By SEAN DALY Special to the Daily Press
LOS ANGELES — Tara Reid is not at all happy about reports that she is Hollywood’s biggest party girl.
“I’m pissed off right now,” the glassy-eyed starlet warned, as she lashed out at the media last week for circulating stories that she claims are “entirely untrue.”
“People forget I’ve done 15 movies, and I work a lot more than I party,” Reid declared during an emotional interview to promote her new movie, National Lampoon’s “Van Wilder.”
“I feel like I’m getting clobbered lately,” she said. “Everyone needs to just leave me alone.”
The Wyckoff, New Jersey native first became upset when she eyed an advance copy of a new magazine, which features the headline: “My Love Is Carson Daly.”
“I cannot have that be on the cover or I will just die,” she moaned. “It’s been a year, it’s behind me, it’s time to move on. Now everybody’s gonna look at me like, ‘You poor girl...’”
Add it to the long list of fires the actress is trying to extinguish these days.
Last month, Reid, 26, was accused of tossing birthday cake at hotel heiress Paris Hilton during a drunken spat.
“Not true,” she said. Days later, the American Pie star was allegedly spied sipping cocktails with Britney Spears at Les Deux Café in Hollywood.
“That’s ridiculous... I don’t even know Britney,” Reid insists. “I wasn't even here. I was in Mexico when both of those things supposedly took place.”
Today, Reid continues to harbor obvious anger towards reporters who broke both stories: “They’re a bunch of... liars,” she said. “I want to smack them all in the head.”
Reid also cleared up the rumors that she plans to leave New York in favor of Tinseltown.
“I’m from New York. I’ll always be a New Yorker,” she said. “That quote never even came out of my mouth. I live here, I live there. I’m bi-coastal. As Biggie (Smalls) says, ‘It don’t mean I can’t rest in the West.’”
Ironically, in “Van Wilder,” Reid plays an aspiring collegiate journalist who is assigned to write a profile of the Big Man “The first time around, I write a bad story about him, because I know it’s a big story and it’s gonna sell,” she explained. “But later I find out I pegged Van (Ryan Reynolds) all wrong and I redeem myself by writing a good article.”
Reid, who describes herself as “a very sensitive girl” said she is often deeply affected by negative publicity.
Sometimes (writers) don’t realize that if they write a bad story about me I might be home crying," she said.
“It wouldn't affect me as much, I think, if I wasn't afraid it is going to affect me getting jobs. If it’s just people talkin’ shit, that's fine. But I don’t want it to affect me working... that’s when I get pissed.”
Reid hopes that someday, the world will see her as she sees herself.
“I’m a hard worker, I love my family a lot. And I love making movies,” she said. “Even as a little kid, I would sit in front of the mirror and make faces. I would cry and watch myself cry. Acting is my getaway. It’s my therapy. It’s my boxing bag. Without it I would go crazy.”
A self-professed “workaholic,” Reid is enjoying the single life these days.
“I don’t want a relationship right now,” she said. “I can't even deal with myself. I can’t imagine someone dealing with me.”
At least through it all Reid has maintained her cutting sense of humor.
“I just need to get back to work... like in France,” she joked. “I need to do a movie like Lord of the Rings, where I can spend three years in Australia. That would be perfect for me. Sign me up now. Find me a period piece for 17 years somewhere and I’ll be just fine.” (Sean Daly is president of Showtime Entertainment and is a Santa Monica-based writer.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 2, 2002. Read the original PDF.