To a lot of Millennials and Gen-Zers, Paris Hilton is the OG influencer. As someone who became the It-Girl in the early aughts, primarily through paparazzi snaps and partying, she embodies a particular brand of self-determined fame. Back then, Hilton utilized her budding notoriety to build out a cultural legacy that includes, in part, The Simple Life, the catchphrase “That’s hot,” the reggae-tinged hit “Stars Are Blind,” and one juggernaut of a perfume line.
Yet in a new book titled, simply, Paris: The Memoir, Hilton is sharing her complicated story in her own words. The memoir sees Hilton reveal the deeper stories behind some of the most talked-about moments in her life—that sex tape, for instance—and discuss issues like her struggles with ADHD and her painful time at Provo Canyon School. Readers can also find moments of levity and riveting pop-culture history, however. (In one scene, Hilton unpacks exactly how that iconic pap shot of her, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan hanging out came to be.)
Hilton says she was inspired to share more of her life story after the overwhelming response to the 2020 documentary This Is Paris. In it, she publicly accused Provo Canyon School of abuse and mistreatment for the first time—shocking the world and, Hilton says, her parents. “That was the first time I was vulnerable and showed my real side,” Hilton tells Vogue, speaking on Zoom from her home in L.A. “That documentary changed my entire life.” Hilton says it prompted vital, healing conversations with her parents and made them all “closer than ever before.” As a result, she felt motivated to dig even deeper. “It was just the beginning of this whole path of self-discovery. The media has really controlled my narrative and my story for over 20 years. I feel like it’s time to say the truth myself.”
So, Hilton got to work on her memoir, an endeavor that required a lot of retrospection. “There’s some really traumatic experiences that I’ve endured and they were difficult to even think about, let alone write down,” Hilton says. “Especially when I was doing the audiobook last week, that was extremely emotional.” One of those experiences: an unnamed teacher at Hilton’s junior-high school taking advantage of her. “That was something I didn’t tell anyone and didn’t speak about until I started writing my book,” Hilton says. “It’s just…for an adult to take advantage of their power like that is just so wrong, in so many ways. For so long, being a young girl, I was holding on to this shame when it wasn’t mine to be held onto. It’s the shame of the person that hurt me. I feel that so many things happen to people in life that they take on as their own shame, when it shouldn’t be on them at all.”
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