“Star” magazine readers think Paris is a big crybaby and got off the hook just because she’s a celebrity, according to early results of an impromptu poll on the glossy’s Web site today.
 
Tabloid queen Bonnie Fuller told Reuters that up to 90 percent of people who have responded think Paris should have sucked it up and served her 23 days of jail time for violating probation in a drunk driving case, instead of getting off the hook after three days.
 
A spokesman at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office said the party-loving heiress was “reassigned” to a 40-day home confinement for unexplained medical reasons.
 
But Paris’s early release could come back to haunt her, because even the most devoted fans like to see some shred of nobility and courage in their pop idols, said Fuller. 
    
Fuller, who is chief editorial director of “Star” owner American Media Inc., had this to tell us about the whole affair, first reported on celebrity gossip site TMZ:
 
On Paris:
Paris got a prison break. It’s like a prison break where she didn’t even have to have a map of the prison tattooed all over her body to break out.
 
What we’re hearing is they were worried about her mental state. We put up a poll for our readers to answer and 90 percent think she shouldn’t have been let out of jail early. 92 percent think she got special treatment because she’s a celebrity.
        
I think she absolutely got special treatment … She’s out after three days because apparently she was crying a lot.    
   
She also could suffer from backlash. We were certainly hearing that she was going to pen a book about her experiences in jail … We’ve reported in Star that her fee for her club appearances after coming of jail, she probably could have commanded double the fee. I don’t think either of those opportunities will happen for her.
   
[Hilton's fans] won’t feel that she served her debt to society. … People feel that she could have stuck it out for the 23 days and served her debt to society and also really come to a realization that what she did was wrong. You cannot drink and drive.
    
On Mel, Naomi and other celebrity bouts with the law: 
This year we have heard about more celebrities having run-ins with the law. Certainly it’s not a good message and yes I do think the message that a lot of people are going to take away is that it looks like celebrities are above the law.
    
On facing Web competition for celebrity news:    
It’s very much changed they way we do our business, particularly in the last year and a half to two years. With every story that comes in you have to ask yourself whether that’s a story that can hold for the magazine. Do you have exclusivity for it or do you “Web” it immediately?
    
Despite the growth of Web sites, the celebrity news weekly sales have remained just as healthy. We’re serving different purposes. You get more depth (in print). Also we have great exclusive information above and beyond what has been out already. … What you get on the Web is bits and bites. Also the Web doesn’t always cover the same celebrities.