line of models exiting the stage.

Outside, The Observer ran into Adrian Grenier. We asked if he knew any of the models in a personal way.

"No," he said. Then he paused. "Well, Alessandra was in "Entourage," but I don't really know her beyond that."

He didn't elaborate. 

We told him we'd see him at the after party, at Lavo. An assistant whisked him into a car and we walked to the 6 train.

At 10:46 p.m. we got a text saying that Paris Hilton had arrived at Lavo. The subterranean rock-lined den beneath the restaurant of the same name was already air-tight, and the only breathing room was reserved for the row of bottle-service-clad tables. There were Victoria's Secret models tending bar, Victoria's Secret models walking around with strawberry and vanilla Stoli cocktails, Victoria's Secret models dancing with Russell Simmons, and Victoria's Secret models offering trays of tuna tartare. Also, the TVs played the tape of that night's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Michael Bay was there.

Then Paris Hilton arrived, and everything changed. Derek Blasberg, nominally an editor at Style.com but really just a runway and party attendee, escorted her to her table, where her sister Nicky and chilled bottles of Champagne awaited. As flash bulbs popped and smokers stealthily lit cigarettes, we greeted Paris Hilton.

"I thought it was fantastic as always," she told The Observer, of the show. "I love Katy Perry, she really rocked it tonight."

What about your budding music career, Paris?

"Well, I'm finishing my new album right now, so next year."

Any plans to play at, say, the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show?

"I think it would be an honor."

Katy Perry arrived shortly after and took over a nook beside Akon, Maroon 5, and their respective entourages. When the DJ started spinning "Sexy Bitch," on which Akon sings the hook, his crew and the people around him began shouting — "Yeah, 'Kon! Sing it, 'Kon!" — until he propped himself up on the seat and danced, pointing to the crowd. Later, when "California Gurls" came on, Katy Perry climbed on the ledge beside the table and let everyone marvel at her, hovering above them like a busty, elegant figurehead on an old ship.

The Observer spoke with Katy later in the night. Well — we asked about her performance but she smiled that big cartoon smile and said she wasn't doing interviews. We turned around to find that we were actually standing at Maroon 5's table, where perenially stubbled lead singer Adam Levine snuggled with girlfriend Anne Vyalitsyna. Anne Vyalitsyna is very much one of the Victoria's Secret angels, and very much stunning in person. She is both wonderful and amazing, Mr. Levine assured us. 

Then, in that same scrum of female beauty and rock star excess, we found Twitter co-founder Evan Williams drifting in the middle. We had seen him before standing with partner Biz Stone — who appears in commercials for party-sponsor Stoli — talking to Adrian Grenier, who had twitpic'd himself grooving on the Lavo dancefloor earlier that night. We asked if there were any big names at the party who had yet to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. Paris? No, she has a Twitter, Evan told us. 

"Wait, Paris Hilton is here?" he asked.

We nodded, pointed directly behind him, and then Twitter co-founder Evan Williams had a chat with Paris Hilton.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234 

Miss Hilton (at least we think that's her) is riding shotgun in a car in Las Vegas, "driving around while smoking marijuana," when a cackling police officer pulls her over. Paris then goes to the bathroom to presumably dispose of a baggie of cocaine, but the authorities find the drugs and arrest her. NMA compared this to Lindsay Lohan's recent parole violation. "Some joke that Paris had to get arrested so that she can get some attention too," the subtitles read. 

Next: "The Facebook Movie in One Minute."

“Sweet dreams everyone … I’m getting a new car .. Any ideas?” she tweeted around 1 a.m. on Dec. 29, in what would turn out to be her final update. “Cant b a two seater cause we have a daughter … sedan, sports car, suv??”

Two days before that: “Sooo Excited.. Going to c my Beautiful Fiance very soon … It seems Like its been years that I have not sen her! XX [sic]” (She announced her engagement to reality TV star Tila Tequila last month.)

A few months ago, publicist Lizzie Grubman, for whom Ms. Johnson worked as an intern 10 years ago, visited her in Los Angeles, and they caught up over a sushi lunch. “There are all these rumors about drugs and everything, but I think this was in between her stints in rehab and she looked really good,” Ms. Grubman told the Transom. “She looked like she got her shit together. She was showing me pictures of her daughter and she said she was single, and she was actually talking about possibly moving back to New York. At that point, I felt like she was in a better place than I had seen her in a long time.”

But soon after that meeting, amid reports of Ms. Johnson’s increasingly strange behavior, Ms. Johnson’s mother, Sale Johnson, swooped in and took custody of Casey’s 3-year-old daughter, Ava, who was adopted from Kazakhstan in 2007. Johnson mère also reportedly restricted Casey’s access to family money. Casey wanted her daughter back desperately and, according to friends, was ready to give rehab another go.

Alas, on Monday, Jan. 4: “At about 11:51 in the morning, our Wilshire area patrol officers responded to what we call an ambulance death investigation in the 900 block of North Orlando Avenue,” officer Sara Faden told the Transom. “Los Angeles City Fire Department also responded and pronounced Ms. Casey Johnson dead at the scene. The preliminary death investigation reveals that it appears to be a natural death, as there is no evidence of foul play. There was no forced entry or any weapons nearby. There does not appear to be any sort of crime. The coroner’s office is now taking on the investigation and they will conduct their screening, including a toxicology report, to determine if other factors led to her death.”

Ms. Johnson was 30 years old. Homicide investigator Javier Hernandez, who is working the case, told the Transom that the coroner’s office will likely take six to eight weeks to produce a thorough report.

Born Rich documentarian Jamie Johnson, Casey’s uncle, and other family members did not respond to phone calls. “The Johnson family is mourning its tragic loss,” a representative wrote to The Observer in an email, “and asks for privacy during this very difficult time.”

Ms. Johnson started out much like the city’s other heiresses. Her parents were Robert Wood “Woody” Johnson IV, the great-grandson of the pharmaceutical company founder, who bought the New York Jets in 2000 for $635 million, and former model Nancy Sale Frey. (They are now divorced.) She grew up on Fifth Avenue and 64th Street. “Casey was brought up in the building where we live, so I knew her as a child,” the socialite Susan Gutfreund told the Transom. “Casey was a golden girl, and I’ll miss her terribly. But that’s really all I can say. I’m really upset.”

Ms. Johnson attended Chapin; a former classmate, who asked not to be named, told the Transom that as a schoolgirl, Ms. Johnson was obsessed with Madonna and wanted to emulate her. Mike Heller, the nightclub promoter–turned–marketer, who dated Ms. Johnson for three years when she still lived in New York, said she also used to talk about Marilyn Monroe as her icon.

Casey subsequently attended Marymount and Dwight (with Paris Hilton) for high school and then Brown University, but she dropped out her freshman year. Ms. Johnson took a number of jobs, including teaching singing at Dwight, and the stint for Ms. Grubman.  

“She was really a good girl and very misunderstood,” said Ms. Grubman. “She was misdirected. She was always trying to find something for herself. When she worked for me, she wanted to make something of herself, but I don’t think she ever necessarily knew what that was. She just wanted to make her family proud, but she just didn’t know how to do that. Her and her mother were best friends and went everywhere together. They were inseparable.”

But New York socialites are no longer content to be demure, pretty ladies at debutante balls. Ms. Johnson posed in Vanity Fair in 2006 with a cigarette and nothing but a gauzy scarf draped across her front; she took to Page Six to accuse her aunt, Libet, of stealing her boyfriend; she began dating Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel’s daughter, Courtenay (previously linked to Lindsay Lohan), who later allegedly set Ms. Johnson’s hair on fire during a fight; and she was recently charged with grand theft after allegedly breaking into model Jasmine Lennard’s Hollywood home, stealing clothes and jewelry and leaving a used vibrator on the bed. In the end, Ms. Johnson seemed closer in sensibility to her fiancée, Ms. Tequila, than she was to her childhood classmates.

Perhaps that transformation was attributable to that big, bad city of Los Angeles that ingests educated, humble young people and spits out Heidi Montags.

“She was a very giving, kind person when I knew her,” said Mr. Heller, who last saw Ms. Johnson at the Beverly Hills hotel six months ago. “She ran the junior diabetes foundation. She came on a trip with me to Mexico and wanted to visit the hospitals there. I think when she moved to L.A., it really affected her in a bad way. We talked over the phone a couple of weeks ago and she seemed fine. But obviously she was not fine.”

Manhattan's Downtown Armory normally reeks of sweaty atheletes.

On Wednesday, May 27, the place smelled of "Fairy Dust"—that is, Paris Hilton's signature perfume—and a mix of myriad other scents at the Fragrance Foundation's 37th annual "FiFi" awards ceremony, where designer Marc Jacobs was awarded Hall of Fame honors.

Among the many luminaries strolling the red carpet, Argentinean polo player Nacho Figueras, the face of Ralph Lauren’s new ad campaign, “World Of Polo,” stood out with his stunning looks and strong accent.

Properly sporting the same cologne he was promoting, Mr. Figueras boasted that out of all the polo players he knows, he smells the best.

This weekend, the dashing, musky-scented athlete will be competing against Prince Harry in the second annual Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Polo Classic on Governor's Island. “It’s going to be an exciting game and a great thing for polo,” he said.

Albeit probably quite smelly. Of course, Mr. Figueras naturally loves the stench of horses, he said. How do they smell? "They smell like horses!"

Of course, equestrian odor is nothing compared to the scent of a woman. “I think perfume on a women’s neck is sexier than her wrist, because, well, the neck is a sexier part of a women’s body,” Mr. Figueras said. He paused, laughed, and added, “It gives you an excuse.”

The ever striking Ms. Hilton took her time walking down the short carpet with her new boyfriend, Doug Reinhardt, perhaps best known for his dubious turn on MTV's The Hills, breaking up with Lauren Conrad and then making the moves on Stephanie Pratt. Mr. Reinhardt stood at the end of the carpet with his mother, Kelly Reinhardt, whose hair seemed even blonder than the towhead Ms. Hilton. 

Mr. Reinhardt is a baseball player, but tonight, his mind was solely on Paris. "I love how Paris smells," he said. "She smells like roses."

His mother had nothing but nice things to say about the notorious heiress. "She treats him with so much respect," Ms. Reinhardt said. "I think respect is a very beautiful thing this day and age. He’s very protective over her, and she’s very protective over him. They laugh, and have fun, and they’re wonderful together."

Ms. Hilton and her new beau were headed back to Los Angeles after the event. “Her BFF show comes out [on June] 2nd, so they have to get back for that,” Mr. Reinhardt explained as he walked up the stairs into the hall. Mr. Hilton lingered on the carpet as long as possible, before she walked up the steps, blew the photographers, reporters, and random fans her signature kiss, and nearly walked right smack into the green fence at the top of the steps.

Queen Latifah was in a rush because she was the first to present, but seemed to recall her first perfume was “Obsession” and added that her new perfume is called “Queen,” which comes out in September.

“It smells delicious, making me edible!” she said.

The actor Dustin Hoffman smiled for cameras with a noticeable band-aid on his finger that he received from cutting his finger on a plane. He gave a young male reporter advice and said, “Never listen to anyone. Don’t take anyone’s advice. Go by your gut, and do what makes you passionate. When it doubt—and this is mainly for the women,” he said, staring down the Daily Transom—“when in doubt, don’t. We raised six kids. When it doubt, don’t.”

Mr. Hoffman said he doesn’t wear cologne, but admits he wears his wife Lisa Gottsegen’s perfume by assimilation—perhaps appropriate for the cross-dressing star of Tootsie.

“I have never understood why women wear perfume on their wrists,” Mr. Hoffman said. “I never smell a women’s wrist, I always go for her neck, like Dracula. What kind of guy goes like this,” he added, sniffing his wrist and asking, “‘What are you wearing?’ Would you go out with him? He smells your wrist. ‘What?’ you say. ‘Who is this guy?’”

His wife and a nearby reporter both pointed out that it’s because of the pulse point. “I never knew that!” Mr. Hoffman said.

Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was one of the last guests to arrive, casually walked down the carpet wearing a gray suit. He kept one hand in his pocket, and used the other hand as he talked.

“I think my first cologne was Old Spice, but I didn’t buy it. It was for Christmas,” he said.

 When asked what smell he wishes he could bottle up, Mr. Combs replied, “This may not sound sexy, but I love how a baby smells.”

If the recession were to be the name of cologne, he said, it would stink! “It stinks like garbage. It doesn’t smell good. It affects us all. I have a business that goes to Middle America, if they feel the crunch, we feel the crunch, but we’re tightening our boot straps, and we’re making sure we’re conscious and being there for the customers who have been there for us for over 10 years.”

Like Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Combs didn't understand the whole wrist thing. “I don’t get into really smelling the wrist, I’m probably more in the neck than I am the wrist, me personally,” he said.

Had he ever dated a women wearing too much perfume? “No,” he said. “I mean, I kind of test that out before I even get to that point, you know what I’m saying?”

Tamara Feldman is not a real Poppy. She just plays one on TV.

Ms. Feldman portrays the uptown socialite—or “fauxcialite,” if you saw last week's episode—Poppy Lifton on the teen drama Gossip Girl.

Ms. Feldman, who is 31 but presumably plays a character slightly older than high-school age on the show, lives in Los Angeles and said she didn’t realize how many real socialites named Poppy there actually were in New York. (According to a rep for the show, however, the character is not based on any real-life socialite.)

"I had no idea!" said Ms. Feldman when we rang her up last week. "But then I was out at the Bowery Hotel lobby bar one night with some friends, and this girl was like, 'Hi! My name is Poppy.' And I was like, 'Oh my God!' I think one of my friends said something like, 'This is a real Poppy!' Then she told me she was one of them and that there are like three girls named Poppy."

The Daily Transom wondered which Poppy it was that had introduced herself to the fictional Poppy. Was it Poppy de Villeneuve, the photographer? Poppy Delevigne, the model? Or, Poppy King, the lipstick designer? Or, maybe it was Poppy Edmunds, the publicist?

"Oh, I have no idea," replied Ms. Feldman. "I don’t actually remember. We just acknowledged the funny situation and moved on."

The actress said she was quite amused by her character's name when she was first cast for the role.

"I thought it was hilarious," she said. "It was like, ‘Oh my God, my name is Poppy!’ It made me want to act lighter and gigglier just because the name sounds so funny and light."

But Ms. Feldman, who has never lived in New York, said she knew very little about how to talk or act like a Manhattan socialite.

"This is going to sound really stupid, but I actually watched a bunch of interviews on YouTube of Paris Hilton on talk shows. She’s not really a New York socialite, but I just wanted to see a socialite doing an interview to see the physicality and how they talked and how they moved,” she said. “And my character does some extreme stuff that I don’t think any of the real Poppys would ever do. So it was more about playing off the other characters. It’s based more off the show than real life because I don’t really have any real-life experience with socialites."

Ms. Feldman said she’s enjoyed playing her character, especially since Ms. Lifton went from being a peripheral character on the show to causing a major scandal on the Upper East Side in recent episodes. She was the female Bernie Madoff! And she’s hoping Ms. Lifton remains on the show rather than getting shipped off to prison or Mexico or something.

“I have no idea,” she said. “I hope so. But they don’t tell me anything.”

Do the Hilton sisters need books on staying thin? "They're in the book!" said Ms. Frankel. "You know, I used to baby-sit Nicky and Paris. Actually, you're the first person I've told that to."

Come again?

"Kathy Hilton's sister, Paris and Nicky's aunt, is a very, very good friend," said Ms. Frankel.

So what were the Hilton sisters like to baby-sit? "It's all in the book, it's all there," she said. "I included them because they're such a good example of good eating. You know, they're not obsessed with food-they sometimes eat a cheeseburger."

According to press release sent out by the site's PR people, Global Grind will feature blogs written by a veritable who's who of rap including Akon, Bow Wow, Jim Jones, LL Cool J, Nas, T-Pain, and others. To hear them tell it, the site's like The Huffington Post of hip-hop.

The release includes the following bit of information:

Mr. Simmons is quoted as saying, "Whether you're a celebrity, a politician, an artist, a politician, a comedian or an emerging blogger, Global Grind gives the community a powerful platform to speak to each other, the media and the world." (What a relief for Ms. Hilton and Ms. Kardashian.)

In 2000, an earlier Web venture from Mr. Simmons called 360HipHop.com was sold to BET according to The Washington Post.

Jennifer Lopez used to send her assistant on tour with husband Marc Anthony to make sure he didn't cheat on her. Unsurprisingly, the couple seems to be having problems. [P6]

Socialista, which is located on the bottom floor of the apparently rat- and asbestos-infested Jane Street Hotel, has been temporarily shut down by the Department of Health. [NYO, Grub Street]

Jailed Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who is serving 18 months in jail for soliciting and procuring minors for prostitution, has entered a work-release program that allows him to spend weekdays at the office of his nonprofit foundation. [P6]

Oprah Winfrey will be sad if Barack Obama doesn't make time to attend her inaugural party. [Gatecrasher]