Paris Hilton has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she recently made statements that are shockingly ignorant, even for her.

While in New York for Fashion Week, Hilton had a conversation with a gay friend while riding in a taxi. The cab driver secretly recorded her comments and just released them.

In the audio, now available at RadarOnline, the gay man is discussing Grindr, a social site where gay men can go for a quick hookup. Hilton can be heard responding:

“Ewwww … gay guys are the horniest people in the world. Most of them probably have AIDS … I would be so scared if I was a gay guy … you’ll like die of AIDS.”

Classy, eh? Not surprisingly, Hilton’s camp has gone into damage control mode, releasing this statement:

“Paris Hilton’s comments were to express that it is dangerous for anyone to have unprotected sex that could lead to a life threatening disease. The conversation became heated, after a close gay friend told her in a cab ride, a story about a gay man who has AIDS and is knowingly having unprotected sex. He also discussed a website that encourages random sex by gay men with strangers. As she was being shown the website her comments were in reference to those people promoting themselves on the site.

The cab driver who recorded this, only provided a portion of the conversation. It was not her intent to make any derogatory comments about all gays. Paris Hilton is a huge supporter of the gay community and would never purposefully make any negative statements about anyone’s sexual orientation.”

Yeah, sure. We really believe that. Maybe someone who got famous for making a sex tape shouldn’t be so judgmental about what other people do in their beds.