Paris Hilton's Top 5 Excuses

Aug. 30, 2010 — -- Maybe the dog ate my homework excuse worked for Paris Hilton during her grade school days, but it remains to be seen if a more adult version of that alibi will bail her out now.

After getting arrested for alleged cocaine possession in Las Vegas on Friday, the 29-year-old heiress went with the "drugs weren't mine" defense, claiming that the purse in which police found cocaine didn't belong to her, according to TMZ.com. Now back in Los Angeles, she and her lawyers are waiting to see if prosecutors will file charges. Over the weekend, her attorney David Chesnoff released a statement urging people not to make a "rush to judgment."

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."