Flashback: Catching Paris Hilton's Stalker

Fourteen years ago today, I caught Paris Hilton's stalker outside her Malibu beach house as she was about to throw a 4th of July party. Photos by Diabolik

But first I need to explain how I recognized the guy...

April 27, 2011

I was assigned to cover Paris Hilton's court appearance in Van Nuys, CA to testify against a different stalker. Only one other pap was there, but there were a couple of news crews interviewing her on the way inside with her boyfriend, Cy Waits. 

I missed the actual moment of the "attack" because the news crews were making it difficult to get a clean shot of Paris, so I was repositioning myself when this weird little man walked up behind the couple and seemed to start pouring his water bottle onto her boyfriend, but as you can see in the photo, the bottle looks empty and the lid is still on. So strange. What was his plan exactly?

 

Regardless, he was taken to the ground immediately by a fast acting sherrif's deputy, and led off in handcuffs, being interviewed by the news crews. He bizarrely claimed to have Richard Hilton's permission to "marry" Paris as he was being led away. 

Paris was still in shock a few seconds seconds after the attack, but still proceeded to go inside and testify.

Anyway, back to a few months later, the morning of July 4th, 2011. 

Paris Hilton briefly came out onto the balcony of her rented Malibu beach house to make a phone call and take a photo of the paparazzi below. There was already 10-15 paps waiting on the beach for the party guests to arrive.   

Several of the paps came prepared with beach chairs, coolers, and were playing football on the beach, but I was kind of a loner so I was keeping to myself. That's when I noticed James Rainford sitting right outside the tent set up for the party.

I was pretty sure this was the nut from the courthouse, but had to be sure before calling the cops on someone. The problem was, internet signal was incredibly weak on this stretch of beach, so it was taking forever for me to pull up a photo of the stalker. I was kind of beginning to panic inside, not sure what to do with the scoop I just discovered. 

Meanwhile, I had drawn attention to myself from the other paps by taking photos of this guy for comparison, and they thought maybe he was a celebrity. So one of them came over and asked me who it was. I should have just told him I was testing my light settings, but I foolishly told him the truth because I had to go find a good signal to call the cops and didn't want the perp getting away. 

So I had to sacrifice getting the best shots because I had to go meet the cops on the street and show them how to access that point on the beach because there are not many access points. 

By the time I got back to the spot with two sheriffs, the other paps were all taunting the guy and he was flipping them off.  

They checked his ID, and then took him into custody. 

One of the other scumbag paps asked me why I called the cops, rather than letting the guy do whatever he was planning to do. Better shots maybe, I suppose, but how would I have lived with myself if he had done something violent and I had let it happen?

I love this shot because you can kinda see the paparazzi reflected in his sunglasses.

I thought it would have made a great news story that a paparazzo was the person who called the cops, but it never got reported. But don't worry, I made sure to tell Paris it was me the next time I saw her. 

A few years later I followed up with Paris and asked if he had ever bothered her again. She said he never did.

After all of that, I was still probably the last person to get my photos out that day, because I was working alone and had to walk about a mile back to my car.

But that's when karma smiled upon me.

About five houses down from Paris' place, I noticed another pap staking it out. A real sleazebag comic book character called "Malibu Richard", an older guy with a Beach Boys hairdo who rarely wore a shirt. He assumed I already knew who was in the house, but I had no idea. He went to check the beach side of the house, which meant walking a quarter mile back to the beach access point and then a quarter mile back to that same house. 

As soon as he was gone, Lindsay Lohan's sister came out to get the car ready, and she asked me not to follow them, which was funny, because my car was still 3/4 of a mile away.    

So I got a nice Lilo exclusive to end a truly historic day. 

I probably have never affected another person's life in such a dramatic way. Who knows what might have happened if I hadn't done something. Probably nothing, of course. This guy seemed pretty harmless, but who knows what he had in his bag.