{"id":135321,"date":"2025-11-15T21:17:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T21:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/135321\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T21:17:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T21:17:15","slug":"im-not-scared-of-anything-except-spiders-bees-and-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/135321\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m not scared of anything \u2014 except spiders, bees and dying\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Paris Hilton appears, finally, at the top of the grand twin staircase in her $63 million Beverly Hills mansion, the room pauses. Standing below her, in a huge, marble-floored entrance hall strewn with pink skeletons and cobwebs for Halloween, is her entourage of the day: her personal photographer, her make-up artist, her business partner, a handful of her household staff, her husband and me. <\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome,\u201d she says, her voice soft but deliberate as she descends the staircase in pink heels and a floral dress. We are already 30 minutes into my allotted interview time but her photographer, Mark, has other priorities. He wants to take a photo of us together and ushers us under a large chandelier to pose in front of a set of white pillars. Hilton leans in towards me, then freezes at the sight of my feet. The disposable pink paper crime-scene-style covers I\u2019m wearing \u2014 apparently mandatory for anyone entering her home \u2014 are a no-no for photos. \u201cOh yeah,\u201d Mark says, \u201cpinks have to come off. The only time Paris says that!\u201d Hilton gives a self-deprecating laugh in confirmation.<\/p>\n

Her husband, Carter Reum, a venture capitalist, drifts into the background, momentarily in frame. Mark sighs. \u201cI\u2019m in the way?\u201d Carter asks, before retreating to the kitchen. Mark resumes directing. \u201cOne arm up \u2014 let\u2019s go.\u201d I panic and raise a peace sign. \u201cYass, loves it,\u201d he says. \u201cSliving.\u201d Hilton smiles. The word \u2014 a Hilton catchphrase that blends \u201cslaying\u201d and \u201cliving\u201d\u2014 hangs in the air.<\/p>\n

Hilton, 44, was born into this world to wealth and fame, an heiress whose great-grandfather was the hotel magnate Conrad Hilton. In her late teens she began modelling professionally, and as an It girl was the first to realise you could make money by charging to turn up to parties and events. She was also one of the first to start doing paid promotions on her social media accounts in the 2000s. In her words, she was the original influencer. <\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT000002611949\"<\/p>\n

Paris Hilton at New York Fashion Week, 2003<\/p>\n

POLFOTO<\/p>\n

She fully came to fame in The Simple Life, a structured reality show (that spawned a thousand more) in which she starred with another rich socialite, Lionel Richie\u2019s adopted daughter, Nicole. The pair took on low-paid jobs and sent themselves up by deploying a baby voice to ask airhead questions such as: \u201cWhat is Walmart? Like, they sell wall stuff?\u201d <\/p>\n

Hilton, now sounding a lot huskier, insists that it was all an act. \u201cI\u2019m not a dumb blonde. I\u2019m just very good at pretending to be one,\u201d she says. \u201cNo one really knew the real me. And I always knew there was so much more to me. But I just feel like [to the world] I was kind of like this cartoon character \u2026 They didn\u2019t realise I\u2019m like a human being with feelings. And that was always really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hilton leads me down a flight of stairs (pinks reattached) to an oak-panelled, cream-carpeted basement cinema. She sits herself down on a snug sofa in the front row and pats the small space next to her. <\/p>\n

In the past, she says, \u201ceveryone was, like, \u2018Oh, she\u2019s famous for being famous.\u2019 \u201d But that wasn\u2019t for long. Hilton became a singer, peaking with the 2006 hit Stars Are Blind, which reached the Top Ten in the UK, and has a successful DJing career (she has earned up to $1 million a show). <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

DJing at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, 2022<\/p>\n

GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

She has also made millions as an entrepreneur, with lines in clothing, perfume, skincare, handbags and kitchenware, and even promotes Crocs designed for dogs. In 2021 she launched her own entertainment company. \u201cI\u2019m a multihyphenate,\u201d is how she puts it. \u201cI get to do everything that I love.\u201d <\/p>\n

The company, 11:11 Media, is based in a large office building in Hilton\u2019s back garden, nestled between a five-hole golf course, a lagoon-style swimming pool with a water slide and a hot pink tennis court emblazoned with a giant \u201cParis\u201d signature. \u201cNobody in the world has that,\u201d she tells me. <\/p>\n

Hilton says her business, which has more than 25 employees, is valued at $1 billion. \u201cI\u2019m self-made,\u201d she says. \u201cLike, I\u2019ve done this all on my own. No one\u2019s ever given me anything in my entire life.\u201d Given her surname, this will raise some eyebrows. But by any account, even if she did get a considerable head start, she went on to carve out her own career. <\/p>\n

Her billionaire grandfather, Barron, who died in 2019, left 97 per cent of his wealth to the family\u2019s charity foundation and nothing to her. \u201cWe were extremely close and we would always have lunches and dinners, and he would always say to me, \u2018Paris, you work harder than any CEO I know.\u2019 And he\u2019s, like, \u2018I used to be known as Barron Hilton but now I\u2019m known as Paris Hilton\u2019s grandpa.\u2019 We would always laugh about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hilton has never led an ordinary life. Classmates included Nicole Richie at the Buckley School in Los Angeles and Macaulay Culkin at the Professional Children\u2019s School for aspiring actors and dancers in New York. Her mother, Kathy, a socialite, was best friends with Michael Jackson. \u201cHe was like an uncle to me,\u201d Hilton says. <\/p>\n

What does she make of the allegations of paedophilia, including in the Leaving Neverland documentary, in which two men accused Jackson of sexually abusing them when they were boys? \u201cI didn\u2019t watch the documentary \u2014 I don\u2019t like watching any of that type of stuff,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cI never saw him date anyone. I never saw him be like that with anyone. I didn\u2019t see him as that type of person. So I\u2019ve never paid attention to any of that because I just \u2014 I\u2019ve always loved him like family.\u201d She adds: \u201cI just know the man that I knew my whole life, and I could never see him hurting a fly.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT001035864740\"<\/p>\n

With her parents, Richard and Kathy, her sister, Nicky, and Michael Jackson in the 1980s<\/p>\n

X \/ PARIS HILTON<\/p>\n

Another childhood acquaintance was Donald Trump, who mixed in business circles with Hilton\u2019s father, Richard, a property investor. Hilton previously said she had voted for Trump in the 2016 election but retracted this statement in her 2023 memoir. She said she had lied because Trump \u201cwas an old family friend and owned the first modelling agency I signed with \u2014 and when I left to go to another agency, he was furious and intimidated the shit out of me on the phone\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Paris Hilton: \u2018I have an entire room for my sunglasses collection\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Did she vote for him in last year\u2019s election? \u201cI didn\u2019t have time to do any of it, to vote,\u201d Hilton replies. \u201cMy schedule is so insane. I was travelling \u2014 I think I was in London during all that \u2026 and I was, like, moving houses.\u201d <\/p>\n

By all accounts her teenage years were horrific, marked by abuse that she kept hidden until 2019. Her parents did their best to keep her out of the party scene when she was growing up in LA, she says. \u201cI lived such a sheltered life. Like, I was not allowed to wear make-up, not allowed to go on dates. I didn\u2019t really go to the school dances. My parents were very, very strict.\u201d <\/p>\n

But when she was 14, Hilton was groomed by a teacher who lured her into his car outside her home. He fled after her parents caught them kissing. She was sent to live with her grandmother in Palm Springs. While on a trip to LA from her grandmother\u2019s, she wrote in her memoir, she was drugged and probably raped by a man she met in a shopping mall.<\/p>\n

\"Paris<\/p>\n

Hilton, aged 15, in 1996<\/p>\n

GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

When she was 15 she joined her parents and her younger siblings, Nicky, Barron and Conrad, in a luxury suite in the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. Hilton became a wild child, sneaking out of home, partying into the early hours. When she turned 16 her parents turned to CEDU, a company that operated what it euphemistically described as therapeutic, emotional-growth boarding schools for misbehaving teenagers. <\/p>\n

This nightmarish episode of Hilton\u2019s life started in the dead of night when two \u201cgiant, \u2019roided-up meatheads\u201d burst into her Waldorf Astoria bedroom, yanked her out of bed and flew her to a school in a remote part of northern California. <\/p>\n

There, she wrote in her autobiography, Hilton was forced to strip in front of strangers, including other children, and subjected to a cavity search. This was just the beginning. Students were banned from looking outside the window without permission, singing, throat clearing, crossing their legs and talking about McDonald\u2019s. Then, she recounts, there were hours-long sessions called \u201craps\u201d in which they were encouraged to verbally abuse each other before being forced into a group cuddle.<\/p>\n

Hilton made three escape attempts. Each time, she was caught and sent to an even stricter institution. \u201cThe hardest, most difficult point was being a teenager in places like that. It was just like abuse in every sense,\u201d she says. She likens the experience to torture. \u201cHaving everything taken away, like, not being able to look out of a window, not being able to speak, just feeling like a prisoner when you are just a child. And your family thinks that you\u2019re in an emotional-growth boarding school and you\u2019re riding horses and it\u2019s so happy, and they have all these fake brochures and the marketing is so deceptive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"France<\/p>\n

The family with her younger brother Barron, left, 2010<\/p>\n

GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Her attempts to tell her parents what was going on failed, partly because phone calls were monitored and partly because her parents had been warned by leaders of the schools that students would say anything to escape. At the age of 18 Hilton was allowed home. For years afterwards, \u201cI had severe, severe nightmares,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was terrifying, where I would just wake up from these dreams, thinking that I had been taken back to these schools. It was traumatising to have to relive it almost every single night.\u201d <\/p>\n

The nightmares stopped only after she had told \u201cmy truth\u201d in the 2020 documentary This Is Paris; during the making of it she also spoke to her parents about the extent of her abuse for the first time. Since then, she\u2019s been on a mission to take on what she calls the \u201ctroubled teens industry\u201d, to shut down these correctional facilities. \u201cI think it\u2019s made me very, very strong. I can get through anything,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She has spoken before Congress in Washington and has successfully lobbied for new laws to regulate such institutions in dozens of US states, and prompted a federal study of the sector. <\/p>\n

Hilton estimates that more than half the schools \u2014 several hundred so far \u2014 have been closed down because of her work. \u201cI feel I\u2019ve made the world a safer place for children. I know I have,\u201d she says. But she is not done: \u201cI\u2019m going to continue on this fight for as long as it takes, because there\u2019s still so much work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she turned 18 Hilton picked up in LA where she had left off in New York. A paparazzi photograph of her in her car with Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan was dubbed the \u201cBimbo Summit\u201d by the New York Post.<\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT000779730161\"<\/p>\n

With Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears in 2006<\/p>\n

X17 INC<\/p>\n

\""Entourage"<\/p>\n

Out in LA with Kim Kardashian<\/p>\n

GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Hilton helped to make the career of Kim Kardashian, her childhood friend and one-time wardrobe assistant. She was romantically linked, often she says without substance, to men ranging from Michael Jackson (\u201cthe weirdest rumour!\u201d), Leonardo DiCaprio and the Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. There were stories that Ghislaine Maxwell, girlfriend of the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, met her at a party and wanted to recruit her. \u201cI don\u2019t even remember ever meeting her,\u201d Hilton says, before reflecting: \u201cI\u2019m such a good clickbait name.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Paris Hilton\u2019s Noughties wardrobe sells out in seconds<\/a><\/p>\n

Hilton spent 23 days in LA\u2019s Lynwood prison in 2007 for driving with a suspended licence after a drink-driving offence. Later, in 2010, she avoided prison with a one-year suspended sentence after Las Vegas police found cocaine in her purse. <\/p>\n

\"Paris<\/p>\n

On her way to a court hearing after being caught driving while banned in 2007. She served 23 days in jail<\/p>\n

INF \/ GOFF PHOTOS<\/p>\n

But when I ask her about those wild days, she says: \u201cI was just like any other young girl \u2014 growing up, going out \u2014 but I had the whole world watching. The media, especially the tabloids, they love to sensationalise everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plus, she says, she had to contend with \u201cParis Hilton lookalikes that people would hire to, like, pretend to be me\u201d to have their antics reported in the media. \u201cThey would wear sunglasses, they would have fake bodyguards, holding a chihuahua that looked exactly like my dog, dressed in the same exact outfits, trying to do, like, \u2018the voice\u2019.\u201d She adds: \u201cI couldn\u2019t stop them.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hilton\u2019s life changed for ever in June 2004 when an ex-boyfriend, Rick Salomon, began selling a sex tape they had made when she was 19. \u201cThat was just so painful and humiliating,\u201d she says now. He was in his early thirties \u2014 yet she was the one shamed. The singer Pink cruelly parodied it in the video for her song Stupid Girls. And South Park made her the star of an episode called Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just very misogynistic,\u201d Hilton says. Salomon was the first man that she had fallen for after the trauma of her teenage years. \u201cSo it was obviously meeting like a completely wrong person at the wrong time,\u201d she says. \u201cI just felt like the world judged me from that point on.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Paris<\/p>\n

AUSTIN HARGRAVE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE. HAIR: SIENREE DU. MAKE-UP: MELISSA HURKMAN<\/p>\n

Now she finds some comfort in the fact that attitudes towards revenge porn have changed. \u201cLike, that would be illegal today,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople realise just how wrong it was. And that has also been healing for me, for people to be, like, wow, Paris was just a teenage girl being taken advantage of by this older guy.\u201d <\/p>\n

Throughout this time, the paparazzi never let up. \u201cThey were always nice to me,\u201d she says. \u201cAs a teenager it was, like, exciting and something new. But then I noticed it started being scary when it would just be every day.\u201d Often, she adds, \u201cthere would be, like, twenty, sometimes forty cars full of these random guys standing outside my house with cameras.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 What I\u2019ve learnt: Paris Hilton on building a business empire, challenging abusers \u2014 and finding love<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, she endured where many crumbled, harnessing her fame alongside the rise of social media. Her team estimates that, in the past decade alone, the world has paid $4 billion for Paris Hilton-branded products.<\/p>\n

Now the focus is on 11:11, a \u201cnext-gen\u201d media company of which she is CEO and chairwoman. It strikes Hilton-fronted advertising deals to promote brands for companies including Motorola, Meta, Hilton Hotels (naturally), Crocs and Walmart, and runs her skincare and fragrance ranges, TV shows including the recent YouTube cartoon Paris & Pups, and her music; and invests in tech start-ups. It says it generates tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue. <\/p>\n

On TikTok and Instagram combined, she has nearly 40 million followers. Many are Gen Z, drawn in by Nineties and Noughties nostalgia. When I told my Gen Z sister I was interviewing Hilton, I was told, \u201cShe\u2019s iconic.\u201d Hilton looks pleased but not all that surprised and responds with one of her catchphrases, \u201cLoves it\u201d, when I tell her this. Later, she insists we make a selfie video for my sister, whose name she has remembered. <\/p>\n

Hilton credits her success to her ADHD, which she has come to see in recent years as her \u201csuperpower\u201d, meaning she can juggle several projects at the same time. One of 11:11 Media\u2019s 25 or so employees tells me that Hilton recently told them, \u201cI bet Walt Disney had ADHD.\u201d <\/p>\n

Now she is a regular at media and tech industry events, such as the Cannes Lions advertising industry conference. I first saw Hilton there in 2024, talking at a small trade magazine event. At the back of an admiring crowd of American ad industry luvvies was one particularly enthusiastic fan. He whooped the whole time, \u201cGo, Paris!\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Paris<\/p>\n

At this year\u2019s Cannes Lions festival<\/p>\n

BACKGRID<\/p>\n

This, I later learnt, was her husband, Reum. A former investment banker turned venture capitalist, Reum happily tells me that, while he isn\u2019t expected to do many household chores, he is occasionally called upon to be Hilton\u2019s \u201chype man\u201d. Hilton and Reum, a friend of friends, became an item in 2019. <\/p>\n

They married two years later and their son, Phoenix, and daughter, London, were born via surrogacy in January and November 2023. Hilton has previously said that one of the reasons she chose surrogacy was that after the trauma of her teenage years she feared her body may not be a healthy place for a baby given she often suffers from panic attacks.<\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT000930129797\"<\/p>\n

With her husband, Carter Reum, and their children, Phoenix and London, 2024<\/p>\n

WALMART<\/p>\n

When they wake up from their nap, she is keen to introduce me and a nanny brings them in. They toddle over and when I ask if she expects them to be teenage tearaways, a look of horror passes over her face. \u201cI\u2019m going to be so protective,\u201d she says firmly. <\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought I would be a strict mom,\u201d she adds. But she predicts they\u2019re \u201calways going to want to hang out here\u201d. After all: the cinema? The pool? The golf course? The tennis court signed by their mother? <\/p>\n

She hopes their attitude will be, \u201cI don\u2019t want to go to the club with all my friends and I don\u2019t want to sneak out.\u201d And if they try, she adds, \u201cnothing is going to get past me because I know every trick in the book\u201d. Plus, \u201cThis house has so many security cameras, like, I\u2019ll be alerted right away.\u201d I tell Hilton they\u2019ll call her a hypocrite. \u201cYeah, they will, for sure,\u201d she says, laughing. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Paris Hilton is fed up with concern-trolling mums online<\/a><\/p>\n

I ask if she would like them to become influencers and follow her career path. \u201cHmm, not influencers,\u201d she says. But she would like to think that they will be entrepreneurial and perhaps launch their own businesses, maybe in retail or technology. \u201cIf I\u2019m in a meeting they\u2019re always sitting with me, so I feel like they\u2019re soaking it in already, to see their mom do so many things and be successful in so many different areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Paris<\/p>\n

AUSTIN HARGRAVE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE. HAIR: SIENREE DU. MAKE-UP: MELISSA HURKMANT<\/p>\n

Having children has, inevitably, made Hilton think about mortality. \u201cI\u2019m, like, obsessed with longevity,\u201d she says. She is building an 8,000 sq ft \u201cwellness and longevity centre\u201d in her home. \u201cIt\u2019ll be like no spa you\u2019ve ever seen in the world. The whole room is going to be pink with crystals and it\u2019s just going to look like you\u2019re walking into another realm, like a different planet almost, where it\u2019s just, like, this fantastical, high-tech, futuristic place.\u201d<\/p>\n

How long does she expect to live for? \u201cI\u2019ve heard my friends say it\u2019s possible now to live to, like, 150, 160 years old.\u201d <\/p>\n

So that\u2019s the plan, then, Paris Hilton still sliving it up in 2125? \u201cI wish I could just, like, live for ever. I\u2019m not scared of many things in life except spiders, bees \u2014 and dying. I\u2019m just so scared of that,\u201d says Hilton, who was raised Catholic and believes in the afterlife. \u201cBecause I just feel like, if it was just nothing \u2014 which I know it\u2019s not \u2014 that would be so boring.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Paris Hilton appears, finally, at the top of the grand twin staircase in her $63 million Beverly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-135321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}