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Paris Hilton, Conan and Other Celebs Partying in Havana
Wednesday, March 4, 2015 04:00 PM
By: Joel Himelfarb
Paris Hilton was in Havana over the weekend, touring the family hotel that communist strongman Fidel Castro confiscated from her great-grandfather in 1959.
Hilton took a picture of herself with Fidel's son and traveled to the annual Havana cigar festival where she was joined by supermodel Naomi Campbell. Their visit to Cuba came two months after the Obama administration began easing curbs on Americans traveling there.
In March 1958, under the regime of President Fulgencio Batista, Conrad Hilton opened the Habana Hilton. The hotel, with more than 500 rooms and a casino, was the largest in Latin America at the time, the London Telegraph noted.
One year later, Castro took over the country, nationalized the hotel and renamed it Habana Libre. He set up his provisional headquarters there for several months.
Hilton posted a picture of herself in front of the building on the Internet. The reality star said: "Posing in front of the original 'Habana Hilton Hotel' that my great grandfather Conrad opened here in 1958."
"Cuba baby!" Hilton gushed. "There's some beautiful architecture here in Cuba."
If any picture "can truly capture the changing times between the two countries long divided by political differences, it's a selfie taken in the communist nation by a scandalous socialite whose U.S. pop-culture background includes 'The Simple Life,' chihuahas with diamond-studded collars and sex tapes," Fox News Latino opined.
Late night television host Conan O’Brien last month filmed a special episode of his show in Havana that airs Wednesday.
O'Brien said highlights of the episode included learning to play authentic Cuban music and visiting a cigar factory.
O’Brien said the Cuban people are "very interested in how Americans feel about them."
He said he told them that "Americans disagreed on everything, but in polls about whether we should normalize relations with Cuba, we are overwhelmingly in favor of it."
O'Brien described the Cubans he met as being "happy to hear that."
Not everyone is welcoming the news that Paris, Conan and Company can party in Havana.
"Castro is playing us for fools," Investors Business Daily editorialized. "Communism-ravaged Cuba is about as poor as Ethiopia or Zimbabwe. So it wasn't the locals partying down, but the communist elites — such as Fidel's son, Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, with whom Hilton and model Naomi Campbell posed for selfies."
This "is a preview of who will benefit from the opening to Cuba — its wealthy Communist Party elites," the newspaper said, terming Cuba a "grotesque fantasyland of vulgar Third World dictators and equally vulgar Hollywood reality stars."
