The first thing I saw when I walked into the lounge of the W Hotel two Saturdays ago was a turtlenecked man sitting in a booth clutching a cocktail with one hand and petting a very large, very fluffy white dog with the other. I was there for Refine the Paradigm, a benefit for tsunami victims hosted by the management company Icon Liquors and Xes Hollywood, a California nightclub.
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Adam Goldstein, also known as DJ AM, better known as Nicole Richie’s fiance, was spinning, and the bar was serving Elm Street Liquors’ recipes for champagne-infused cocktails called Starfucker and Name Dropper (surprisingly, I didn’t care for either). Icon Liquors’ press release dropped a few names of its own: expected guests included Hilary and Haylie Duff, Keanu Reeves, Chris Rock, Eva Longoria, and Corey Feldman. What rich person wouldn’t want to mingle with such an assemblage, especially for a good cause?
The celebrity quotient turned out to be noticeably thin: Feldman and the Duffs were the only ones from the list who made it, but some unlisted folks showed up as well: Punk’d regular Ryan Pinkston, Matt Baker (who has a part in the forthcoming American Pie 4: Band Camp), and a guy who introduced himself as K.Led and claimed he was getting paid just to be in Chicago.
Later I told the mysterious K.Led I had to pee, so he led me back through some kind of behind-the-scenes portion of the hotel, where models in lingerie were lined up, waiting to pose on elevated blocks around the room for a “casual fashion show.” When I got out of the bathroom he had a bottle of champagne waiting on a tray. I stopped caring who he was–if you’re audacious enough and vapid enough (and carrying a bottle of champagne), on a night like this you are whoever you say you are, or whatever other people think you are. He was K.Led, in-demand party attendee; Pinkston, Baker, and Maule were A-list stars; I was LA quality. He poured me a glass, we cheersed, and then we headed back down to the party.
And lo and behold, two days after the party he was compared to Paris Hilton in the Tribune’s society pages.
I don’t think he’s fooling anyone, but then, I don’t think he’s trying to. “If you feel in your head, ‘You know what? I deserve this,’ no matter who you are, that’s all that should matter,” de Charles told me. “Being fabulous is just another emotion.”
