Like some sort of freakishly celebrity-fixated Batman, we won't rest until every twentysomething female American who can't drive a car properly has been securely locked up, which makes Nicole Richie's predicament all the more infuriating.
Nicole Richie, you see, has had the date of her court appearance following last year's drug-fuelled 'driving into oncoming motorway traffic' escapade delayed yet again. There hasn't been an exact reason given as to why the court date was pushed back, although logic dictates that it's either for Nicole Richie to work harder on crafting a watertight defence or because she's so skinny that the judge needs time to locate a prison with bars so close together that Nicole Richie can't just saunter out between them when nobody's looking like some kind of malnourished James Garner.
It's not a good time to be young, famous and female. If you're not either going in and out of jail like a sobbing loon then you're trying to kill yourself because you're the devil or you're going to rehab because you crashed a car full of cocaine. And, although Nicole Richie isn't quite as famous as Paris Hilton, Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan – for the simple reason that nobody's seen her vagina – you have to be endeared to her constant endeavours to stay in the public eye by driving like a wanker and not eating very much.
The not eating thing you'll already be aware of – hardly a day passes without Nicole Richie saying she's skinny or saying she's not skinny or letting Lionel Richie say she's skinny or getting help because of how skinny she is – but the driving matter is something else entirely. Not content with just getting one of those nice drink-driving arrests that everyone seems to be so fond of, last December Nicole Richie decided to smoke some pot, neck some Vicodin and drive her car the wrong way up a motorway until she was arrested. That's just a level of craftsmanship that you don't see these days.
Unfortunately, as Nicole Richie discovered, it's also a level of craftsmanship that can see you get banged up for a year. And, thanks to a prior drink-driving conviction, it seems as if prison will be the likeliest outcome despite Nicole's earlier not guilty plea. But, as E! Online reports, although Nicole Richie can't escape her punishment, she can keep getting it delayed a lot:
A judge granted Richie's attorney a postponement in the case until July 11, but he was adamant that no further delays would be permitted, meaning the trial will begin on that date or within 10 days of it, according to Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.
Why did Nicole Richie even bother setting her court date back such a meagre amount of time? Well, rumour has it that by July 11 the impression of her unborn first-trimester baby will be jutting out of her undernourished stomach to such a degree that the baby will be legally entitled to represent Nicole as her lawyer, thus saving her thousands of dollars in legal fees.
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