Samantha Ronson has finally forked over nearly $87,000 to blogger Perez Hilton. Why would she want to give him any of her money? Well she wouldn’t, but a court ordered her to. Perez has written on his website that the cocaine that Lindsay Lohan was found with during her May 2007 car crash was actually Ronson’s. Sick of all the nasty things he’d been saying about her, Ronson decided to file a libel suit against him. While Perez says a lot of mean things about a lot of celebs, he’d made a special project of Ronson.
However a court disagreed, and not only found in Perez’s favor, but also ordered Ronson to pay all of his court costs – which she finally did on Friday.
Samantha Ronson can scratch this lawsuit off her set list.
On Friday, gossip blogger Perez Hilton received a big fat check from Lindsay Lohan’s gal-pal for nearly $87,000 to cover his legal fees from a failed libel lawsuit.
In July 2007, the celebrity DJ sued Perez (aka Mario Lavandeira) for defamation after he reported that she owned the cocaine found in Lilo’s car after a May 2007 crash. A judge threw out the case in January 2008 and ruled that Ronson had to pay for Hilton’s legal fees, which she hadn’t done up until now.
By paying the $86,832, SamRo avoids a court hearing on Monday to discuss how she was going to pay
[From Yahoo News]
It’s hard to say if free speech just got a major boost or if unscrupulous egomaniacs just got to pad their bank accounts a little more. We always walk a fine line between balancing our freedom of speech and libel. While I wasn’t utterly surprised that Perez won, I was a bit shocked that Ronson was considered so at fault that she was ordered to pay his court fees.
I’m assuming this will just mean an escalation of their feud instead of an end to it.
Here’s Lindsay and Samantha in LA on August 21st. Images thanks to Fame.
I don’t believe it.
“I’m assuming this will just mean an escalation of their feud instead of an end to it.”
I agree…without a doubt. I’m curious as to why she had to pay costs though.. there has to be another story here somewhere
😯 What?! Yeah, where’s the REST of the story?
I don’t know but if it wasn’t true, it sure souonds like defamation of character.
The court didnt decide that Samantha was wrong.They Decided that if they were going ahead with the libel case then the freedom of speech on Internet would have been supressed so they dropped Samanthas case.Perez demanded Samantha to pay his legal bills cause he supposedly couldnt and she was the one who started the case in the first place so the court agreed.So naturally she was ordered to pay the legal bills.Perez has continued since then to put her down in a quite sickening way,making fun from her appearance to her family to her djing to everything about her,even writing that she sells pics of Lindsay in the paps,that she is Lindsays drug dealer and so on.I have a feeling though that Samantha doesnt care anymore,thats why she payed.Cause her family has the kind of money to take this further but she chose not to.
Didn’t follow this story much. Was this where Lohan claims she was wearing someone elses shorts and oops the coke was in them?
I think I can side with FREE SPEECH without having to say I like Perez Hilton. I’m not necesarily glad HE won, but I’m glad his SIDE won.
Since the internet is now a total free-speech zone, can we start some rumors about Perez?
I can’t believe any court ruled against her in the first place, was the judge retarded? Clearly PutzHilton had no way of knowing who’s coke was in the car and since no one was charged with possession, he was slandering her.
She makes about 8k per DJ gig and works regularly so she could pay him without LiLo, but I think Lindsey feels like Sam wouldn’t be in this situation had it not been for her. That fat bitch deserves nothing. I hadn’t been to his site in over a year, and accidentally went over via link, he’s lucky if he gets 10 comments on a blog entry. Made my heart glad that his 15 minutes is up.
Samanthas family has a personal fortune of over 400 million.Its realy admirable though that she actually works so hard,and her siblings too.They could just sit around and eat from their trust funds.
Making unfounded accusations doesn’t fall under the umbrella of “free speech”, Internet Age or not, the law is very clear on the matter. It depends on his wording and his source. If LoHo made that claim to cops at the time of her arrest and it was codified on the police report (which is a matter of public record), Perez was merely recounting the cops’ narrative– and, ironically enough, absent of malice– whether Lohan actually said that at her court hearing or not.
I am all for free speech, I mean that’s what posting here is all about, except when you swear 😉 However, Pigez Hilton is one of the nastiest people on earth. He’s like the fat girl who suddenly got popular in junior high for telling off the Spanish teacher and became a big old bitch. He’s grossly immature and it’s hard for me to believe that people actually listen to anything that toad has to say.
i read a longer article on this, and its clearly not because they in some way proved it was sams coke. it was all legal this legal that, basically threw it out so that celebs would start suing every blogger they could.
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that being said…how is it that lindsays boobs always get bigger as she gets thinner? defies nature doesnt it?
No judge would throw out a case for fear that free speech on the Internet might be squelched, people. That’s a slippery slope legally and journalistically that they will not start down.
Tabloids and websites have been sued for years by public figures. Carol Burnett won a huge settlement against The Nat’l Enquirer decades ago when they accused her of being drunk after snapping a pic of her falling.
The law is the law, and fear of “suppression of free speech on the Internet” or “that celebs would start suing every blogger they could” is not even a remote consideration. The courts cannot and would not deny individuals their legally protected right to defend themselves against libel because the Internet is too powerful. That’s absolute nonsense, however long the “article” that made such claims may be.
Kaiser, people tried to “start rumors” (or show the other side) about PiggyHilton on a MySpace page. It showed Piggy’s “looking for males” ads, a photo of him with coke-nose, and more. It was taken down about a year ago… I can’t find out what happened, though I’m all for this guy getting realigned with karma.
And, if out of curiosity you go to his website, you’ll see that he had a huge party with some C-list celebs on Friday night. Gee, I wonder why? He’s an a$$munch.
@KD – Yeah, I never go to his site, I only hear bits and pieces about the crap he says about certain people. I couldn’t care less.
But it sucks SamRo had to pay him. That’s bs.
I stopped reading his website when I saw him start going after Jody Foster to come out of the closet. That dude is just way too obsessed with what people do with their genetalia.
I’m so confused. What was Perez Hilton’s cocaine doing in Lindsay’s car? Did she spill it during the crash. Why did the judge think it was worth $87,000. Wouldn’t that be like about 20 or 30 lbs of the stuff?
That’s the sucky thing about free speech…it’s there to protect the speech we don’t necessarily like.
It’s not libel if it’s true.
Ronson paying court costs was not a punishment. It is SOP for the person who brought suit to pay costs if they don’t win the judgment. If Hilton had lost, he would have had to pay costs.
I checked out Hilton once, and never again.
I make my stand (feeble though it may be) by never going on his site.
He is a pimple on the butt of humanity.
Anything out of Perez Hilton’s mouth (or written on his blog) should be taken with a rather large grain of salt. He is a dishonest, shady reprehensible scumbag. Three fourths of what he says is completely fabricated. Not only that, but good lord is his writing sloppy, juvenile, and unprofessional. Repeat after me: spellcheck is my friend.
I haven’t gone to his site in well over a year, and have no inclination to change that. If I wanted to read snarky, disgusting, and misinformed rubbish (not to mention the oodles of “OMG FIRST!!1!1” comments), I’d go hang out in a junior high bathroom stall.
Also, he’s been sued numerous times before, including Page Six who successfully won a case against him, as did another company (cannot recall their name) whom he had been plagiarizing a copywritten image from as part of his site design. One of these days, he’s going to really piss someone off and not be so lucky when it comes to litigation.
Funny, I always guessed heroin. Ronson just always looks so unhealthy and tired with heavy shadows under her eyes.