Happy Holy Trinity anniversary to all who celebrate. No, I’m not talking about anything biblical…well, traditionally biblical. I’m talking about a moment that shaped pop culture and helped cement the popularisation of indie sleaze culture — the moment that the biggest It-girls of the moment, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, were papped together in a car after a night out on the town. Amen. Let’s discuss.
The iconic pictures were taken in Los Angeles, California on November 26, 2006. Lindsay, Paris and Brittney were all leaving a party at the Beverly Hills Hotel when they were quickly swarmed by paparazzi. As they made their escape from the flashing cameras, the trio of starlets were completely unaware that they were about to make history and influence the next 10 years of tabloid trends.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
Oh, to be three rich, Hollywood angels in a getaway car.
To celebrate the anniversary of the pic, Paris shared the images on her Instagram.
“18 years ago today, this photo became the moment that defined an era,” she wrote, tagging the girlies.
“Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and me—the Holy Trinity. Instantly iconic ✨.”
What is the origin story behind the pop culture Holy Trinity photo?
For years, the Holy Trinity pics were a thing of legend, a powerful union of three of the most powerful tabloid queens of the era. However, in 2021, Paris revealed that the moment just happened… and it was kind of awkward.
“[Britney and I] were walking to the car and all the sudden got swarmed by tons of paparazzi,” Paris said on her podcast I Am Paris.
“Just as we were walking to the car, that’s when Lindsay came up. It was kind of awkward because we were having some drama.”
She explained that she had bad vibes with Lindsay because the Mean Girls star had told a reporter that Paris hit her. The drama of it all.
“At that moment, I saw Lindsay walking toward us, and I said, ‘Why don’t you just ask her?’” Paris recalled.
“And Lindsay said … ‘No, Paris would never hit me. I’ve known her since I’m 15.’ It was basically just not admitting what she did. It was quite awkward, you know, to be asked that question, and it was just weird how that whole thing happened.”
As this was going down, the trio were swarmed by papparazzi and before they knew it, they were together in the car.
“We weren’t getting along, so I was polite. It was really hard just to even get out of there because I couldn’t see just with all the cameras,” she said.
When Paris looked back on the whole thing though, she chalked up their feud to immaturity.
“But when I think about it now, we were just so young, immature,” she expained on the pod.
“It was like high school drama, especially in the LA scene, and to live it out in public with the media constantly trying to stir things up and make things worse than they were,” Hilton explained.
“Back then, the media really enjoyed having girls feud with each other.”
How did it shape pop culture?
The Holy Trinity photo is one of the most well known, iconic moments in 2000s pop culture history. The reason it was dubbed as such was because Lindsay, Britney and Paris were the three most papped celebrities.
Photographers would desperately follow them around in the hopes of eagerly snapping a pic of them, ideally in a compromising sitation that they could sell to the gossip mags. When they got all three of them in the same place, the paparazzis saw dollar signs.
Aside from the photographer pay day, the Holy Trinity occured at the right time. In 2006, X (formerly Twitter) had only just launched.
We’d just started to see the humble beginnings of the indie sleeze movement, where a cigarette, smudged eyeliner and unkempt hair was the perfect fashion accessory.
While we saw a lot of indie sleaze icons come out of the UK (Alexa Chung, Kate Moss, the entire Skins cast) with almost a mod twist, the American interpretation was different. It wasn’t inspired by typical age-old class dynamics like it was in Britan, instead, the US indie sleaze movement seemed to revolve around simply getting fucked up at parties and not caring about the implications the evidence had for the future.
With indie sleaze informing what was cool from 2006 to around 2012, the Holy Trinity image was one of the first American influences of the indie sleaze movement.
And for that, I’m glad the iconic photograph series lives on and is remembered for being the cultural moment that it truly was.
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