Paris Hilton displays some of her dance moves while hitting the Boston nightclub Rumor yesterday evening.

“I love you,” Paris Hilton told a crowd of partiers last night. “Let’s party our [expletive] asses off.”

And party they did. For half an hour early yesterday morning, the actress, singer, socialite, and sex-tape star regaled a starstruck house at the Boston nightclub Rumor.

Hilton arrived shortly before 1 a.m., as Sean Paul’s 2003 hit “Get Busy” blared on the club’s speakers. While partygoers screamed with enthusiasm, the blonde starlet strolled through a VIP section packed with Grey Goose-swilling Harvard Lampoon and Final Club members, eventually settling at a visible corner table.

Surrounded by a platoon of imposing bodyguards and eager paparazzi, a prettier-in-person Hilton nodded to music and smiled coquettishly for the crowd that formed to catch a glimpse—and snap a cellphone photo—of the celebutante newsmaker.

Befitting a visit to the City on a Hill, Hilton wore a dress suggesting slutty Puritan—a short black number with a white Peter Pan collar and black tights.

After a brief stint schmoozing in the roped-off VIP area, Hilton ascended the DJ booth to praise Boston’s partying abilities.

“I’m from L.A., but people party harder here than in Los Angeles,” Hilton told the crowd.

The singer lip-synced along as DJ Hectik spun Hilton’s single “Stars Are Blind.”

For a Tuesday night, Rumor was packed, as the club hosted not only an appearance by Hilton but a festive “Mardi Gras” celebration, replete with three scantily-clad go-go dancers shimmying on-stage.

The heiress escaped discreetly, rejoining the Harvard crowd later in the night to party at the Spee Club past 3:30 a.m.

Although Hilton’s presence at the event was not publicized, dozens of Harvard students were tipped off in advance.

But even some of the best-connected Harvard socialites were left to wait among townies with gelled hair and guys with ominously matching neck tattoos before they ran a gauntlet of bouncers who guffawed as they confiscated fake IDs and snubbed attendees for dress-code violations.

One doorman barred an erstwhile partygoer for wearing sneakers—specifically prohibited by the club’s dress code—although he protested that those sneakers were advertised as club-friendly. The bouncer offered to allow him into the club in exchange for a $500 bribe; the sneaker-wearer declined to pay.

James A. Powers, Jr. ’08—an editor of the Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine—also had trouble getting into the club, as bouncers rejected his efforts to cut to the front of the line outside and cast a wary eye on his ID, a passport seemingly held together with transparent tape.

Paris might be easy but seeing her isn’t.

—Staff writer Claire M. Guehenno can be reached at guehenno@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Samuel C. Scott can be reached at sscott@fas.harvard.edu.