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28 March 2024

Paris's Dubai BFF search hots up

Paris Hilton (SUPPLIED)

Published
By Bindu Suresh Rai

Over a week has passed since the squeaks and the shrieks of the girls on “Paris Hilton – My New BFF Dubai” have fascinated many a viewer, and angered several in the sheer frivolousness of a reality TV show that sees the American heiress out on the prowl for a new ‘Best Friend Forever’.

Two episodes, 13 eliminations and a migraine later, one thing is for sure is that the catfights and the drama are quite low-key compared to the international version.

The requirements and the cultural sensitivities were the priority with co-producer and General Manager of V-Producers Hossam Bassel telling Emirates 24|7 earlier: “The creative challenges are big considering we can’t show the contestants clubbing the night away, downing drinks or flirting.”

V-Producers, a branch of Viola Communications, had tied up with the Dubai-based Uniqon Emirates LLC to co-produce the show with Ish Entertainment and Lionsgate Entertainment.

However, the show had been embroiled in controversies galore ever since its production two years ago in Dubai, what with a lawsuit by an American woman against the show’s producers for an alleged ‘hostile takeover’ of her life.

What finally did result in the delay of over a year in airing it was Lionsgate Television executives claiming producers at Uniqon Emirates had originally signed a written agreement, worth $8 million, to co-produce and distribute Paris Hilton’s Dubai BFF in the Middle East but failed to pay more than $4.7m to cover the production and distribution costs; Lionsgate finally filed a federal suit for breach of contract in Los Angeles on February 2, 2010.

Since then, the show has now started to air across the MTV networks in the UK, parts of Europe and Australia.

Content controversy

At the time, Bassel had also said the show would have an education edge to it, adding: “The programming content will allow the girls to learn more about the culture of Dubai.”

With two episodes aired already, what has emerged is a competition on who will successfully apply saffron paste on a camel, along with teams of girls putting on mock commercials to promote Hilton’s own fashion line of
bags, watches and what not.

The heiress herself judged the latter, along with UAE filmmaker and prominent personality, Nayla Al Khaja.

From 24 contestants, the first episode saw that number whittle down by half, followed by a catfight between Qatar’s Dina and Egypt’s Bassant, that resulted in Dalila from Morocco being eliminated.

If your head is spinning just as ours, then you can be excused. The next few episodes promise more catfights, action and eliminations, with (spoiler alert) Bassant, who happened to be Hilton’s ‘little star’ in episode two, finally getting the boot; that episode is yet to air internationally.

The one upset amongst fans is the fact that show is yet to air on Dubai TV, as it was announced earlier or MTV Arabia, with Dubai denizens only getting their drama quotient via YouTube.

“I’m actually very glad that show is not being aired on MTV Arabia or Dubai TV because frankly, I don’t want my children exposed to the kind of cheap and crass behaviour that is being aired on the show,” said Angela Downing, a Dubai-based mother of two teenage girls.

“The kind of values that such shows depict is preposterous and completely far removed from the reality that we see here.”

Of the girls that have been eliminated from the show already, several have been gracious about their elimination, others such as Celina from France screamed into the camera: “Who cares. I don’t even like Paris.”

“That just goes to show the kind of people you have on such reality shows, who are only looking for their 15 minutes of fame and not much else,” said Radhika Seth, an advertising executive in Dubai. “As for Paris Hilton herself, come on. Is she really looking for a BFF, as she says? We think not. All this is yet another publicity stunt and a great marketing campaign to draw in the masses and sell her design line.”

A lot of negative publicity had followed Hilton in wake of the first season of the show, when winner Brittney Flickinger and her famous BFF got into a war of words that spilled a lot of dirty secrets in the media.

While Hilton called Flickinger “a fake publicity hound”, the woman in question went a step further by using expletives in describing how “Paris has taken everything away from me.”

Samuel Hextall, her winner of the British BFF has only praises for Hilton, whom he calls a “good friend” and makes the effort to meet up with him whenever she’s in the UK.

It is still early for us to learn the name of the winner of Dubai BFF and if Hilton indeed has maintained that relationship since the show ended two years ago, with its final episode shot in Los Angeles.

Back in 2009, the show’s auditions had seen over 300 girls with starry dreams sign up for auditions, with a large number of expat Arabs, mainly Egyptians and Lebanese, signing on for the show, as revealed to us by Bassel at the time.

Of the final dozen, the current candidates also include Galareh (Italy), Mandy (Iran), Dana (Iraq), Amy (Canada), Branka (Croatia), Farhana (India), Marta (Italy), Reem (Kuwait) and Christy (Lebanon).