Is this how you say goodbye to an old friend? ""He was always completely loaded, but he was always lucid," says decrepit publicist R. Couri Hay to Page Six on the passing of column-filler Baird Jones. "He's a guy who can't be replaced. [...] He's lucky if he's in Purgatory!"

Remember when Lloyd Grove published that juicy article about little "socialite" who couldn't really hack it Melissa Berkelhammer? Basically, it revealed that she paid a ton of money to R. Couri Hay so that he could try to get her to parties nobody wanted her at and set up dinners with people who obviously didn't care to talk to her. He probably had to beg the kids at the Observer to follow her around, with the promise that she would act like a fucking idiot and give them something to write about.

Well, New York Social Diary is defending her. They say, "everyone needs PR to move up in social status," and "whose life and whose business is it anyway?"

Good point. (Or, at least it was a better point than the part where they compare modern day tramps to the Rockefellers.) Why should we be paying attention to any of these socialites anyways. It's not like their coughing up thousands of dollars a month to be on the scene or at parties or with people that are being talked about or anything pathetically crazy like that.

Society's darlings … [New York Social Diary]
Earlier: 'Socialite' Melissa Berkelhammer Cries, Pays Her Way Into Parties

We knew that yesterday was not the beginning and the end of the most ridiculous "socialite" we've ever seen. The profile of Melissa Berkelhammer, which ran in the New York Observer yesterday, sparked a slew of reader comments on Gawker, and inspired a Jossip reader to compare the Princeton grad to the unflattering sculpture of Hilary Clinton and her bust.

Today, however, it's Lloyd Grove who's got the real scoop. (Did we really just say that?)

But The Observer story omitted how Berkelhammer spends her days: haranguing publicists, including the one her wealthy parents keep on retainer, in her quest to become a boldface name.

Lowdown has learned that New York publicist and Hamptons Magazine columnist R. Couri Hay … receives thousands of dollars from Melissa's mom and her dad, Manhattan psychiatrist Edward Berkelhammer.

For an estimated $2,500 a month, Hay helps the reed-thin Berkelhammer get into exclusive parties and onto benefit committees. In one revealing E-mail to a fellow publicist, Hay mused: "She's really a nice girl. Gaining 5 pounds, she looks the healthiest yet."

The piece goes on to say Berkelhammer calls up Hay crying when she can't get into events, "which happens almost weekly."

Hahahaha. We love it! We really don't care if R. Couri Hay takes cash from this pathetic girl's parents — that's just good entrepreneurial skills. We just can't believe the New York Observer would leave out the part where the bitch is calling up everyone she knows and crying because the real socialites don't want her hanging around at Cipriani's.

Making socialite a Hay-list celeb [Lowdown, Daily News]
Earlier: Melissa Berkelhammer, Dumbest Law Student Ever