Bristol Palin Heckled in a Sunset Strip Bar That Caters to Reality TV Stars

Bristol Palin was caught on tape out partying at a bar that caters to reality TV stars here in the liberal bastion of West Hollywood Thursday night.

The video also shows an incident in which she was heckled while riding a mechanical bull. After an inglorious dismount, she collected herself and confronted her detractors, at least one of whom was gay, after which she and her entourage sashayed out the door.

According to US Weekly, the confrontation between Palin and the bar patrons went like this:

Did you ride Levi [Johnston] like that?” the man yelled, as shown in Hollywood TV’s video. “Your mother’s a whore!”

The former Dancing with the Stars contestant — who’s currently filming a reality TV show with her 3-year-old son, Tripp, and fellow contestant Kyle Massey — marched right up to the heckler. “What’d you say?” she asked him directly.

“You’re mother’s the fucking devil, dude,” the man, who identified himself as being 47 years old, said.

“Oh, is she?” Bristol quipped. “What’d she do wrong?”

“She lives. She breathes,” the man said. “If there was a hell — which I don’t believe there is — she will be there. She’s evil.”

Unwavering, Bristol snapped back: “Why’s that? Is it because you’re a homosexual?”

“Pretty much!” her critic replied. “And why’d you say I’m a homosexual?”

“I can tell you are,” the daughter of the former Vice Presidential candidate replied.

The single mom repeatedly asked the man for “one example” of “why [my mother] is a whore,” but he continued to tell her that Sarah was “evil.”

“Well, you know what,” the man snapped. “You don’t look anything like [NBA player] Glen Rice. I thought you would.”

“You’re right,” Bristol said sarcastically. “I’m half African-American. You caught me!”

She stepped away form the conversation, then had yet another confrontation with the angry patron. “You’re fucking white trash from Wasilla,” he screamed. “Your mom ran that city into the fucking grave. Fuck you, you fucking bitch!”

First, of all, even though it traverses West Hollywood, one of the most liberal enclaves in the United States, the Sunset Strip is generally an all-partying/no politics zone. Since the 1920s, its mission has been to provide celebrities with safe havens in which to misbehave, usually — but not always — without the repercussion of negative publicity.

Bristol joins a long list of celebrities and stars who have gotten into brawls there, ranging from Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy and Franchot Tone to Shannen Doherty, Paris Hilton and Shawna Moakler.

The Strip’s status as a nightclub zone has faded in recent years, because the epicenter for celebrity clubbing, such as it is anymore, has moved about five miles east to newly renovated and more limo-friendly downtown Hollywood.

But while many of the venues catering to celebrity seeking debauchery have been shuttered, the Saddle Ranch is still packing them in. It’s a western themed bar that looks like a set from a B-grade cowboy movie. Situated directly across the street from the swanky, Art Deco Moderne Sunset Tower Hotel, it has looked out of place from the beginning. It was built in the 1960s by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda with their “Easy Rider” money. (It was a motorcycle-themed bar then called the Thunder Roadhouse.)

For reasons that are obscure, about 10 years ago, Saddle Ranch became a hangout for reality TV stars. Unlike real actors, these stars are more likely to want to meet and hang out with their fans, and Saddle Ranch fulfills that need by bringing together booze, bar food and looky-loos from out of town.

Predictably, earlier this year, VH1 created a reality show about working at the Saddle Ranch — eponymously titled Saddle Ranch — that depicted it at as unpleasant place to work, where hyper-competitive wannabes must over-serve drunken patrons in order to survive.

Bristol Palin is a reality star in good standing. As US Magazine noted, she is currently filming her own reality show — and it is noteworthy that there happened to be a camera filming the confrontation, which means it’s possible the incident was staged. She also did a stint on “Dancing with the Stars.” And her family famously starred in a reality show (that was so bad that it was not picked up for a second season) after her mother quit in the middle of her first term as governor of Alaska.

So it makes sense that she and her posse would head to the Saddle Ranch for a night out in Hollywood, and that a film crew would just happen to be there. And that some gay guys would scream invectives at her.

And that’s the odd thing here. What the heck were all those gay guys doing in the Saddle Ranch? West Hollywood is a gay Mecca, of course. But since the 1960s, at least, the Strip has been notoriously hetero-centric. Gay locals and tourists don’t hang out there, choosing to keep to the bars in Boys Town, on Santa Monica Blvd., three blocks south. While the Saddle Ranch does not sport a “No Fagots Allowed,” as nearby Barney’s Beanery once did, it definitely does not cater to teh gays.

All that being said, whether or not it was a publicity stunt, this was an unfortunate incident in just about every respect. First of all, before the hecklers shouted at Bristol, they should have taken a second and polished their critique of her mother a little. She is evil, but if you’re going to insult her daughter, you should flesh out your critique a bit. Palin is a strong opponent of marriage equality, for example. She has lied about a whole range of topics, including “death panels,” domestic energy resources, tax policy, health care reform and on and on.

Of course, it’s hard to come up with that level of detail on the fly after a few drinks.

Also, I got the sense that the hecklers were locals. If so, they should know better than to mess with celebrities. West Hollywood is pretty much a one-industry town, and that industry is hospitality. On the other hand, just as racists took a risk going to Harlem in the Jazz Age, right-wing polebrities come to West Hollywood at their own risk. There was a much whispered-about incident not long ago in which Ann Coulter was forced to quickly exit a restaurant on Melrose after she was informed that gay employees were threatening to do nasty things to her food.

While the Palins’ detractors will enjoy soaking in the Schadenfreude of watching someone finally telling a Palin to go to hell, unfortunately this will become just one more incident of the Palins being “victimized” by liberals, and it will only increase their popularity among their tiny base of supporters.

Still, whoever these guys were, they spoke for millions.

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