Paris Hilton defends ‘gay guys are disgusting, most have AIDS’ comment

(CNN) — Paris Hilton‘s comments about gay men who use a cell phone app for sexual hook ups were expressions of concern about the dangers of unprotected sex, not homophobic slurs, her publicist said Thursday.

The Hollywood socialite said, “Gay guys are the horniest people in the world,” called them “disgusting” and suggested “most of them probably have AIDS” in the short conversation secretly recorded by a New York cab driver two weeks ago, according to RadarOnline.

The online celebrity gossip site did not identify the driver or reveal how much, if anything, was paid for the recording published Thursday.

Hilton’s publicist, in a statement sent to CNN Thursday, confirmed the recording was authentic, but said, “It was not her intent to make any derogatory comments about all gays.”

“Paris Hilton is a huge supporter of the gay community and would never purposefully make any negative statements about anyone’s sexual orientation,” the statement said.

Hilton was riding in a cab with “an openly gay male model” during New York Fashion Week in the early morning hours of Friday, September 7, RadarOnline reported.

The gay friend was showing Hilton the iPhone app Grindr, which advertises itself as the “most popular all-male location-based social network out there,” offering “quick, convenient, and discreet” connections, RadarOnline reported.

“Say I log into Grindr, someone that’s on Grindr can be in that building and it tells you all the locations of where they are and you can be like, ‘Yo, you wanna f–k?’ and he might be on like, the sixth floor,” the male voice is heard saying.

“Ewww! Gay guys are the horniest people in the world,” Hilton said. “They’re disgusting. Dude, most of them probably have AIDS. … I would be so scared if I were a gay guy. You’ll like, die of AIDS.”

“Paris Hilton‘s comments were to express that it is dangerous for anyone to have unprotected sex that could lead to a life threatening disease,” her publicist said.

RadarOnline was “only provided a portion of the conversation,” the statement said of the 50-second-long clip.

“The conversation became heated, after a close gay friend told her in a cab ride, a story about a gay man who has AIDS and is knowingly having unprotected sex,” the Hilton statement said. “He also discussed a website that encourages random sex by gay men with strangers. As she was being shown the website, her comments were in reference to those people promoting themselves on the site.”

Ironically, a sex tape was a major factor in boosting Hilton’s celebrity status. The great-granddaughter of hotel mogul Conrad Hilton was captured in a grainy video having sex with boyfriend Rick Salomon. It surfaced in 2003, just days before the debut of her reality TV series The Simple Life, which subsequently registered high ratings.