I want to believe two things. I don't know why, but I do.

I want to believe that Paris Hilton really thought Wal-Mart is "a place that sells wall stuff?"

I want to believe that she let the sex tape get out to drum up publicity for The Simple Life.

I heard this morning that she's since said that when she asked what Wal-Mart was on last night's premiere episode, she was just kidding. Easy to say that now. But I really want to believe it wasn't a joke. And I've read recently that she apparently knew of this tape a few months ago and had a chance to prevent it from getting out, but for whatever reason, didn't. If I'm not mistake, the show was slated to debut earlier than this month, too, so how convenient would it be to have this little grainy, green-tinted tape come out a couple of weeks before your show debuts?

In any case, the show was pretty damn funny. The fun part is hoping that it's more reality than sitcom. Paris has said in interviews she treated the whole shoot like an acting gig �- she played up the rich debutante role for the cameras and the country folk in Alabama.

But isn't it more fun if Paris and Nicole don't know what a soup kitchen is?

In unrelated news, wouldn't it be funny if Brad Pitt was the father of Gwyneth's baby? Well, maybe not funny. Weird, probably.