Paris Hilton Can't Tell Drugs From Gum

Aug. 31, 2010 — -- One would think that it would be hard to mistake cocaine for chewing gum, considering one substance is powdery, white, illegal and most commonly found in tiny plastic bags, and the other is solid, multi-colored, sold at convienience stores around the country, and often wrapped in foil.

But apparently, Paris Hilton has trouble telling the difference between the two.

According to an officer's report, when a little white baggie fell out of the purse Hilton was carrying in Las Vegas Friday, Hilton said that "she had not seen [the bag] but now thought it was gum."

The bag actually contained 0.8 grams of cocaine, according to People magazine, and now the 29-year-old heiress faces felony drug-possession charges, with an Oct. 27 arraignment.

Hilton maintains she didn't put the drugs in the bag. According to the police report, she attested to owning a broken Albuterol pill, Zig Zag wrappers commonly used to smoke marijuana, and $1,300 in cash and credit cards, but said "several cosmetic items inside the purse were not hers."

Hilton's "it wasn't me" line sounds strikingly familiar to a few pouty-faced proclamations she's made before. Below, four more of Hilton's memorable excuses:

1. After she was detained and released for possession of marijuana in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in July, Hilton took to her Twitter account to assert, "I had nothing to do with it." She dismissed pot-smoking accusations as "a lot of crazy rumors" before reiterating "I was not charged or arrested, 'cause I didn't do anything." Her publicist hammered home the point in her own statement, calling the incident "a complete misunderstanding, and it was actually another person in the group who did it."

2. Call it drug deja vu -- later in July, Hilton went through the detained/released routine again after Corsican police found marijuana in her handbag. Again, Hilton took to Twitter to defend herself. "So sick of people making up rumors about me," she wrote. "The latest one about me is completely false too. Don't believe what you read. Silly nonsense."

3. Back in the day, Hilton's excuses were more creative. In 2007, she supported a petition directed to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger asking that she be pardoned from her 45-day jail sentence for violating the terms of her probation by driving with a suspended license. Why? Because, the petition said, Hilton provides "beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives."

Hilton went to jail anyway. And indeed, she provided the world with a bit of delicious drama during her time in jail and under house arrest, particularly when a judge ordered that she serve out the full length of her 45-day sentence, prompting her to scream "It's not right!" and start crying for her mother, who was in the back of the courtroom.

4. One of the best of Hilton's alibis came not from her but from her former spokesperson, Elliott Mintz. In 2006, after paparazzi caught the heiress with a bit of cocaine-like white residue under her nose, he reportedly released this gem of a statement: "I can tell you Paris does not use narcotics. I would imagine [it's] something like whipped cream or a sugary substance from dessert. Something that naturally might have found it's way onto her face if she touched her nose or whatever. I'd label it a stray dessert."