Paris Hilton is recalling a traumatic resurfaced interview with David Letterman where he publicly
humiliated her for doing time in jail, after admitting the topic was told to be “off
limits.”
Following the release of the Framing Britney Spears documentary last month, many televised
interviews are now resurfacing in which young female stars were made to feel extremely uncomfortable.
And just this week, Paris Hilton recalled a similar incident during Monday’s episode
of her This is Paris podcast.
She opened up to her sister Nicky Hilton about a “humiliating” interview with former
late night host David Letterman back in 2007.
Around the same time, Paris had just gotten out of a 45-day stint in jail for speeding
with no headlights on while driving with a suspended license, just a month after being
arrested on suspicion of a DUI.
According to Paris, Letterman’s team had been asking her to appear on the show for
months, but she refused multiple times because she “didn’t want to talk about” her
time in jail.
But when promoting her new fragrance, she agreed to stop by his show on one condition:
Do not under any circumstance bring up her past arrest.
Paris said on her podcast QUOTE, “That was off limits and he would not discuss it and
we would only be there to promote the perfume and my other business ventures,” adding,
“I felt like it was a safe place because I'd been going on Letterman for so many years.”
Come to find out, this was anything but a safe space as he began grilling her on what
jail was like, to which she appeared notably irritated during the entire interview.
Take a look:
“New York City’s exciting, isn’t it?”
“I was born here, yeah.”
“Yeah, good for you.
Uh, how’d you like being in jail?”
“Umm…”
Paris recalled how “cruel and mean” Letterman was on her podcast and recalled how he kept
“pushing me and pushing me” to speak about topics like her sleeping arrangements and
the food she ate in jail.
“Just being up there, it was like he was purposefully trying to humiliate me.”
She even explained that during commercial breaks she would beg him to stop talking about
her time in prison, which ended up taking up six of the eight minutes of her interview.
When he continued to badger her about jail as the audience was full of laughter, Paris
then recalled when the interview was over, telling him QUOTE, “I looked at him and
I said, ‘I'm never coming on the show again.
You've crossed the line.’”
After realizing he had really upset her, Letterman then sent her a case of wine as an apology,
but it seems Paris will probably need more than a case of bougie wine to help mend their
friendship.
Nicky then recalled another incident when Sarah Silverman targeted her sister at the
2007 MTV VMAs, just a day before Paris started her jail stint.
Sarah made a speech during the show joking that prison authorities were painting the
cell bars to resemble male genitalia to make Paris feel more comfortable, saying, “I
just worry that she's going to break her teeth on those things.”
Nicky agreed with Paris, explaining that Sarah made “disgusting, vile, perverted statements",
and posing an interesting question adding, “Imagine if that happened today?
It wouldn't.”
Paris called this one of the “more traumatic experiences of [her] life, adding QUOTE, “I
was sitting there wanting to die.
I was trying to hold back my tears so hard, I had tears welling up in my eyes, I literally
wanted to run out of the entire room but I was just trying to be strong and sit there.”
Sarah has yet to issue an apology to Paris nor Britney Spears after calling her children
“adorable mistakes” during the same award show.
These resurfaced interviews have shed even more light on the constant criticism and public
scrutiny young celebrities faced growing up in the spotlight.
Many fans recall just last week, when a 2007 Oprah interview made its way around TikTok,
where she blatantly mocks Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen about their clothing size amid Mary-Kate’s
struggle with an eating disorder.
Although fans continue to rally in support of these celebs, the harsh reality is that
these traumatic experiences don’t just go away…
We can all learn from these resurfaced interviews and always remember to think about the way
we treat others, celebrities included, and how our words could severely affect people
in the long run.
For more on Oprah’s controversial interview with Mary-Kate and Ashley, click right over
here for a full Clevver rundown.
Then be sure to let me know all your thoughts on Paris’ traumatic interview with Letterman
right down here in the comments.
I’m your host Emile Ennis Jr. , bye guys.