Last week, as devastating wildfires ripped across the Hawaii island of Maui, burning entire towns to the ground and killing upwards of 96 people, Paris Hilton posed for photos not even 30 miles away from the ongoing disaster.
The Daily Mail acquired photos of Hilton, her husband, and their son smiling on the beach at a Wailea resort on Maui on Saturday, while just a few towns over, Lahaina lay a smoldering wreck.
The hotel heiress is now being slammed on social media by people who can’t believe she didn’t leave the island right away.
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“Paris Hilton is vacationing in Maui at a resort 30 min from Lahaina,” one person tweeted on Sunday. “Imagine watching thousands of ppl lose their homes, loved ones, families etc and then expecting them to SERVE YOU DRINKS WHILE U FROLIC ON THE BEACH IN FRONT OF THEM.”
“Tone, meet my friend deaf,” said another.
Yet another person quipped, “Paris Hilton heard about the Maui wildfire devastation and said ‘That’s hot.’”
Meanwhile, a local Maui woman perhaps summed it up best when she told the BBC in a recent interview: “The same waters that our people just died in three days ago are the same waters the very next day these visitors—tourists—were swimming in.”
On Saturday, the Hawaii tourism board urged travelers to stay away from Maui as the island recovers from the devastating blaze, especially because many hotel rooms are going to be made available to residents of the island who lost their homes to the fire. As many as 4,500 people are currently in need of shelter, West Maui county officials said.
“In the weeks ahead, the collective resources and attention of the federal, state and county government, the West Maui community, and the travel industry must be focused on the recovery of residents who were forced to evacuate their homes and businesses,” the Hawaii Tourism Authority said in a statement over the weekend.
The photos of Hilton and her family surfaced shortly after Hawaiian native Jason Momoa used his platform to urge people not to vacation in Maui amid the ongoing devastation.
“Maui is not the place to have your vacation right now,” the Aquaman star wrote on Instagram before pleading in all-caps, “DO NOT TRAVEL TO MAUI.”
