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List Price: $24.95 | | Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment
Salesrank: 237311
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
In the burgeoning Hollywood club scene, where ecstasy dealers dine alongside celebrities, and illicit money bubbles up from below like the La Brea Tar Pits, a handsome double-murderer and ex-con of refined wit and taste charmed his way into young Hollywood's most elite social circles. Serving as their hired muscle and arbiter of street justice, he ultimately went on to expose their scandalous, hard-kept secrets -- all the while waging a criminal campaign against the ill-deserving rich and famous.
Filled with sex, drugs, and sudden violence, Six Degrees of Paris Hilton: Inside the Sex Tapes, Scandals, and Shakedowns of the New Hollywood is the shocking true tale of Darnell Riley, a well-mannered middle-class kid from Los Angeles who reinvented himself as a stone-cold gangster in the boxing gyms and bruising streets of South Central, before serving seven years for a double homicide at fifteen. Released at age twenty-three, he infiltrated a far more decadent crowd whose privileged lifestyle is familiar to most only in weekly magazines. During his six-year stab at Hollywood, Darnell ran with its It girls and bully boys: He befriended Paris Hilton; was associated with multiple sex tapes; held Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis at gunpoint and humiliated him on camera; dated models; ran numbers; trafficked in drugs; carried out contract beatings; and "possibly" staged a daring series of home-invasion robberies, many of which were attributed to the infamous Bel-Air Burglar.
In a potent real-life mix of Entourage and The Wire, award-winning journalist Mark Ebner follows Darnell's riveting story, from exclusive interviews conducted inside Corcoran State Prison, through the mean streets of Los Angeles, employing a Rogues Gallery of characters unrivaled in modern crime.
The ultimate exposé of the greed, hypocrisy, and vulgarity behind Hollywood's new breed of feral rich and illicitly famous, Six Degrees of Paris Hilton is a front-row seat to the best show in town.
Six Degrees of Paris Hilton: Inside the Sex Tapes, Scandals, and Shakedowns of the New Hollywood Reviews:
A general review of the best and not so good scandals' books on the market 
2009-10-31 - A general review of the best and not so good scandals' books on the market
Book: HOLLYWOOD EARTH SHATTERING SCANDALS: THE INFAMOUS, VILLAINS, NYMPHOMANIACS AND SHADY CHARACTER IN MOTION PICTURES. By Maximillien de Lafayette, Melinda Pomerleau, Germaine Poitiers, et al.
Characteristics of this book: This is my favorite book, followed by the underground classic "Hollywood Babyblon" by the legendary Kenneth Angers. Lafayette's book is the most recently published book on Hollywood's scandalous stars and the silver screen. It is huge. Explosive from cover to cover. Abundance of photographs (Nearly 520 nw and rare prints). Extensive coverage of the whole spectrum of scandals, affairs and shady personages of Hollywood of all time, thus making this book, the most complete, the most informative, and no doubt, the best for your buck.
Book: HOLLYWOOD BABYLON. By Kenneth Anger.
Characteristics of this book: The book of all books in this arena. Forget any bad review about this book. They were self-serving. Anger's wit, style, and vocabulary are unmatched. It was the first, and will always remain the most read book on the market. His direct access to Hollywood studios' bosses added an extra dimension to his vast knowledge of hidden facts.
Book: ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD: FROM THE SECRET FILES OF HARRY PENNYPACKER. By Michael Druxman.
Characteristics of this book: It is very interesting, and almost essential for all thoses who went to go back in time and read the gossip columns and tabloids of the era. I liked this book, because it has some historical value. Excellent book. A very good compilation.
Book: THE HOLLYWOOD BOOK OF SCANDALS. By James Robert Parish.
Characteristics of this book: Large print, a good selection of photos, and plenty of information. The author knows his craft. The narratives on Rudolph Valentino are exceptionally good. Lots of references made to particular moments in Hollywood's history, thus anchoring the credibility of used facts and data.
Book: DISHING HOLLYWOOD. By Laurie Jacobsen.
Characteristics of this book: A very unusual book, for the simple facts, that Jacobsen incorporated food recipes and menus. She classified her articles into categories such as Breakfast, Luch, Cocktails, Main Dishes, so on, being an ex-waitress. I loved her style of writing, she is refreshing and funny. The articles on Liberace and Bin Crosby and Bobby Darin deliver the goods.
Book: THE HOLLYWOOD BOOK OF DEATH: THE BIZARRE, OFTEN SORDID, PASSINGS OF MORE THAN 125 AMERICAN MOVIE AND TV IDOLS. By James Parish.
Characteristics of this book: Yes, extremely entertaining. Definitely, I will add it to the list of the best books. Parish is a powerful and responsible writer. Any book by him is worth reading.
Book: THE WORLD'S GREATEST HOLLYWOOD SCANDALS. By Robin Cross and John Marriot.
Characteristics of this book: I liked very much this book because it had material burried in the dust of secrecy. The two authors dislike stars, particulary studios bosses, and vain stars. Lot of intensity is placed upon their personal lives, even though it is a small book. It is very helpful, despite the fact that it was cheaply produced, small print, no punctuation, and sometime badly organized. Nervertheless, it is very informative.
Book: SEX LIVES OF THE HOLLYWOOD GODDESSES. By Nigel Cawthorne.
Characteristics of this book: Typical British witttttt. Sarcastic but well-founded. A small book, but large in information and striking details. It is limited to the sex lives of stars. Could be very useful to those who are interested in the boudoirs of actresses.
Book: HOLLYWOOD'S SILENT CLOSET. By Darwin Porter.
Characteristics of this book: A huge book. It is a novel, part fiction, part confession. Some have said it's a major propaganda for homosexuals. It could be true. However through its fictional flair, lots of facts of emerge, particular those who are related to homoseual actors and their closet world.
Book: HOLLYWOOD BABYLON-IT'S BACK. By Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince.
Characteristics of this book: What happened here, I don't know. I was fooled by the title, and it is my mistake. I thought it was an updated edition of Anger's book, but unfortunately, it is NOT. Nothing is important about this book. However, some serious research and digging are apparent.
Garbage 
2009-10-28 - this book was such a waste! Its all lies, nothing about her in this book is true. Paris Hilton is like, the best person ever, I love her. This book is nothing but lies, fabricated stories, and some more stories that are just like what the heck. Paris only has 1 tape out, and it wasn't even her fault. If you watch "Paris, Not France" she even says that the guy never loved her and he wanted to do the tape from the beginning to reach fame. He's a d-bag, and Paris don't need to be treated like that. She also said she called him every day, begging for him not to release it but he told her no and kept hanging up.
I feel for her, I truly do. I love you Paris!!
Wanted to Shower After Reading This Slime 
2009-10-06 - I can take an occasional dose of tabloid material, and admit to occasionally buying a magazine at the check out stand of the local supermarket. Life isn't made up entirely of facts and education...entertainment has to enter somewhere. This book, however, is not that somewhere.
There are enough reviewers that have gone into great detail on the story line of the book, so I will spare you the details. I found I could read this for about 15 minutes before I either a) didn't care anymore or b) felt like I needed to shower to get rid of the filth.
For those into tabloid type material, this maybe a book of interest. If, however, you are inclined toward reading about people that are worth caring about, then this book is a waste. I gave it two stars only because the writing was decent.
Six Degrees of Yawn
2009-08-27 - Why did I bother with this? That's what I've been asking myself since I made it through the first fifty or sixty pages of Mark Ebner's Six Degrees of Paris Hilton: Inside the Sex Tapes, Scandals, and Shakedowns of the New Hollywood. Maybe it was to answer a morbid curiosity about Paris Hilton and/or books of this genre, but after reading it, I know that it's not a literary direction that I'll bother with again.
Author Ebner is someone with whom I'm familiar, since he's made his mark as a blogger, tabloid journalist and television clebrity of sorts. His style of writing can be entertaining is a simple fashion, and he is talented, but when one finishes a book such as this, it's like expecting a simple meal, only to find that one has devoured a full helping of cotton candy... in other words, it's not very nourishing.
Knowing the type of book that this was, I expected to at least be a bit titillated; that was not the case. I made it through the book (falling asleep in a few places), but in the end realized that the no-talent hotel heiress was about a boring as an airhead on a first date that one wishes could be taken home early. There are some points of interest reading about the Hollywood sleazeballs that make up the rest of this tale, but it does leave one feeling somewhat bored, to put it mildly.
I gained no knowlege from this book that I couldn't have picked from a number of television programs of from a tabloid that I might have scanned through in a slow grocery store checkout line. Yet I must admit that Ebner does write well enough to have kept me reading until the end.
I'll summarize it like this:
* Content: 1-star
* Writing: 4-stars
This book may appeal to some Paris Hilton and/or Hollywood sleaze fans, bit I've hopefully learned my lesson form this. Personally I found it to be a big yawn, but if you enjoy Entertainment Tonight on television or supermarket tabloids, then you might enjoy Mark Ebner's Six Degrees of Paris Hilton: Inside the Sex Tapes, Scandals, and Shakedowns of the New Hollywood... if you can stay awake.
I'll give it a yawning 3-stars in that case.
If you love TMZ, you'll love this book. If you have half a brain, steer clear.
2009-08-09 - This book starts off on a bad foot when the writer begins by saying that he's a recovering alcoholic and he loves the sleazy life even if he gets no joy out of the narcotics. After The Wordy Shipmates I am predisposed to dislike any non-fiction book where the narrator has decided to forget about the subject and just write his own memoir instead. While this guy isn't as obnoxious as Sarah Vowell, that's not saying much. He's also a little better looking that Moe from the Three Stooges.
It becomes nominally interesting when he talks about his time with the National Enquirer, but then he actually has to talk about his subject, Darnell, who is corresponding with him. At first, he talks about the background and how he got interested in the case and how he talked to Darnell. And like the Sarah Vowell book, at first you're fooled into thinking that he's just doing some throat clearing before he actually tells Darnell's story. And like Sarah Vowell, he can't be bothered to actually talk about the subject at hand without inserting his irritating and annoying self into every single paragraph. Yes, Hunter S. Thompson did it, but Hunter S. Thompson still managed to talk about the Hell's Angels or the Las Vegas experience. You read Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (Modern Library) and you get a decent picture of what the Hell's Angels are (were?) like and a compelling depiction of the casual violence and the tribalism.
With this idiot, you get nothing but his own need to validate himself. He's no longer writing for the National Enquirer but he's still writing Tabloid Journalism and so as he runs around fact checking and interviewing subject, he has to say who he interviews and why he interviews them and how long it takes to get ahold of them. ANd how much second hand information. Forget about taking yourself out of the narrative; this moron has to put himself front and center. He got ahold of Heavy D. He talked to some rich woman, etc., etc. He's so enamored with his hunt for the sources behind the stories told by Darnell, that he completely forgets to tell a compelling narrative which is SUPPOSED to be his job.
And what is left of this narrative when you ignore the asinine babbling of the writer? Not much at all. Darnell is a two bit punk and a con artist who got involved with some bad characters as a teenager, killed a couple of people in a diamond store robbery and got out. Once he got out he ended up in the same clubs as some people who knew Paris Hilton. He might have talked to Paris Hilton once or twice. She had his number when he stole her information. And then he molested Joe Francis and went back to jail.
But Darnell has a talent for lying and exaggerating his life. He writes a screenplay and claims that another screenwriter told him that it was disturbing and effecting. The writer gets ahold of that screenwriter and discovers that the screenwriter thought it was atrocious. He claims to sleep with a bunch of people that don't admit to knowing him. He robbed a bunch of homes. He turned on all his friends but claims that they turned on him. And there's supposedly ANOTHER videotape of Paris Hilton where she gets fingered in the back of a cab and says N----- at a church service. But the writer can't confirm it. In fact, the writer can't confirm most of the stories that Darnell gives him. In fact, most of them are outrighted contradicted. Because Darnell is a two bit liar who has nothing to do but tell stories.
To underline this fiasco, the writer claims that he broke down crying in the presence of Darnell because he really cares about the man and hopes that Darnell will get his life together. And then admires Darnell for being able to survive. And he wouldn't survive in Darnell's world. Blah blah blah.
This is a really terrible book about a bad writer trying to turn a nobody into a somebody and it wouldn't have been published if it weren't for the incessant (and false) name dropping.
