Paris Hilton, the celebrity socialite paid $1 million to star in an $8 million movie, testified in a Miami courtroom Friday that even her knack for media exposure couldn't save the 2006 bomb of a film.
''Any time I was on a red carpet, any time I was at an event, I was promoting it the whole time,'' Hilton said of Pledge This!, which made less than $3 million. "Any project I'm involved with, I want to give it my all.''
Hilton's fame was on display both at Miami's Ferguson federal courthouse -- where two dozen photographers and TV reporters waited on the sidewalk all afternoon for a sighting -- and at the heart of the case being tried on the 13th floor. Hilton was the civil trial's last witness Friday afternoon, but Judge Federico Moreno has not issued a ruling.
Lawyers and even Moreno said the 28-year-old got her Pledge This! role not for acting abilities or past box office earnings, but for the attention the celebrity socialite generates. Her 2004 contract required her to promote the movie, leaving both sides to argue the requirements of that clause.
The case, Goldberg v. Paris Hilton Entertainment, touched on a familiar topic in South Florida, where hotels and nightclubs routinely subsidize celebrities' travels in an effort to profit off the shared limelight.
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