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We naively hoped that we might be able to sneak through the first couple of days of 2006 without having to mention Paris Hilton, but that silly dream has already been dashed. While we couldn't be more bored (trust us, we tried) with the slander and libel suit brought against Hilton by some actress she allegedly planted a false story about in Page Six, we nonetheless find the way she manipulated both her publicist and the tabloid kind of fascinating:

But [former Hilton publicist Rob] Shuter recently confirmed Graff's accusations, based on excerpts from his deposition in which he describes how Hilton phoned him after the two women had a run-in at London nightclub Kabaret, and then gave him specific instructions about what she wanted him to feed to the gossip pages of the New York Post.


"I listened carefully. I took notes. And then, I made a call. Then, I called the Post," Shuter said in his Dec. 16 videotaped deposition.

The story that appeared in the Post's Page Six column July 2 portrayed Graff as a "jealous ex-girlfriend" who went "berserk" when she saw Hilton dancing with Paris Latsis, Graff's former lover. [...]

But Shuter said that the "media savvy" socialite "painted a very dramatic and pretty ugly scene" during their four-minute conversation.

"She dictated and I wrote," Shuter said, adding later, "My recollection is that she wanted to say something much more mean than this. Much more tough. I can't remember, but I definitely had to tone her back."

We're sure that in the course of his duties as a Hilton's flack, Shuter often found himself doing dirty work even more humiliating than taking dictation about petty lies, but until Tinkerbell gets sued for planting bitchy stories about new simian accessory Baby Luv in the gossip columns, we may never get to read a transcript detailing how exactly a publicist is talked into giving a Chihuahua a Brazilian wax.

Also: Hilton allegedly goes all Longoria on an event promoter.