![\"2001](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/d6dc8889-92fd-47a1-8669-3106471894ce.jpg\")
With her sister, Paris, at the 2001 VH1 Vogue Fashion Awards in New Yorkgetty images<\/p>\nNicholai Hilton Rothschild, always known as Nicky \u2014 fashion designer, younger sister of the more (in)famous Paris and wife of the British banker James Rothschild, a dazzling union of new world\/old world dynasties (the Hilton brand is estimated to be worth \u00a311 billion; the Rothschilds\u2019 more diluted dynastic fortune is thought to reach higher into the tens of billions) \u2014 is musing on the greatest Sliding Doors moment of her life.<\/p>\n
It was the early Noughties. She and Paris, great-granddaughters of the hotel mogul Conrad Hilton, were teenage It girls, living together in the Hollywood Hills, dancing on tables and appearing on every red carpet.<\/p>\n
Noting this, Fox television producers asked them to star in a reality show \u2014 then an unknown format. It would be called The Simple Life and the concept, as the theme song went, was, \u201cLet\u2019s take two girls, both filthy rich, from the bright lights into the sticks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paris was keen. Nicky, not yet 20, was not. In her autobiography, Paris Hilton: The Memoir, Paris recalls her sister\u2019s objection was, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be funny. I want to be classy.\u201d<\/p>\n
With her sister, Paris, at the 2001 VH1 Vogue Fashion Awards in New Yorkgetty images<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very surprised that at such a young age I was wise not to relinquish all my privacy,\u201d Nicky says when we meet in a suite at the Newman hotel in Fitzrovia, central London. \u201cYou have the networks waving a big cheque at you, saying, \u2018You\u2019re going to become really famous.\u2019 [But] I am more private [than Paris], so the idea of them sending us to a farm and filming everything just did not align.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did Paris, two years her senior, try to talk her into it? \u201cShe did.\u201d Yet Nicky wouldn\u2019t back down. The gig went to Lionel Richie\u2019s daughter Nicole.<\/p>\n
The sisters remained \u201cbest friends\u201d but went their separate ways. Nicky, now 42, fulfilled her mother\u2019s dreams of becoming a Park Avenue princess, making the perfect marriage to Rothschild, 40, the son of Amschel Rothschild, who took his own life in 1996, and Anita Guinness. (His sisters, Kate and Alice, had previously been married to Ben and Zac Goldsmith respectively.) Nicky has raised their three children in a NoHo loft (north of SoHo, Manhattan) while working on various fashion collaborations and the philanthropic Hilton Foundation.<\/p>\n
How Paris became \u2018the first influencer\u2019<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Paris became one of the best-known people in the world, \u201cthe first influencer\u201d as she\u2019s put it, famous for being famous long before Instagram existed. She made millions she didn\u2019t need from her skincare, clothing and perfume lines, along with her career as a DJ. At the same time, her life became a circus of paparazzi chases and hysterical fans, of exes releasing sex tapes of her as a teenager onto the internet and relentless mockery of her apparent vapidity.<\/p>\n
The 2020 documentary This Is Paris showed her constantly jetting alone around the world, battling insomnia, refusing to take a holiday until she\u2019d made $1 billion, while a worried Nicky berated her for her lateness and being \u201cgreedy \u2014you won\u2019t turn down a cheque\u201d, she sighs.<\/p>\n
![\"amfAR's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5d2a19ca-8b2f-4876-b31c-cda9120ad759.jpg\")
The Hilton family: Rick, Kathy, Nicky and Parisgetty images<\/p>\n
But then a heartbreaking backstory was revealed. When Paris was a wild, nightclubbing 16-year-old, her strict parents, Richard and Kathy, sent her to a Californian boarding school<\/a> that promised to fix broken children. They were well meaning, unaware the \u201ctough love\u201d promised included intimate body searches, showering in front of jeering male and female guards, days spent hauling rocks up mountains and no talking to other \u201cstudents\u201d, except during all-night sessions when the children were forced to torment each other verbally for hours.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Nicky, oblivious, was at home living a privileged, loved teenager\u2019s life. No wonder, Paris admitted, \u201cI was never jealous of my sister, but I was envious.\u201d Making the documentary was the first time the family learnt about Paris\u2019s teenage travails. How did Nicky feel? \u201cDefinitely emotional,\u201d she says, clearly unwilling to discuss further.<\/p>\n She\u2019s more outspoken about the misogyny surrounding Noughties starlets like Paris, Britney Spears<\/a> and Jessica Simpson. \u201cIt is outrageous how those women were vilified and bullied,\u201d Nicky says. \u201cIt was so irresponsible \u2014 sadistic, so mean-spirited. These are young women who are just going out and having fun. Too much fun sometimes, but not harming anyone. I\u2019d like to hope that wouldn\u2019t happen today. I think with all these social justice movements we\u2019ve started to wake up, to realise that type of treatment is not tolerated any more. But although it\u2019s improved a lot, I don\u2019t know if it will ever fully be over.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I have very good radar. My sister? Not so much\u2019<\/p>\n Nicky is worked up in the way only a little sister can be. This says a lot about her loyalty to Paris, because her default vibe is serene. Dressed down for our interview in a grey cashmere turtleneck, black trousers and Adidas trainers, she\u2019s startlingly similar to Paris in appearance. But while her sister is famous for her baby voice and hyper manner, Nicky is calm and considered, with the slow, arch drawl affected by the Manhattan socialites Tom Wolfe dubbed \u201csocial x-rays\u201d. Yet in manner, she\u2019s warm and unaffected \u2014 fumbling in her handbag for some under-eye patches, offering me a pack, then sticking the black patches from another beneath her eyes, talking all the while.<\/p>\n As heiresses, the Hiltons were always prey to fortune hunters. \u201cI have very good radar,\u201d Nicky says. \u201cI\u2019m pretty perceptive, scoping out who\u2019s good and not so good. I know how to keep those people away. My sister? Not so much. Her friends like to joke I\u2019m the gatekeeper. That\u2019s my nickname.\u201d<\/p>\n After a string of boyfriends, Paris has now been married for five years to the businessman Carter Reum. The couple have a son, three, and a daughter, two, and live in Los Angeles. The families got together at Christmas. Nicky pulls out her phone to show me pictures of the cousins in velvet dresses and mini tuxedos under a vast Christmas tree. Then there\u2019s a completely on-brand shot of a pink pram containing Paris\u2019s pet ferret, alongside two small white fluffy dogs. \u201cParis thinks ferrets are cute. I don\u2019t. They smell. Now my littlest is like, \u2018I want a ferret.\u2019 Not happening.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, Paris is campaigning to protect children from the \u201ctroubled teen\u201d industry, overseeing the passing of two federal bills. \u201cI\u2019m so proud of her,\u201d Nicky says. \u201cWho would have thought that she would be passing laws in Congress, really taking that pain and turning it into purpose?\u201d<\/p>\n A New Yorker in Notting Hill<\/p>\n After a decade in New York, since January the Hilton Rothschilds have lived in Notting Hill in west London. Their daughters, Theodora, nine, and Lily-Grace, eight, are being home schooled in line with the US curriculum, while their three-year-old son, Chasen, is in nursery school.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been coming to London since I was a little girl but always stayed in Mayfair. Now I feel like I\u2019ve fallen in love with London all over again. Notting Hill is just so charming. I\u2019ve found all my little places \u2014 my butcher, Lidgate; my coffee place. I love walking along Portobello Road to buy bread. It\u2019s always bustling. I love New York to the core, but I\u2019m really having a great time here.\u201d<\/p>\n Even better: Nicky\u2019s American pals have begun pitching up. She\u2019s been hanging out with a childhood friend from LA, \u201cThen I bumped into one of my old friends from New York at [Notting Hill restaurant] Granger & Co. He\u2019s living here.\u201d<\/p>\n Are they all fleeing Donald Trump<\/a>? He was an old family friend (although three years ago Paris said, \u201cNot any more,\u201d when somebody said this, confessing on a separate occasion she\u2019d lied about voting for Trump in 2016 and in fact hadn\u2019t voted at all). Ever discreet, Nicky doesn\u2019t mention the man her sister described as \u201cfriendly, warm, orange\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s a combination of things,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was a bit of an exodus from California after the fires, tax things, Mamdani [Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, New York\u2019s left-wing mayor]\u2026 Just everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Their move is probably temporary (\u201cBut who knows?\u201d), motivated partly by James\u2019s work for his investment firm, Tru Arrow Partners, but also to be closer to his mother, who breeds horses in Hampshire. It also works perfectly for Nicky, whose two main brand partnerships are based here \u2014 the first her jewellery range, Theo Grace, named after her two daughters, offering (surprisingly affordable) jewellery that can be personalised with engravings or photos of loved ones. She\u2019s wearing a ring from the line displaying a picture of her papillon dog, Minnie (there\u2019s also a cat called Mac \u2014 \u201cI don\u2019t trust people who don\u2019t like animals\u201d).<\/p>\n The second is La Coqueta, an upmarket childrenswear brand, with boutiques in the likes of Notting Hill, Charleston and Palm Beach in the US, selling cute pastel rompers and dresses, designed for families who don\u2019t have to worry about laundry.<\/p>\n Nicky has designed a charming range of 21 items for the brand, some with sashes and big skirts \u2014 homages to the matchy-matchy outfits in which Kathy Hilton liked to dress her daughters. \u201cBut these are so beautifully made and wearable. I remember my mum dressing us up in these big, puffy, itchy dresses, and we couldn\u2019t wait to take them off,\u201d Nicky says. Then there are two matching adult and mini-me dresses \u2014 one in a pink and white toile de jouy print featuring drawings of key milestones in her gilded life.<\/p>\n These include the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan, the Hilton\u2019s flagship property. When Nicky was 12, the family (there are two younger brothers, Barron, now 36, and Conrad, 32) moved here from Bel Air to live in a 2,500sq ft condo, 30H, with marble floors and views across the city. Michael Jackson and his children were in 30A; Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand were also in the building.<\/p>\n \u201cLiving in the Waldorf was fun, definitely glamorous. You could go up in the elevator one day with the president; the next, with the Rolling Stones. Paris and I would sneak into the ballroom to hide under the tables and see who we could glimpse, or if there were any leftover gift bags in the closet.\u201d<\/p>\n They didn\u2019t use room service, but maids came in. \u201cClean sheets daily. Quite the luxury. My school friends loved going to the executive lounge. At 5pm every day they put out a spread of everything and we could help ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n First brush with fame \u2014 and scandal<\/p>\n Another image shows the Convent of the Sacred Heart on the Upper East Side of New York, the Catholic girls\u2019 school attended by Nicky (and Lady Gaga). And Paris? Nicky snorts. \u201cThe headmistress and Paris decided very fast the all-girl thing was not for her.\u201d Nicky loved school but, after Paris organised fake IDs for them both, from 14 she was also a regular at Manhattan\u2019s nightclubs. When she was 16, she and Paris flew secretly to LA for a Vanity Fair photoshoot with David LaChapelle.<\/p>\n \u201cWe lied to my parents. We told them we were going to a sleepover. We knew they\u2019d find out but we\u2019d worry about that later. This was too good an opportunity to turn down.\u201d They were shot standing on Hollywood Boulevard in heels and couture microskirts. A friend of Kathy\u2019s spotted them. \u201cMum went ballistic. Looking back, a teenager flying across the country is pretty wild. That would not happen today. But no harm was done and it definitely put us on the map.\u201d<\/p>\n The magazine billed them as \u201chip-hop debs\u201d and the sisters became A-listers. They moved to the Hollywood Hills. Invitations included Sex and the City\u2019s producers asking them to play rowdy neighbours in the episode where Samantha moves to the Meatpacking District. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t make the flight and we were so nervous and scared we didn\u2019t even call them to say so. We ghosted them. It\u2019s definitely one of my biggest regrets. We were young and silly.\u201d<\/p>\n But then they went in different directions: Paris to superstardom, while Nicky \u2014 although there was vague scandal around a brief Vegas marriage to a childhood friend, Todd Meister (annulled after three months and which she dismissed as a \u201cwhim\u201d) \u2014 fulfilled the debutante role their parents had expected of both daughters. She launched a fashion line, Nicholai, and met her husband-to-be at the Rome wedding of Petra Ecclestone<\/a> to James Stunt<\/a> (now ended) in 2011. \u201cAt the reception, Paris was talking to some boy. I was standing there like a third wheel and he introduced himself. I thought, \u2018This is the cutest accent. He\u2019s so handsome and adorable.\u2019 There was instant chemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n After a three-year long-distance relationship, Rothschild proposed on a boat in Lake Como. They decided to marry in London in 2015 \u2014 \u201cI\u2019d always wanted a destination wedding, but I didn\u2019t want the countryside. I wanted it somewhere convenient so people didn\u2019t have to get on shuttle buses [between the reception and the hotel],\u201d says Nicky. The gown was couture Valentino, the venue the Orangery at Kensington Palace. The Hilton clan took over Claridge\u2019s. Guests at the wedding eve party at Spencer House in St James\u2019s included Naomi Campbell, Chelsea Clinton and Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece.<\/p>\n The only hitch came as they headed to church. \u201cWe were running late because my mum runs late. I was walking really fast to the car. I felt a tug \u2014 my veil was under a tyre. There were all these cameras, so I just pulled it and kept walking, but there was a huge tear.\u201d<\/p>\n She pulls out a photo of this disaster, which a friend recently posted on Instagram. \u201cI was like, why are you retraumatising me? That veil, then being late when my husband is so punctual\u2026\u201d Was she really sweaty en route? \u201cYes. But in the end it was a magical day.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then, despite being scions of two of the richest, most talked about families in the world, the Hilton Rothschilds have lived a life of impeccable discretion \u2014 notwithstanding the wider family\u2019s continuing embroilment with the reality business, with Kathy featuring intermittently with her sisters, Kim and Kyle Richards, in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills since 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be honest, initially I was not on board with that. I know those shows thrive on drama and craziness. I know Mum\u2019s decision came out of sheer boredom during the pandemic. But her unfiltered charm is hysterical. I\u2019ve always known she was entertaining; now the world gets to see it. My friends are obsessed with her.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicky has never stopped working, travelling all over the world to collaborate with different brands. Why? She doesn\u2019t need the money. \u201cI enjoy work,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d be so bored if I didn\u2019t. A lot of people I grew up with who come from big families haven\u2019t done a lot, have been given everything, and a lot of them aren\u2019t happy. You need purpose and drive. I come from a line of entrepreneurs. Our parents always told us we had to make a name for ourselves.\u201d Brief fulfilled. <\/p>\n![\"NINTCHDBPICT001068933473\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/29901fb2-cefe-4810-a5a5-d143637c978a.jpg\")
At the Newman hotel. Dress, junie.com. Shoes, carolinaherrera.comDan Kennedy for The Times Magazine<\/p>\n![\"2020](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/7f6dc9f2-6fa1-4e4d-aea2-1978f618a21f.jpg\")
Nicky and her husband, James Rothschild, in 2020getty images<\/p>\n![\"NINTCHDBPICT001068934671\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/71b69506-2d06-491b-b052-c6e9998c4305.jpg\")
Dress, safiyaa.com. Necklace, vickisarge.com. Shoes, jimmychoo.com. Sunglasses, longchamp.comDAN KENNEDY for the times magazine<\/p>\n![\"NINTCHDBPICT001068971230\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ff345655-381e-4f61-bb60-a4bca43eadbb.jpg\")
Modelling her La Coqueta range with her childrencourtesy of la coqueta<\/p>\n![\"NINTCHDBPICT001068934554\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/bfc85f56-4cf1-4da5-ae68-39f5bf587349.jpg\")
Dress, edelinelee.com. Shoes, malonesouliers.com. Gloves, corneliajames.com. Earrings, self-portrait.com DAN KENNEDY for the times magazine<\/p>\n