Paris: A Memoir for Young Women in the Age of Influencers

by Paris Hilton

Wear boots—like good, sturdy platform boots—and comfortable clothes so you can dance all night and easily climb in and/or out of windows and over fences as needed. I didn’t drink or do drugs back then. When I was a kid, fun was the only party drug I needed. I wasn’t there to get wasted; I was there to dance. Alcohol and drugs are for escaping reality, and I wanted all the reality I could get. The escape drinking didn’t happen until later. One night after the Pia Zadora club adventure, I tried to smuggle Nicky, our cousin Farrah, and our friend Khloé Kardashian into Bar One. Khloé and Farrah were little middle school girls, so I did Khloé up with full makeup, a long red wig, and a floppy black hat. I told her, “If anyone asks, your name is Betsey Johnson.” I put Farrah on top of somebody’s shoulders with a big trench coat. We put so much effort into our disguises, we were shocked when we didn’t get past the velvet rope. “I guess you need to be with someone famous,” I said. I didn’t like how it felt to be rejected in front of everyone. I wasn’t going to let it happen again. When I was sixteen, I hooked up fake IDs for Nicky and me. We weren’t fooling anyone, but we were getting a little bit famous, so we had no trouble getting in Bar One (now Bootsy Bellows), Roxbury (now Pink Taco), and other hot spots. My partying opportunities between the ages of sixteen and eighteen were limited, because I was locked up in a series of culty wilderness boot camps and “emotional-growth boa...