(Photo: Mat Szwajkos/Getty Images)

Is Paris Hilton a good skier? That was a question at last week’s Sundance Film Festival. When she wasn’t draping herself in swag, dodging snowballs from passersby, and throwing parties to promote her nearly straight-to-DVD movie The Hottie and the Nottie—not quite Sundance fare—she apparently found time to hit the Park City slopes. “Oh, I’m really good,” Hilton reported at the Fred Segal gifting lounge (conveniently located next to the chair lift). “I’ve been skiing since I was 3. We skied black diamonds and double black diamonds.” But was she telling the truth? Later, she was overheard telling a rep for Spyder, the skiwear manufacturer, that she’d taken a lesson the day before. And an expert skier who’d spotted her posing for photos at the top of the mountain in a pink-and-white bedazzled outfit watched her ski away and described her as “an advanced wedge turner.” A few days later, a stylist who’d nearly crashed into her on the mountain wasn’t even that generous. “Crap skier,” he said.

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Jada Yuan
• Table of Contents: Feb 4, 2008 issue of New York | Subscribe!