“I don’t know, it just looks so sad,” Hilton said of the ape, which she said she related to because “I’ve been through a lot in the press.” The audience laughed again. Hilton, who has been in the public eye since she was a teenager, is no stranger to negative press.
“I think that’s why a lot of people buy my art because they can see that I’ve been through a lot,” Hilton said. “But I’ve also come out on top, and I’m still here.”
Paris Hilton, wearing a sparkling neon green turtleneck dress and a high ponytail, looked at a picture of a glum cartoon ape on “The Tonight Show” and said “rem In January of 2022, “The Tonight Show” aired an episode that since become known as a YouTube time capsule. The episode documented the temporary alliance between celebrity marketing and the crypto industry.
At the time, Bored Ape Yacht Club was not the biggest crypto phenomenon, but it was one of the top beneficiaries of celebrity hype. That celebrity hype, in turn, helped draw new consumers to crypto — an industry rife with manipulation and fraud. US regulators are now giving more scrutiny to the crypto industry in the wake of the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX.
That was a very significant moment because the audience for that show is very different from the typical crypto person,” explained Molly White, a software engineer and a fellow at the Harvard Library Innovation Lab. The Bored Apes — a computer-generated collection of 10,000 cartoons — were being presented as a status symbol, membership in an exclusive club. Hilton, Fallon, and other celebrities had joined — and viewers could join, too, by buying an NFT.
A class action lawsuit, filed in December, alleges Hilton, Fallon, and other celebrities conspired in a “vast scheme” to artificially inflate the price of Bored Ape NFTs and enrich themselves, the crypto payments company they used to get the apes, MoonPay, and the company that made the Bored Apes, Yuga Labs.
The suit claims that the celebs got in on the action by promoting Bored Apes on their social media channels and urging their fans to buy in, driving up demand and prices. Hilton and Fallon are specifically accused of using their large following to convince people to buy Bored Apes for prices far above what they were worth.
The celebs named in the suit aren’t the only ones who stand to benefit from the scheme, however. MoonPay and Yuga Labs are also accused of taking part.
I am Andy Sonal,, We are a team of knowledgeable individuals who collaborate with you on the most recent news and information on the cryptocurrency and bitcoin industries. Our aim is to inform and educate our readers on the ins and outs of this dynamic sector.