Party-hearty heiresses get dose of down-home reality

By Lynn Elber
Associated Press

Celeb rich girls Paris Hilton, left, and Nicole Richie, even more famous lately because of their dabblings in do-it-yourself porno and narcotics, make donkeys of themselves in a televised encounter with life on a farm. Fox

There's Hilton's reputation as a party girl, and her starring role in a sex tape that went from intimate to Internet. Richie, daughter of pop star Lionel Richie, had a legal run-in involving drugs.

"The Simple Life," debuting at 7:30 tonight on Fox, drops the longtime pals into the lap of a Southern farm family.

CBS had generated protests merely by proposing a reality series akin to "The Beverly Hillbillies," with a country family's adjustment to upscale urban life as a source of amusement. Fox's twist on "Green Acres," the 1965-71 Eva GaboriEddie Albert sitcom in which a New York socialite reluctantly moves to the country with her husband, had similar potential for insulting rural America.

But the series, unlike its stars, need not worry about its reputation. What could have been a mean-spirited attack on homespun values turns out to be a lighthearted mockery of the rich.

Watch Nicole and Paris jet to Altus, Ark., after a last-ditch shopping spree that includes a $1,500 designer dog carrier. Watch their faces fall as they realize they're staying in a modest country home that doesn't have room service or private bath. And that's no chocolate mint on the bed — it's a tick!

See the young ladies traipse around the countryside in wildly inappropriate outfits. Watch Paris ponder the meaning of Wal-Mart ("Is that where they sell wall stuff?"); a shopping list calling for "generic water," and the phrase "soup kitchen."

The rich, it seems, really are different from the rest of us.

Or maybe Hilton and Richie are engaged in a most contemporary form of noblesse oblige, embarrassing themselves to make the rest of us feel better.

Speculation aside, in this class warfare, the children of privilege don't stand a chance. Their hosts, the Leding family, have on their side common sense, a work ethic and stability.

Paris and Nicole are armed only with winning smiles and Paris' well-dressed dog, Tinkerbell. But while "The Simple Life" doesn't cut the pair much slack, making the most of their gaffes, its producers insist it's not cruel.

"There's a heart to it," said Jonathan Murray, executive producer with Mary-Ellis Bunim. The pair are well established in the reality genre, with series including "The Real World" and "Road Rules."

"Everyone realized for Fox (with its young audience), the best person to send would be Paris Hilton. She seems to be everywhere," Murray said. "She certainly is the 'It Girl,' along with her sister, Nicky."'

Richie was selected because of her chemistry with her longtime friend, while the Leding family made the cut because "We wanted a completely functional family — so much the contrast of what a lot of us have here in Los Angeles," Murray said with a chuckle. "They measured up in every way."

Besides parents Janet and Albert, the household includes three boys (a fourth is in the military) and grandparents. Watching Grandma try to coax Hilton and Richie into plucking a chicken is worth the price of admission.

The Ledings were tolerant toward the high-flying young women, Murray said. Richie's arrest before the start of filming did not deter them. She faced charges of drug possession and driving with a suspended license, and was later ordered into a rehab program.

"The Ledings are incredibly fair-minded people," Murray said. "They wanted to make judgments on Nicole for themselves, not on what was in the papers."

The much-discussed Hilton video didn't hit until after the series finished filming. The timing of the scandal put her "a little on edge" about the series, Murray said. But after watching several episodes, "I think she came away from it feeling that this might be an antidote, for taking people's minds off the tape."