First Responders Get the Star Treatment at Chateau Marmont

First Responders Get Star Treatment at Chateau Marmont

Chateau Marmont is no stranger to Hollywood luminaries — just days ago, the place was hopping with A-listers partying before the Golden Globes — but now the iconic Sunset Boulevard hotspot is welcoming some truly awe-inspiring superstars: L.A. firefighters. On Jan. 11, the hotel announced on Instagram that it would offer LAFD and LACFD first responders two free nights at the Chateau’s private cottages, 600- to 700-square-feet poolside suites that usually start at $1,165 a night. The complimentary stays also were extended to grips, camera operators and other below-the-line guild workers who’ve been displaced by the fires (a display, perhaps, of the Chateau’s new union friendliness after its protracted labor struggles in 2022). “Given what’s been going on, I felt it was the right thing to do,” owner André Balazs tells Rambling Reporter. Not surprisingly, the response has been overwhelming; within 45 minutes of the announcement, some 1,400 applicants lined up for the hotel’s eight cottages, which are being distributed on a first-come basis. Lucky guests who landed one of the bungalows can thank — ironically — the nearby Sunset Fire for making them available. “On [Jan. 7], the hotel was full of people who had freaked out when the Palisades Fire broke out,” Balazs explains. “More than full — people were bunking together.” On Jan. 8, though, when the hills above the Chateau went up in flames, the city issued an evacuation notice for the hotel’s neighborhood. “Ninety-nine percent of our guests left,” Balazs says. “I think one remained.” The following day, after the fire was extinguished and the notice lifted, Balazs got the idea to invite first responders to enjoy the cottages for free. “I thought, why not turn over the rooms we have to firefighters on the front lines and to people who are victims of the fires?” he says. “It’s a horrible thing that’s happened, so why not just lean into it and embrace the community so that there’s one positive thing that can come out of this.”

Matthew Perry’s Palisades Home Miraculously Survives

Arizona-based real estate developer and film producer Anita Varma-Lallian and her husband, Satnil Lallian, closed the deal on their Pacific Palisades retreat just 10 weeks ago, blessing their new home with a Hindu prayer ceremony. The house is no ordinary house: It’s the mid-century estate last owned by Matthew Perry until his death on Oct. 28, 2023, where he was discovered unresponsive in the hot tub. The couple paid $8.55 million for the Friends star’s 3,500-square-foot dream home, which he bought in 2020 for $6 million and personalized with touches like a Batman logo on the pool floor. On Tuesday, they watched the encroaching Palisades Fire in horrified disbelief over remote security cameras. “We could see some smoke,” Varma-Lallian recalls. “And then we started to see some fires across from us, and neighbors started sending videos of fires erupting all around.” Watching the fire spread from afar, their hearts steadily sank. “We did see a lot of fire trucks come in our neighborhood. And then after that we lost power and connectivity to our cameras. We had no idea what happened to the house. We didn’t feel very good about it based on what was happening on the news,” she says. But on Jan. 8, neighbors were able to access the area — the vast majority of which was razed by fire in what would become the worst natural disaster in L.A. history — and reported that the former Perry estate had miraculously survived. “Everything’s OK,” says Varma-Lallian. “There’s a little bit of fire damage in the backyard. I know things are still changing, but we’re hoping the worst of it is over.” — SETH ABRAMOVITCH

Isabella Rossellini — and a Slew of Others — Punked by Burning AI Oscar

Finding reliable information has been challenging enough recently — especially with L.A. county mistakenly sending out multiple erroneous mass evacuation alerts to millions of Angelenos — but online mischief-makers certainly haven’t made it any easier. Several fake AI-generated images — including one of the Hollywood sign in flames and another of a singed Oscar statuette lying in a pile of smoking rubble — were so convincing many members of the public believed they were real. And by public, we mean folks like Conclave star Isabella Rossellini, who shared the seared Oscar photo with her 1 million followers on Instagram and got 207,000 likes. “Anything to do with Hollywood and Los Angeles brings only tears to my eyes thinking of all friends and colleagues who are living the tragic fires,” the Italian actress, 72, posted along with the image. “I spoke to my brother Roberto about it and he sent me this heartbreaking photo he found.” Some online observers speculated that the bogus pictures were the product of OpenAI’s Doll-E image generator, the state-of-the-art tech in visual misinformation, though OpenAI disputes that claim. “These images were not created with DALL-E,” an OpenAI spokesperson tells Rambling Reporter. “DALL-E allows for artistic and illustrative creations, not photorealistic images.”

This story appeared in the Jan. 17 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.