RIDE FROM HAIL: Paris Hilton apologized yesterday for the anti-gay diatribe a cabby recorded, but riders were upset over the invasion of privacy. (
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Is nothing sacred in this town?
Revelations that a sleazy hack secretly recorded a ranting Paris Hilton and then gave the recording to a Web site that posted it on the Internet has New Yorkers scared to blab in one of the few reliable sanctums of city life — the back of a yellow cab.
“It’s like an unwritten rule, that they are going to get you to where you want to go without invasion into your life,” Ivory Razor, 24, said about riding in a cab.
Now, she said, it seems more “like being in a police precinct where anything you say can and will be used against you.”
Others compared it to the violation of a shrink blabbing about a patient.
“It’s like when you go to a psychiatrist. They are not supposed to repeat anything you say to anyone,” said Yesenia Pena, 25, a frequent cab rider from Queens.
The scandal even managed to generate some sympathy for the ditzy bottle blonde, who was heard on the tape calling gays “disgusting.”
“Paris Hilton or not, I wouldn’t want the cab driver recording me . . . after I’ve paid for a service,” said Blaga Popova, 26, a software designer from SoHo. “There is an assumption of privacy.”
Hilton learned the hard way never to assume anything.
The celebrity heiress was en route from a Fashion Week event on Sept. 7 when the cabby — who has not been identified — hit record in the middle of her trip.
Her unmistakable rich girl drawl can be heard recoiling in horror as a male friend tells her about the Web site Grindr, which promotes anonymous sex between gay men.
“Ewww. Eww!” she squeals. “Gay guys are the horniest people in the world. They’re disgusting. Dude, most of them probably have AIDS.”
That driver released the tape to RadarOnline.com.
A redfaced Hilton later issued an apology through the gay-rights group GLAAD, saying she was “sorry from the bottom of my heart.”
“I wish I could take back every word,” she said.
City taxi regulations do not forbid drivers from taping passengers.
Despite that, most said they never would.
“We already have the headache of traffic, we don’t have time to look at what the passengers are doing, let alone record it,” said Mohammad Ismair.
A little eavesdropping, however, is inevitable.
“I can hear everything [people say] unless they whisper,” said cabbie Tausif Ahmed, 26.
“If I hear something very private I may tell it. But I always put it in a general way. I won’t say who it is.”
The incident highlights the need for a cab passenger advocacy group, much like the Straphangers Campaign for bus and subway riders, said City Councilman James Vacca.
Additional reporting by Trevor Stokes