New ABC TV drama "loves" Paris Hilton

By Tim McLaughlin

NEW YORK, June 8 (Reuters Life!) - Released heiress Paris Hilton is featured in an advertisement for a new television drama about -- you guessed it -- an "absurdly wealthy" family with a sexy blonde daughter.

ABC, a unit of Walt Disney Co., celebrated the controversial release of Hilton from jail with a full-page ad in Friday's New York Post, according to a person familiar with the ad's placement.

The ad in the New York Post reads, "We Love Paris."

It is signed by "The Darling Family," a reference to an "absurdly wealthy New York family" featured in an upcoming ABC television drama called "Dirty Sexy Money."

ABC sought to link Hilton's early exit from jail with a show that debuts this fall. The release of Hilton, an American symbol of privilege and excess, by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department after serving just three full days of a 45-day sentence caused an uproar on Thursday.

The heiress was ordered to appear in court on Friday for a hearing that could result in her being sent back to jail to serve out her sentence.

The ad was placed on page 11 near the New York tabloid's Page Six, a compendium of celebrity gossip.

ABC did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

ABC's Darling family features Donald Sutherland, Jill Clayburgh and Samaire Armstrong, a blonde known for her turn on the TV show "The O.C." Set to run this fall, "Dirty Sexy Money" is about a virtuous lawyer who gets tangled in the web of the Darlings.