Today's Evil Beet Gossip

Samantha Pays Up

Nearly a year after a judge ordered her to pay $87K in legal fees to Perez Hilton for his legal fees in the defamation lawsuit she filed (and lost) against the blogger, Samantha has ponied up the dough. The payment comes just a day before Samantha was supposed to have to appear in court to explain why she couldn’t come up with the cash. Someone didn’t want the authorities poking into her finances …

I always figured there must have been some crazy bullshit behind this lawsuit in the first place. If you don’t remember, Perez Hilton’s website repeated a claim by Jill Ishkanian’s website that Samantha Ronson was the true owner of the cocaine found in Lindsay Lohan’s car after her drunk driving arrest in May 2007. (Jill Ishkanian, just for fun, is the same chick accused of calling the cops on Heather Locklear just so she could profit from the photos of her arrest. A sweet girl all around.) But Samantha is, by anyone’s judgment, a public figure — even back then — and musings of she and Lindsay’s drug use is clearly a matter of public interest. A judge agreed on all these points. Samantha’s lawyers must have warned her that this case would be damn near impossible to win, at least against Perez (Ronson and Ishkanian later settled out of court). Our Constitution makes it pretty clear that Perez Hilton gets to talk shit about Samantha Ronson. It’s, like, on page four. But she moved forward with the suit anyway. It all seemed odd to me.

11 CommentsLeave a comment

  • But, really, what in the world would be considered defamation? Honest question. If you can state someone is the illegal drug owner, what’s next…child abuser? Just wonder WHAT a celeb has to be accused of before it becomes a legal matter.

  • Que Tal?

    http://perezrevenge.com/exclusivewoman-who-tipped-off-police-paparazzi-about-heather-locklear-did-the-same-to-lindsay-lohan/

    ***Exclusive***Woman who tipped off police & paparazzi about Heather Locklear, did the same to Lindsay Lohan.
    Posted by Gigi at 4:00pm on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 Topics: Celeb Justice, Heather Locklear, Lindsay Lohan, Mario Lavandeira, Samantha Ronson, The Biz Does anybody else find it interesting that many of the times a celebrity is involved in a DUI, Jill Ishkanian is within arms reach?

    The woman who tipped of the police and paparazzi last week which resulted in Heather Locklear’s arrest is named Jill Ishkanian.
    The only witness and call to police came from Jill Ishkanian, with various news agencies reporting that other witnesses said there was no impairment on Heather Locklear’s part.

    A little background on Jill Ishkanian, she is a former Us Weekly staffer who is under investigation by the FBI, for allegedly hacked into Us Weekly’s computer system to locate celebs after she left the magazine. She was following Heather Locklear in the Montecito area. She also runs the Sunset Photo and News Agency, sold the pix she snapped of the actress’ arrest to TMZ for $27,000, according to a written statement that her attorney released on Wednesday.

    OK, here is the interesting part…. Jill Ishkanian is the same woman named on the lawsuit that Samantha Ronson filed against PerezHilton.com and CelebrityBabylon.com. CelebrityBabylon is owned by, you guessed it Jill Ishkanian.

    Samantha’s lawsuit against the two is based on the fact that they claim she planted cocaine in Lindsay Lohan’s car after a car accident, therby defaming her. Now, all things considered doesn’t it make you think that perhaps Samantha is right and is it such a far stretch to assume that it could have been Jill Ishkanian that would have planted something.

  • wait. i thought on jill’s website, she claimed that the coke found in lind’s car was samantha’s… that’s why she was sued- defamation of character.

    i don’t think anyone ever said that Jill HERSELF planted the coke.

    then, i think, perez was sued because he reprinted the story, further defaming samantha. but she lost her case against him, since he was just reprinting the story, and she and jill settled out of court.

    no one thinks Jill PLANTED something. that’s even more crazy though.

  • I get that you wanna sue, if it messes with your rep and is completly untrue but she shouldn’t have only because it’s messed up that perez get’s rewarded for basically talking shit about her. He’s already profitting enough on other people’s misery. It’s depressing , his tone is so infantile and vindictive towards the people he is covering. it’s like a schoolyard bully given free reign on the internet.