Monday, 11 June 2007

• Prev
• Next

Jamie Lee Curtis blasts Paris Hilton's mom

Heiress needs more parental guidance

Add another voice to the chorus weighing in on Paris Hilton's latest travails: Jamie Lee Curtis.

In an essay on The Huffington Post titled "Mom, It's Not Right!" (which refers to Hilton's outburst as she was ordered back to jail last week) the 48-year-old actress slams the lack of parental guidance given to Hilton and others of her generation.

"It was a painful episode to watch," Curtis writes. "A young woman, begging her mother, the person who should have taught her right from wrong, to help her, to teach her the rules of life. It was a little too late. And so she wept as the Universe was bringing the teaching and settling the score."

Curtis, who has a daughter, Annie, 20, and a son, Thomas, 11, with husband Christopher Guest, is no stranger to being young in Hollywood: The daughter of actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, she made her film debut in 1978's Halloween at age 20. (She's also Jake Gyllenhaal's godmother.)

But she says today's celebs are lacking guidance: "The sad paths of the three most popular young women" – Hilton and, presumably, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears – "have ended in prison, rehab and mental illness. I hope their mothers are worried sick and wondering, 'What could I have done differently?' And our culture should be asking the same question too."

Parents her age, she says, are more concerned with being friends with their kids than teaching them important lessons. "We were the generation who applauded every move they made. Every step they took. 'Good climbing, Brandon' was our hue and cry. We were raised by people who didn't 'understand' us and now we don't 'understand' why our children are so messed up."

She concludes: "Can we take the wrenching sight of Paris asking her mother, 'why?' and ask it of ourselves? ... Wake up, Mothers, and smell the denial."