Celebrity News

James Lipton a Parisian pimp: ‘I ran a whole bordello’

James Lipton opened up about his youth as a Paris hustler, and shared details about how he ran an entire bordello.

The venerable host of “Inside the Actor’s Studio” told Parade magazine about how he was nearly penniless but found work as pimp in the 1950s after World War II.

“Paris was different then, still poor. Men couldn’t get jobs and, in the male chauvinist Paris of that time, the women couldn’t get work at all. It was perfectly respectable for them to go into le milieu,” he said.

The 86-year-old TV personality became involved with the profession after becoming friends with one of the prostitutes in Paris.

“We became great friends. When I ran out of money, I said, ‘I have to go home.’ She said, ‘No, you don’t. I’ll arrange for you.’ So she arranged for me to do it. I had to be okayed by the underworld; otherwise they would’ve found me floating in the Seine.”

He continued. “Young women desperately needed money for various reasons. They were beautiful and young and extraordinary. There was no opprobrium because it was completely regulated. Every week they had to be inspected medically.

“The great bordellos were still flourishing in those days before the sheriff of Paris, a woman, closed them down. It was a different time.”

While Lipton does not agree with paying for sex now, he said that his experience as a pimp allowed him to survive in Paris for a whole year.

“That’s how I lived. I was going through my rites of passage, no question about it. It was a great year of my life.”