Paris Hilton pulls out of David Letterman interview

Socialite Paris Hilton, star of an upcoming Fox reality series and an inadvertent Internet icon, is pulling out of her announced interview on David Letterman’s “Late Show.”

Hilton was to have appeared Nov. 26 on the CBS late-night show, the network said Wednesday.

But on Thursday morning, a spokesman for Dan Klores Communications, the public relations firm that represents Hilton, said the 22-year-old was scrapping all planned media appearances to promote her new TV show.

The heiress to the Hilton hotel fortune co-stars in the upcoming Fox series “The Simple Life,” in which she and Nicole Richie, Lionel Richie’s daughter, live on a farm for a few weeks. A two-part premiere airs Dec. 2-3.

The spokesman said no slight on Letterman was intended, and that this was a case of miscommunication. He added that Hilton wants to keep a lower profile because of the extraordinary amount of attention she’s received from her now-ubiquitous Internet porn video.

Hilton said this week that she was “embarrassed and humiliated” that a homemade sex video she shot three years ago with then-boyfriend Rick Salomon has been making the rounds online, “especially because my parents and the people who love me have been hurt,” the socialite and reality TV actress said Monday in a statement to The Associated Press.

“I was in an intimate relationship and never, ever thought that these things would become public.”

Salomon contends that the tape was stolen and that copies were made and circulated by an acquaintance without his permission or knowledge.

Last week, Salomon filed a $10 million slander suit against Hilton, her parents and publicist. The suit maintains that Hilton was an “active participant” in making the video but she and her family have waged a “cold, calculated and malicious campaign to portray Salomon as a rapist” to protect her image.

He also filed a $10 million suit against an Internet porn company, claiming that Seattle-based Marvad Corp. distributed footage from the video without obtaining the legal rights.

The company, in turn, filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Salomon’s former roommate for more than $10 million. It alleges that Donald Thrasher of Los Angeles misled the company into believing he owned the rights to the video.