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LOS ANGELES - TV celebutantes Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie won't answer questions about their checkered driving records, or Richie's recent dizzy spells, or the origins of their highly publicized feud.
But they are more than happy to talk about a certain rectal ministration they performed on participants at a "wellness camp" overseen by fitness guru Susan Powter for an upcoming episode of their reality show, The Simple Life.
"We gave the campers enemas," Richie told Reuters yesterday in a brief interview given by the pampered pair to promote their show, which returns for a fifth edition May 28 in the US on the cable network E! Entertainment Television.
"We did it outside, so that was a lot of fun," Richie, 25, said of the enema sequence. "It probably wasn't that fun for (the campers), but it was definitely interesting. It was something that I never thought I would do before."
Hilton, 26, compared the experience unfavourably to one of her previous Simple Life undertakings -- working in a dairy, saying simply: "I'd rather milk cows."
The show's upcoming features Hilton and Richie, best friends again after a highly publicized rift that kept them on nonspeaking terms for over a year, assuming their new roles as camp counselors.
But instead of working in a traditional summer camp for kids, they host a series of groups attending Powter's fitness program and four other specialty camps -- a couples camp, a drama camp, a survival camp and a beauty pageant camp.
A spokesman for producer 20th Century Fox Television said Powter, author of such books as Stop the Insanity and C'Mon America, Let's Eat, ordered the enemas because "she believes the first step in wellness is cleaning yourself out."
"You'll see it on camera," the spokesman, Chris Alexander, said yesterday. "It's probably a 10-minute sequence, which according to the producer of the show will have you on the floor laughing."
Reporters interviewing Hilton and Richie were warned in advance by publicists to avoid "personal" questions. A query about Richie's dizzy spells last month on the set of The Simple Life was cut off before she could respond.
Asked about their reconciliation, Hilton said she and her friend, the daughter of singer Lionel Richie, patched up their differences after she called Richie on her birthday last September, and the two had dinner.
"It was like nothing ever happened," Hilton recalled. But the two demurred when asked what sparked their feud in the first place. "There was never anything really," Richie said, insisting the media had blown their rift "out of proportion."
- REUTERS
