Six Degrees of Paris Hilton: Inside the Sex Tapes, Scandals, and Shakedowns of the New Hollywood (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: erin naas, golden palace, sex tape, Mark Ebner, Joe Francis, Will Wright (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Hugely entertaining and terrifying. Ebner found the one untold story left in Hollywood."-- (former) New York Post Book Reviews Editor and journalist, William Georgiades --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Review

"Lurid and masterful reporting. Every word rings true with an insider's absolute knowledge of Hollywood's rich and famous. Fiendishly ingenious and shocking. Mark Ebner is a born storyteller who has seen it all, from the mean streets to Bel Air mansions."-- Robert Graysmith, author of Zodiac

"In Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, Mark Ebner lays bare the dark, twisted heart of a Hollywood so savage, so murderous, so unbelievably drugged-out, degenerate, sex-soaked, weird, and violent that only a journalist with Buick-sized balls and questionable sanity would even dare to go there. Most terrifying of all -- the story is true, and Ebner tells it with a ferocity and heart that will have readers panting and forgetting to wash or eat until they've clawed their way to the end. Forget all the glossy, big name, so-called Hollywood crime books you've ever read. After Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, they can torch the place and feed the ashes to rats. You'd have to go all the way back to In Cold Blood or Ellroy at his best to find a criminal saga any better than this. Let Ebner take you on a tour of shiny hell. You hold in your hands something very close to a masterpiece."-- Jerry Stahl, author of I, Fatty and Pain Killers

"A totally absorbing, outrageous book." -- Evan Wright, author of Generation Kill

"Six Degrees of Paris Hilton is better than it needed to be for me to endorse it, it is better than you think it'll be--it is nothing short of an awesome book, and I highly recommend it."--Tucker Max, author of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

"If you want to discover more of the dark underbelly of L.A., where celebrities hang side-by-side with drug dealers and other criminals, Mark Ebner's upcoming book Six Degrees of Paris Hilton is for you."-- Rush & Molloy, New York Daily News

"For anyone who still thinks Hollywood is all glitz and glamour, author Mark Ebner has a wake-up call...Ebner's book masterfully exposes a Hollywood where It girls date drug dealers, industry players get beaten down for skipping out on gambling debts and celebrity sex tapes are a dime a dozen."-- ModernTonic.com, January 28, 2009

"This book is a celebrity-soaked bitches' brew bubbling over with toxic-shocked debutantes on a collision course with miscreants and the maladjusted...Ebner keeps writing the story as it rolls out in almost real time, chronicling duplicity and depravity with fierce insight and rich, meaty prose, discovering art thefts, fraud and a bottomless cesspool of shattered dreams and feckless, reckless abandon."-- Lisa Derrick, HuffingtonPost.com

"Six Degrees of Paris Hilton takes readers on a wild ride through the life of Darnell Riley -- murderer, extortionist and debt collector who worked his way into the social circle of the Hollywood heiress...It's an incredible story, and Ebner takes the reader on a whirlwind tour from the red carpet to the federal penitentiary."-- Marty Beckerman, The Daily Beast

"Part pit bull, part Columbo whacked out on a pot of espresso, they don't make investigative journalists like Mark Ebner anymore. Mr. Ebner is one of the few writers left today willing to get down in the gutter with his subjects just to hear their truth."-- Joseph Lindsey, Big Hollywood

"Hugely entertaining and terrifying. Ebner found the one untold story left in Hollywood."-- (former) New York Post Book Reviews Editor and journalist, William Georgiades

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment; 1st Simon Spotlight Entertainment Hardcover Ed edition (February 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416959343
• ISBN-13: 978-1416959342
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #71,952 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gritty, glittering gripping crime drma, January 23, 2009

By	Jim (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Ebner can write--I am a big fan of his blog hollywoodinterrupted.com, and his articles for RADAR where I first read him. This story is a deep, griping, nasty, exciting, star studded, crime filled, intense look at the "pretty people" and their dangerous play pals. THE MUST READ BOOK for anyone interested in Hollywood, crime, celebrities--Six Degrees of Paris Hilton is FACT but it reads like a novel, great turns of phrases, plot twists, awesome characters...and it's REAL. Wild!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Info About Hollywood Than I Ever Needed to Know! , January 24, 2009

By	J. G. Peterson "Dance Music LOVER" (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Having been a fan of Mark Ebner's reporting for years now, this book of heavy-hitting revelations has me completely absorbed. While the title might imply that this book is a tome about the over-exposed Paris Hilton, it's really more of an examination into the lives of the the criminal nature of the Hollywood scene and how they all seem to have a tie to Paris Hilton, which just makes the contents all the more frightening. We already knew Hollywood was rife with weirdness but this book exposes it in a way my mind can barely comprehend (if at all). Definitely a good read and re-read!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You may need brain bleach after this engrossing read, March 17, 2009

By	B. Walker (Wisconsin, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

My big disclaimer is that Mark Ebner could write the back of a cereal box and I'd buy it just to read what he wrote. I love his writing and find his style has that snarky, been there, done that kind of hipness to it. I'd want to hang out with him, but he wouldn't have me, which makes him extra cool.

Six Degrees is only about Paris Hilton (brain bleach, please) in that she manages to show up related to all sorts of weird situations. The Kevin Bacon effect. This is a book about thug con man Darnell Riley, who manages to invade the "pretty people" and do all sorts of nefarious things to them, right under their noses. A lot of the material is of dubious legitimacy, coming second or third-hand from some of the people involved, people you'd trust, well, rarely. But it's juicy and fun to read and Ebner has definitely gone to lengths to research this extensively and talk to a lot of not so nice people, including a trip to Corcoran prison to talk to the con man himself.

The book to me was worth it alone to read about Darnell Riley's obsession with Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild infamy. From the opening chapter which has an apparently drugged Francis bent over naked with a sex toy resting on his rear end making a forced homoerotic movie at Riley's gunpoint, Ebner seems to take almost personal glee in telling of the con man's "thing" for Francis. It's creepy, but in a way, Francis' own past biting him in the butt, to flip a phrase, considering his own history of assault charges and problems with the law.

I really enjoyed this book and would even if not an Ebner fan. The writing is very noir-ish and by the end of the book, there's not a one of these people that comes off looking pretty at all. Ebner takes away the facades, shows you the icky underbelly - not only are these people just like us, some of them are a lot, lot worse.