The Hilton name is one of the most recognized in modern American history.
It's attached to one of the most successful hotel chains in the world.
But the family's history is fraught with greed, betrayal, and heartbreaking individual tales
of tragedy, both headline-grabbing and secret. This is their story.
Conrad Hilton was born on December 25, 1887, in the New Mexico Territory. According to the Herald
Democrat, his father, a Norwegian immigrant and small business owner, taught Conrad the
ropes at a young age. By his mid-20s, Conrad was elected to the very first session of the state
of New Mexico's House of Representatives when it joined the United States in 1912.
After serving in the army in World War I, he was able to purchase his first hotel in Cisco, Texas,
and would eventually open others throughout the state. His dreams
of a hotel chain were put on hold, however, when the Great Depression hit the country.
Hilton went bankrupt and saw many of his hotels close in the 1930s.
"I remember one day that I borrowed $300 from one of my bellboys."
"Eddie Fowler was his name, he had more money than I did."
After managing to expand and build back his hotel business throughout Texas in the early 1940s, he
branched out to Los Angeles, and the Hilton Hotel Corporation was officially established in 1946.
Hilton became known as quite the partier. He was known to drink to excess
and to court multiple women at once, although his wife,
Mary Adelaide Barron Hilton, apparently had some fidelity issues of her own.
Conrad and Mary were married in 1925 and had three sons together, but Mary left him
in 1934 for a local football coach she'd been having an affair with. Conrad began socializing
with the rich and famous, which is how he met Hungarian beauty queen Zsa Zsa Gabor,
whose long list of lovers includes Sean Connery and Richard Burton. The two were married in 1942.
The marriage only lasted four years. According to Vanity Fair, Gabor blamed their failed marriage
on Conrad's guilt for divorcing his first wife and remarrying outside the Catholic Church. In truth,
there were multiple reasons why their marriage may have failed,
including both Conrad's and Gabor's wandering eyes, Conrad's drug problem, and his temper.
“I hear you've fallen in love and not with me. How is that possible?"
Gabor later claimed that she and her stepson,
Conrad "Nicky" Hilton Jr., had embarked upon a fleeting affair.
Before their divorce, Conrad and Gabor had a daughter, Francesca, who was Gabor's only child.
Sadly, Francesca Hilton's life was filled with tragedy,
starting from her conception. Gabor claimed that she was the product of marital rape,
and Francesca was never treated equally by her father and her three stepbrothers.
Conrad reportedly initially denied that Francesca was even his daughter.
Francesca's relationship with her mother never improved. In 2005, Gabor and her ninth husband,
Frederic Prinz von Anhalt, accused Francesca of fraud, elder abuse, and
intentional infliction of emotional distress. They filed a suit against her in a California
court for allegedly attempting to pilfer equity from Gabor's Bel Air mansion. According to Forbes,
Francesca claimed she had her mother's blessing to refinance the property in order to save it
from foreclosure. The lawsuit was eventually dropped, but the emotional damage endured.
Francesca held a deep grudge against both her mother and von Anhalt, telling RadarOnline:
"My mother wanted to be a princess, so she married an evil queen."
When Conrad died, he left a mere $100,000 to Francesca. After failed legal attempts to amend
the will, Francesca survived on odd jobs, living in her car until she died of a stroke in 2015.
It took ten days for her family to claim her body at the morgue due to a legal wrangling.
In 1950, 18-year-old movie star and style icon Elizabeth Taylor married her first husband of
seven, 23-year-old Conrad "Nicky" Hilton Jr. The couple threw a heavily publicized marital shindig
at the Bel-Air Country Club. On the surface, Liz and Nicky appeared to have a glamorous,
fairytale relationship. In reality, it was a nightmare. Taylor claimed
that Nicky began drinking on their wedding night and never stopped.
He also had problems with gambling, as well as a wandering eye. Taylor wrote in a 1965 memoir:
"The honeymoon in Europe lasted two weeks. I should say the marriage lasted for two
weeks. Then came, yours sincerely, disillusionment rude and brutal."
After their honeymoon, Taylor left Nicky to stay with her mother.
She later told a Santa Monica court that Nicky had been, quote, "indifferent to me
and used abusive language." She won a divorce on account of mental cruelty and refused any alimony.
The high-profile marriage lasted less than a year.
Nicky Hilton married Oklahoma oil heiress Patricia McClintock in 1958,
and Liz Taylor married English actor Michael Wilding just a year after the divorce, in 1952.
When Conrad Hilton Sr. died in 1979, it was assumed that his two surviving sons would
receive the bulk of his estate. Conrad "Nicky" Jr. had died at age 42 of cardiac arrest. But
the second son, Barron, wasn't satisfied with the will and contested its provisions.
Conrad Sr. was a devout Catholic and put a tremendous focus on philanthropy. In his will,
it appeared that, quote, "charity, not his children, were to receive the bulk of his
multimillion-dollar estate," according to New York Times writer Marcia Chambers. His charity,
the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, would hold control of his hotel empire.
Barron maintained, however, that under a provision in his father's will,
he, and not the Hilton foundation, was entitled to the 27.4-percent block of stock.
He sued his father's foundation in 1983, claiming he should be legally able to purchase the stock
for $165 million. The judge ruled in Barron's favor, but the Catholic Sisters of Conrad's public
foundation were not pleased. They also took Barron to court, and the foundation's chief lawyer,
Andrew N. Garb, stated that they would be, quote, "opposing the Sisters in this litigation."
Barron would ultimately receive control of 34 percent of Hilton's
shares and became chairman and CEO of the family business.
Barron would continue to act as CEO of Hilton Hotels Corporation for 30 years. He was also
the founder of the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers. When he passed away at the age of 91 in 2019,
one would think Barron's will would have different priorities than his father's,
considering his initial contestation of that big slice of charity pie he successfully took back.
In 2007, Barron oversaw the sale of Hilton Hotels to the Blackstone Group for
$20 billion. But in a controversial move shortly before his death,
Barron decided to fulfill his father's original wishes for the Hilton foundation,
leaving only three percent of his wealth to his eight children and 15 grandchildren.
How much exactly is that wealth? According to Bloomberg, Barron's net worth was $1.25 billion.
Upon his death, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation endowment had accumulated to $6.3 billion.
The foundation supports projects that provide clean water in Africa,
housing for the mentally ill, and education for blind children, among others.
Richard Hilton, one of Barron's eight children, married his high school sweetheart, Kathy.
The pair became parents to the most infamous modern Hilton children, Paris and Conrad III.
"That's hot."
Kathy's mother, Kathleen Fenton, was allegedly a nightmare. Kathleen, aka 'Big Kathy,' was
married four times, and according to Jerry Oppenheimer's biography House of Hilton,
she told her daughters from an early age to marry rich and have a lot of children. She once boasted:
"My daughters are married to men who have a total net worth of $13 billion."
The 2018 TV show American Woman was loosely based
on Big Kathy navigating life as a single mom in the 1970s.
"A liar is the worst thing you can be. A stripper is also bad."
Kathy Hilton was a child actress who appeared in several shows, including Bewitched and Happy Days.
Her half-sisters, Kyle and Kim Richards, are stars on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Paris Hilton has some major skeletons in her closet,
and she did some spring cleaning in 2020 for her documentary This
is Paris. For the first time, Paris went public about some truly disturbing details
concerning her time at Utah's Provo Canyon School in the late '90s, telling People:
"People might assume everything in my life came easy to me,
but I want to show the world who I truly am."
"I feel like the whole world thinks they know me
because I've been playing this character for so long."
Paris was sent to the school at 17
after her parents became fed up with her rebellious behavior. According to the star,
she suffered mental and emotional abuse at the hands of the staff. She was put in
solitary confinement as a form of punishment — sometimes for 20 hours per day. Paris claims she
was threatened with retaliation by the school if she ever told her family what was going on.
Her sister, Nicky, expressed public support for Paris, saying:
"Going through so much trauma and reliving it with the whole world watching is very brave."
"It needs to stop, like, I literally want to go there and be like, alright we're going in
and we're taking all these kids out."
The school has denied her allegations.
In 2004, a sex tape between Paris and then-boyfriend Rick Salomon made her a
target of scrutiny, and she found herself in a string of abusive relationships.
When reflecting on those relationships later in life, she believes the abuse
she withstood at her boarding school planted the seed, telling People:
"I was strangled, I was hit, I was grabbed aggressively. I put up with things no one should."
"I accepted it. Because I almost thought it was normal."
In 2010, Paris was also arrested for drug possession. While dating Cy Waits,
the two were pulled over in Las Vegas. While digging around for "some lip balm,"
a bag of cocaine fell out of her purse. Paris said in an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment:
"I feel that I've been through hell and back. Like what more can people say at this point?"
Paris' younger brother, Conrad Hilton III, has been arrested for drug possession,
attacking flight attendants, stealing a Bentley from his ex-girlfriend's father,
and violating a restraining order against an ex.
So it's safe to say he may have Paris beat for problem child of the family.
During a flight from London to LA in 2015, an unfortunate string of events
began when Conrad refused to turn off his cell phone. According to The Washington Post,
he was also accused of smoking marijuana on the plane, swearing so much he made children cry,
and calling people complaining about his behavior "peasants." Hilton later stated to the FBI:
"I told all of them I could get all of their jobs taken away in less than thirty seconds."
At one point, he tried to start a fight and took a swing at one of the attendants.
Eventually, he was restrained while sleeping.
Did we mention the time he crashed into a woman's car while driving his father's Range Rover?
According to TMZ, witnesses said he "threw a bong out of the window and was covered
in vomit." Don't expect a tell-all documentary from him anytime soon.
Due to some shady real estate backstabbing,
there's a major rift between Kathy and Rick Hilton and Kyle Richards and her husband,
Mauricio Umansky. While it was revealed on the show that Kyle and Kim weren't invited to Nicky
Hilton's wedding, the truth was that it was actually Kyle's husband who wasn't wanted.
"Somewhere along the line, something happened where I
was told that maybe it would be better if I didn't come."
The falling out happened when Rick refused to make Mauricio a partner after years of working
together, claiming that he helped Mauricio get his career off the ground, only for Mauricio to set up
his own company behind his back. An insider said Mauricio, quote, "tried to poach staff" from Rick.
Luckily, the sisters have patched things up since,
with People reporting that Kathy, Kim and Kyle are "finally in a better place."
Since the Hilton family's beginning, devout Catholic patriarch Conrad vowed to leave the
majority of his money behind for charitable use. His second son, Barron, ultimately
followed in his father's footsteps, leaving the modern Hilton family fortune uncertain.
Will Paris and her siblings ever see a cent of her family's fortune? It remains to be seen. Barron
was reportedly "increasingly dismayed" by Paris' public behavior, and House of Hilton author Jerry
Oppenheimer said that he was, quote, "extremely embarrassed by how the Hilton name has been
sullied by Paris." This was one of the reasons for Barron's decision to give 97 percent of his
net worth to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. The Hiltons don't let on that it bothers them,
however. One of Barron's six sons, Steven Hilton, who heads the foundation, stated:
"Speaking for the family as well as the foundation,
we are all exceedingly proud and grateful for this extraordinary commitment. "
Paris has made her own fortune through her reality TV career
and is reportedly worth $300 million. Nicky has a fashion business, and her net worth is
$40 million. But among Barron's eight children, 15 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren,
who knows whether someone will contest the arrangement in the future.
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