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

by Paris Hilton

The director had Nicole and me flirt and make out with a couple of local boys, Anthony and Chops, who we were supposedly dating. (Nicole and I were both in relationships IRL.) Randomly, I ran into Chops a few years ago at Netflix, where he’s now a finance executive. Apparently, he took to show business better than we took to cattle insemination.

I was having a wild-child moment, and it was sort of glorious.

When I realized I was pregnant, it was like waking up on the ledge outside a fortieth-floor window. I was terrified and heartsick. The hormones sent my ADHD symptoms spiraling. I felt paralyzed by an anxiety that took root in my body and grew like poison ivy. Everything I knew about myself was at war with everything I’d been raised to believe about abortion. No one can ever know how hard it is to face this impossible choice unless she’s faced it herself. It’s an intensely private agony that’s impossible to explain. The only reason I’m talking about it now is that so many women are facing it, and they feel so alone and judged and abandoned. I want them to know that they’re not alone, and they don’t owe anyone an explanation. When there is no right way—all that’s left is what is. What you know you have to do. And you do it, even though it breaks your heart.

JM and I started out great but ended up at war after I found out that Facebook had come to him with an offer, wanting me to be the first celebrity on the open platform, and he fucking turned it down. He said, “Paris Hilton is so big, we’re going to do our own Facebook.” Stuff like that is why we need the face-palm emoji. There are no words.

I was in Australia when he called to tell me that a thirty-seven-second video clip of me having sex was circulating on the internet. My first reaction was, “What? No! I never did anything like that.” I thought someone made a fake video or something. It took me a minute to make the connection to that private video. I had to close my eyes and breathe. I felt like I was going to throw up. It was inconceivable to me. There’s no reason to think a random guy you meet in a bar could be that rotten. Or that smart. Within hours, news of the tape was everywhere, along with rumors that there was a full-length porno pending release. Everything I’d been working so hard for—I felt it all crumbling to shit. I called him and begged. “Please, please, please, don’t do this.” He sounded distant and cool, saying it was too late, it was already out there. He said he had every right to sell something that belonged to him—something that had a lot of financial value. More value than my privacy, obviously. My dignity. My future. Shame, loss, and stark terror swept over me. I hung up the phone, trying to think what I should do next. I’d have to tell the producers of the show. Worse than that, I’d have to tell my parents. I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. At first, all I could do was cry and cry—wrenching, raw, chest-deep sobs. I felt like my life was over, and in many ways, it was.

I got on a flight back to the US, trying to hide behind my sunglasses, but the lady sitting next to me could tell I was crying. “Are you okay?” she asked. I shook my head. Over the course of the fourteen-hour flight, she was incredibly kind, and eventually I opened up and told her what was happening. The next day there was a picture of me on the cover of Us Weekly with the headline “Paris Hilton Exclusive: My Side of the Story,” or something like that. Mom was livid. “Why would you do an interview before you have a chance to process this?”

“I didn’t!” I kept insisting, and then I remembered the lady on the plane. She must have recorded the whole conversation. I don’t know who placed her in that seat next to me, but I imagine their kid went to a very nice college at my expense.

One morning I stopped into a neighborhood newsstand on Sunset Boulevard, a place where I went for coffee and magazines on a regular basis, and there was a huge display: “YES! We have the Paris Hilton Sex Tape!” The owner seemed baffled when I ripped the poster down and threw it in his face. He couldn’t understand why I was crying. “What’s wrong with you?” I screamed. “You’re not a porn shop, you’re a family newsstand! My little brothers come in here to get ice cream!”

Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update.” It was a risk, but the script was brilliant, Jimmy was pitch perfect, and the sketch lives on as one of the great moments in SNL history. JIMMY: As we agreed, we won’t be discussing the scandal that’s been in the paper the past few weeks. ME: Thank you, Jimmy. I appreciate that. JIMMY: So, your family—I don’t know if people know—owns hotels all over the world, right? ME: Yes. They’re in New York, London, Paris . . . JIMMY: Wait. So there actually is a Paris Hilton? ME: Yes, there is. JIMMY: Is it hard to get into the Paris Hilton?

ME: Actually, it’s a very exclusive hotel, no matter what you’ve heard. JIMMY: I’ve heard the Paris Hilton is very beautiful. ME: I’m glad that you’ve heard that. JIMMY: Do they allow double occupancy at the Paris Hilton? ME: No. JIMMY: Is the Paris Hilton roomy? ME: It might be for you, but most people find it very comfortable. JIMMY: I’m a VIP. I might need to go in the back entrance. ME: It doesn’t matter who you are. Not gonna happen.

Like I said: come...

It makes me want to vomit when people suggest that I was in on the release of that footage on the internet or involved in the video that was released later and—in a stunning fit of bad taste—dedicated to the memory of victims of 9/11. (WTF!)

One morning a friend called me and said, “I love your Playboy cover.” I was like, “Whut?” Hef had “honored” me with the Sex Star of the Year Award, which means they can claim it’s “news” and not a pictorial.

There’s another South Park episode in which Cartman is granted one wish by school faculty, and his wish is to have Selena Gomez beaten while he watches.

Twitter was an ADHD wet dream—a steady stream of new ideas, images, directions, and possibilities.

“Stars Are Blind” dropped June 5, 2006, reached number 18 on Billboard’s Hot 100, and then took on a life of its own.

To this day people tell me how it defined that specific summer for them, along with the movies Nacho Libre, Talladega Nights, and The Devil Wears Prada. A few years ago, Charli XCX tweeted, “Stars Are Blind is a pop classic” and cited it as a major influence. In a red-carpet interview, Lady Gaga said, “‘Stars Are Blind’ is one of the greatest pop records ever.

“Paris fucking Hilton is here? With that guy?” It was one of the greatest nights of my life.

Elliot tried to step up and testify that he had told me it was okay for me to drive to and from work, but the judge wasn’t having it. He was literally days from retirement and seemed to relish this last big moment, his fifteen minutes of fame. He sentenced me to forty-five days in jail and specified that I had to spend that time in county correctional—maximum security for violent offenders—not the “glamour slammer” for nonviolent offenders or on house arrest like most people would in a similar situation. I was to be the example for all the dangerous party girls out there. The tabloids ate that up. Elliot told me that when the judge arrived at church the following Sunday, the congregation gave him a standing ovation.

In her opening monologue that night, Sarah Silverman made some jokes about me that she herself later described as “hard core,” and the material landed just like any comedian would hope. “Paris Hilton is going to jail,” she said, and a chorus of cheering and hooting went up. So many of these people regularly partied at my house. Now they were laughing and celebrating my humiliation. I felt the Rap closing in around me.

This led to an unpleasant memory of David Letterman drilling down on the jail thing after promising not to talk about it.

On the way to my cell, people were yelling at me—rich bitch, cunt, I’m gonna fuck you—and I felt my stomach turning.

Media outlets offered up to a million dollars for photos of me in the orange jumpsuit. All the talk shows wanted to get me on the phone. A male guard kept coming into my cell, rubbing my head, and offering to bring me a Sprite. I woke up in the middle of the night to find him standing over me with a camera.

I also started writing a song that pretty much sums up the whole experience: CNN and MTV, all cameras focused on me Helicopters up above, oh what a travesty There’s a crazy world at war Right outside of my front door They’re wasting time on me I’m just a jailhouse baby Oh, I’m singing so sweetly Oh, jailhouse baby Oh, no window to the world I’m a little, I’m a little jailbird Cold nights and freezing water, fluorescents always on Stuck here behind this glass, my parents see their daughter Judge, you’re no celebrity You’re a desperate wannabe Seems like you’d rather leave Real criminals on the streets All those lonely nights of terror I thank you for your letters