Paris Hilton due to break her silence
LOS ANGELES - Her cloistered stay in a Los Angeles mansion will be brief.
Inevitably, Paris Hilton would speak about life after jail and she's expected to do just that later Wednesday during an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live."
The hotel heiress and notorious party girl walked out of the Century Regional Detention Facility early Tuesday and was immediately driven to her grandparents' home in fashionable Holmby Hills. She remained inside throughout the day.
Though she said nothing to the swarm of media and gawkers who watched her emerge from jail, she has given hints about what she might say about her future.
"I want to help build a transitional home so that when inmates leave here they don't have to go back to the street," she told E! News' Ryan Seacrest from jail last week.
She also has said she'd like to change her image.
"I used to act dumb. It was an act. I am 26 years old, and that act is no longer cute," Hilton told Barbara Walters a few days into her jail stint.
Still, little has been said about the medical condition that persuaded Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca to authorize what ended up being a brief transfer to home confinement just days after entering the all-women's jail in Lynwood.
However, she has spoken out about the furious debate it ignited.
"I must also say that I was shocked to see all of the attention devoted to the amount of time I would spend in jail for what I had done by the media, public and city officials. I would hope going forward that the public and the media will focus on more important things like the men and women serving our country," she said in a statement.
To help reshape her image, Hilton has enlisted crisis management expert Michael Sitrick, whose Los Angeles firm has represented talk show host Rush Limbaugh, singer R. Kelly and drummer Tommy Lee.
For now, however, the image splashed on the Internet and in newspapers has been of her red-carpet style exit from jail.
With cameras flashing, she walked from jail to a waiting SUV by smiling, waving and strutting past the assembled masses in tight jeans and white stiletto heels. She slapped hands with sheriff's deputies holding the photographers at bay until she reached the SUV and hugged her mother.
From there it was a quick drive to her grandparents' house.
More than a dozen cars pulled up to the mansion's gate during the day and were quickly buzzed inside. Their occupants declined to talk to reporters.
Some early morning walkers found the scrum of paparazzi photographers and journalists amusing. But as the day progressed and traffic picked up, people trapped in the street in their cars with horns honking all around them failed to see the humor.
"I'm trying to get my daughter to her dance class," an angry Mindy Mann said as she called police on her cell phone.
Hilton's path to jail began Sept. 7, when she failed a sobriety test after police saw her weaving down a street in her Mercedes-Benz. Hilton, who said she was hungry and on the way to get a hamburger, pleaded no contest to alcohol-related reckless driving and was sentenced to probation for three years.
In the months that followed she was stopped twice by officers who discovered her driving with a suspended license. The second stop landed her in court and then in jail.
