Despite being free of Russian prison camps, where according to one Pussy Riot member, prisoners work 12-hours a day for “between one and 10 euros for a month’s work,” the girls of the art-punk group have now faced off with a far deadlier and more fearsome adversary: Russia’s Paris Hilton.
The recently amnestied Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have been placed on the media circuit, with most questions dealing with the conditions of the Russian prison camps, the future of Pussy Riot, and the ambitions of its members, now free of the Russian penal system.
Of course, Ksenia Sobchak, who is touted as ‘Russia’s answer to Paris Hilton,’ offered a different line of questioning, kicking off her interview with the two activists by asking, “You got out of prison famous and wealthy. So here’s the question: How much is the Pussy Riot brand worth?”
As BuzzFeed reports, the interview more or less resembled a particularly absurdist Monty Python sketch, with Sobchak comparing the two to Paul McCartney and John Lennon, much to their confusion, before comparing them to Destiny’s Child, which went over in a similar fashion.
Sobchak then gave the obvious follow-up: “No one remembers Destiny’s Child, but everyone knows Beyonce,” and asked Tolokonnikova if she plans on going solo, y’know, like Beyonce. She then queried whether it was sexist that Nadya received more attention as she is “pretty and thick-lipped.”
The “interviewer” saved her weightiest probing for last, addressing Alyokhina: “I can’t not ask the most important question — what’s up with your eyebrows?” After having enough of being stared at, Sobchak ended by asking the girls about the meaning of life and reading to them from Nietzsche.
