Harrowing stories of abuse, personal identity struggles, and family strife are just some
of the biggest bombshells that Paris Hilton reveals in Paris: The Memoir.
One of the most challenging aspects of Paris: The Memoir is Paris Hilton's attendance at
Provo Canyon School in Springville, Utah.
She's already made disturbing allegations about the boarding school, but the book reveals
a whole new level of terrifying.
Hilton initially wasn't sure that she would go into so much detail about this chapter
of her life.
But after she watched Demi Lovato's 2017 documentary Simply Complicated, the heiress decided that
she should speak out about her own experiences.
As Hilton writes in her memoir,
"I was as stunned as the rest of the world by how real, vulnerable, and courageous she
was [...] Demi shared a painful reckoning with a difficult past; in person, I saw her
in the midst of an intense journey of self-acceptance and discovery [...] I envied that acceptance.
I wanted that discovery for myself."
Hilton recounts instances of rape, harassment, and dangerous living conditions, among other
allegations of abuse, that took place during her time at the boarding school.
As she explained to Glamour UK,
"This was something that I had blocked out from my memory, but after hearing the story
from other survivors, I started having flashbacks."
If it hadn't been for Lovato, Hilton may not have found the bravery to tell her story.
"Yes.
Yes.
Yes!"
Hilton also opens up in her memoir about being sexually assaulted when she was still a minor.
One weekend, while hanging out at a mall in Los Angeles, she and a friend accepted an
invitation to go back to the apartment of two men who were in their twenties.
One of the men convinced Hilton, who was just 15 at the time, to drink a wine cooler and
allegedly told her,
"Don't be a baby.
It doesn't even taste like alcohol."
Hilton finally agreed and took a sip, but she doesn't remember much after that.
While piecing together the details, she recalled,
"When I tried to scream, there was no air in my lungs.
All that came out was a small, raspy 'stop.'"
When Hilton woke up, she felt sick to her stomach and couldn't find her friend, though
she eventually managed to get herself home.
This was just one of many horrifying experiences she kept locked away for years.
As she explained to the Associated Press,
"A lot of the things that I put in the book were very hard to write about, a lot of memories
that I tried to not think about for so many years.
But I think it was important to include them because it's part of my story."
"It's been a real, real difficult road, and here you sit."
"Yeah."
"Here you sit."
"Resilient and stronger than ever."
Paris Hilton is known for many things, but one opportunity she turned down was a seven-figure
sum from Playboy.
As she reveals in her memoir,
"[Hugh Hefner] kept wanting me to be a Playmate, and I thought that would be awesome, but when
I told [my] Mom about it, she said, 'Are you insane?
No!'"
Hefner's offers didn't stop there, though.
As Hilton explained,
"Years later, as I got more famous, Hef really wanted me to do a Playboy cover.
He kept offering me more and more money, saying I wouldn't have to be totally naked, just
topless."
After telling Hilton she could wear whatever she wanted for the shoot, Hefner apparently
offered her seven figures to appear on the cover.
She ultimately turned down the offer, but she still ended up on a Playboy cover anyway.
Hefner decided to honor her with the "Sex Star of the Year Award," and the magazine
acquired pictures from an old photoshoot.
Hilton's parents were understandably upset.
But apparently, nobody believed that they could take it up with Hefner, even though
Hilton didn't receive any money for the cover.
In light of this revelation, Playboy said in a statement to People Magazine,
"While the current management does not know what occurred surrounding that cover, the
claim does not reflect our values nor how the company operates today."
One of the most disturbing revelations in Paris: The Memoir involves the author's eighth
grade teacher.
As Hilton writes,
"All the girls in my class were crushing on this handsome young teacher […] But he chose
me."
The teacher allegedly told Hilton that he had a crush on her.
As she elaborated,
"He flattered and teased me [...] He asked for my private phone number and cautioned
me not to tell anyone."
What initially started as nightly phone calls allegedly turned into something more on a
night when Hilton's parents weren't home.
The teacher was parked outside Hilton's house, and he allegedly told her that she should
join him.
She got in the car and then he kissed her, but it was all interrupted when Hilton's parents
arrived that very moment.
According to Hilton, the teacher then stayed away from her for the rest of the school year.
As Hilton explained to Glamour UK,
"I just felt so ashamed by the whole situation – just from the beginning at such a young
age and it really stuck with me in a weird way."
"Even to this day, it's really hard for me to let anyone in."
In 2020, disgraced media mogul Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison on rape
and assault charges.
Then in 2022, he was sentenced to 16 more years.
This was an important development for many, including Paris Hilton.
As she writes in her memoir,
"I admire the courageous women who stepped up and called him out."
In her book, Hilton details her own experience with Weinstein, which allegedly took place
when she attended the Cannes Film Festival in 2000 when she was 19 years old.
Hilton had hoped to pitch a movie project at the meeting, but according to the heiress,
"Harvey made pervy, weird comments [...] He was as creepy and aggressive as a person could
be over lunch in a crowded restaurant."
The following night, Hilton attended an American Foundation for AIDS Research event, as did
Weinstein.
She tried to ignore him, but he allegedly followed her to the bathroom.
As she writes in her memoir,
"[I] locked myself in a stall before he came in.
He pounded on the stall door and yanked on the handle, yelling gross, drunk nonsense
like 'Ya wanna be a star?'"
Eventually, Weinstein was allegedly escorted out of the ladies' room by some security guards,
much to Hilton's relief.
Weinstein's team denied Hilton's account in a statement to Variety.
In 2003, Paris Hilton's star was on the rise, as her reality show The Simple Life was making
quite the splash.
At the time, she was 22 years old and in a relationship with Jason Shaw, whom she'd been
dating for two years.
Her world then changed forever when she discovered that she was expecting.
As she explains in her memoir,
"When I realized I was pregnant, it was like waking up on the ledge outside a fortieth-floor
window.
I was terrified and heartsick."
At the time, Hilton didn't feel equipped to raise a child.
As she put it,
"No one can ever know how hard it is to face this impossible choice unless she's faced
it herself."
After grappling with her own anti-abortion upbringing, Hilton ultimately decided to terminate
the pregnancy.
As she writes,
"Over the years, I've looked back on all this with sorrow, even though I know I made the
right choice."
"It was time to just be real and tell my story."
"Yeah."
Hilton chose to tell her story to help other women in the same situation.
She's been apprehensive in the past to speak out against anti-choice legislation, but she
now uses her platform to be an advocate.
As she put it to Glamour UK,
"Why should there be a law based on that?
It's your body, your choice and I really believe in that."
One Hilton familial connection that may surprise you if you're not a reality TV junkie is that
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kyle Richards is the half-sister of Paris' mom,
Kathy Hilton.
Richards is only 12 years older than Paris, and the two were close while growing up.
Because they were so close, Paris once reached out to Richards to rescue her during an escape
attempt from a school run by the CEDU Educational Service.
After sneaking out of the facility, Hilton ran away to a gas station restaurant and made
a collect call to her aunt.
Richards agreed to pick her niece up after she told her about the abuse that was happening
there.
Hilton then hid in a crawl space of a restaurant and waited.
She watched CEDU staff and multiple police officers come looking for her.
When the restaurant closed, Hilton tried to phone Richards again, but the call was interrupted.
As Hilton recalled,
"A heavy hand clamped around my neck.
I tried to hold on to the phone, but the enforcer lifted me off the ground and threw me into
the SUV."
While her escape attempt was thwarted, Hilton doesn't blame Richards.
As she put it,
"Aunt Kyle was in her twenties when this happened.
Not much older than me.
We’ve never talked about it, but looking at it from her perspective at the time, how
would she not call my mom?"
Paris Hilton is now happily married to her husband Carter Reum, whom she wed on November
11, 2021.
In January 2023, the couple announced the arrival of their first child together, a son
named Phoenix Barron Hilton.
Paris initially underwent IVF treatment to try to conceive.
As she writes in the memoir,
"Month after month of injections, several egg-harvesting procedures, more IVF injections,
new ADHD meds, my natural state of chaos."
"Carter and I started doing IVF only after a few months of dating, so once we're married,
we'll have the embryos ready so that one day we can get pregnant right away."
Despite multiple attempts over two years, Hilton ultimately couldn't get pregnant via
IVF.
So the couple opted to instead welcome their child via surrogate, and they managed to keep
the entire thing a secret until the baby was born.
While Hilton doesn't discuss surrogacy in her memoir, she does note,
"If all goes well, by the time you read this, Carter and I will have a baby boy."
As for why they named him Phoenix, Hilton explained,
"It's the bird that flames out and then rises from the ashes to fly again."
More scandal surrounded Paris Hilton in 2004 when her then-boyfriend, poker player Rick
Salomon, leaked their sex tape.
As she recalled to Glamour UK,
"I was vilified when it came out.
I was made to look like I was the bad one and no one was looking and seeing this grown
man."
In her memoir, Hilton makes it clear that she had nothing to do with the leak, and she
was absolutely gutted when it was made public.
As she writes,
"I think some people want to believe I was involved in the release of the tape — or
that I benefited in some way — because it's unpleasant for them to think about the cruelty
and complicity of their own response."
Hilton also revealed that she didn't want to make the video in the first place, but
she ultimately went along with it after Salomon claimed that he'd replace her with someone
else.
What's more, he allegedly claimed that it was his to release, regardless of the consequences.
But, as Hilton puts it,
"That tape, made when I was not legally old enough to be served rum and coke in a bar,
was released and monetized against my will."
In 2006, Pink released the single "Stupid Girls," and the music video parodied several
famous women, including Paris Hilton, taking particular aim at her sex tape.
Hilton does offer some praise for the pop star in her memoir, as she writes,
"Who's more generous, evolved, and progressive than Pink?"
However, Hilton also suggested that even the most enlightened person isn't necessarily
above taking shots at other women in the industry.
As she put it,
"The whole video is a not-at-all-subtle send-up of 'porno paparazzi girls' in general and,
specifically, me, in a parody of my infamous sex tape."
Understandably, Hilton was hurt by this portrayal, though she's also quick to deny any lingering
drama.
According to her,
"There's no Pink-Paris 'feud.'
That's not a thing.
I have the attention span of a gnat, which means I suck at holding grudges."
According to Pink, she and Hilton did eventually get a chance to talk about "Stupid Girls,"
though it doesn't sound like an apology happened.
During a 2017 episode of Watch What Happens Live, the singer revealed that Hilton confronted
her about the video at a club one night.
"She said, 'I just want you to know that I get it, like I'm not dumb, I just play like
I'm dumb.'
And I was like, 'That's kinda my point.'"
While you might assume that Paris Hilton fully embraces her sexuality, that hasn't always
been the case.
In fact, in some ways, her public image is completely at odds with who she is behind
the scenes.
As she writes in her memoir,
"The truth is, I wanted to be alive in a sensual way.
I wanted to feel like a woman who's comfortable in her own skin.
I was struggling to understand my sexuality; there's no way I could have explained it to
anyone else.
I had no language for it.
I'd never heard the word asexual."
As Hilton got older, she realized that there were many reasons that she wasn't interested
in sex.
As she puts it,
"The ironic thing is, because of the abuse and degradation I survived as a teen — and
maybe partly because of the way I was raised — I feared sex.
I hated the idea of sex.
I avoided sex until it was absolutely unavoidable."
Hilton also admitted that she's embarrassed about discussing sex, but she decided to share
her journey to help others that may be going through the same thing.
According to her,
"They're not weird or frigid or dead inside — they're just who they are at this moment:
an asexual person in a hypersexualized world."
Hilton also opens up about many embarrassing moments and regrets in her memoir, including
the time that she implied that she voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
While she already sort of walked this comment back in a 2017 interview with Easter Standard
Magazine, she clears the air in her memoir.
As she explains,
"When I was put on the spot in an interview, I pretended I voted for Donald Trump because
he was an old family friend and owned the first modeling agency I signed with."
According to Hilton, she was also fearful of Trump, as she explains,
"When I left to go to another agency, he was furious and intimidated the s--- out of me
on the phone."
But then Hilton really gets candid, as she admits,
"The truth is even worse: I didn't vote at all."
But if Hilton were given the same choice again, she would choose differently.
She makes it clear that she's spent a lot of time reflecting on her past actions, and
interrogating why she made certain choices.
But most of all, she wanted to erase any doubts when it came to Donald Trump once and for
all.
In recent years, Paris Hilton has become very involved in advocacy for children and young
adults affected by organizations calling themselves psychiatric residential treatment centers
for troubled youth.
In her memoir, she details some of the horrifying things that happened to her when her parents
enrolled her in the CEDU Educational Service.
As she reveals,
"I was sound asleep at about four thirty in the morning when my bedroom door crashed open,
and someone tore the covers off of me.
A thick hand grabbed my ankle and dragged me off the mattress."
Hilton found herself in a state of shock, terrified that she was about to be raped or
even killed by an intruder.
As she further recounts,
"One man clamped a sweaty palm over my mouth, wrenching my head back.
The other held up a pair of handcuffs."
Hilton called out to her parents in the hopes that they would help her, but they simply
watched as she was taken away.
As it turned out, they'd enrolled her in a special boarding school without her knowledge,
believing that the program would stop her from partying and going off the rails.
As traumatic as the entire boarding school experience was, Hilton doesn't resent her
parents for sending her away.
As she told NPR in 2023,
"I know that wasn't my family's fault.
They were lied to and manipulated.
My parents had no idea."
"Are you serious?
She's never told me that."
One of the best things about Paris Hilton's memoir is how she describes living with attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder.
While the condition isn't always depicted accurately or well understood, her candid
and honest descriptions of her own experiences are empowering.
As she writes in the book's opening,
"My ADHD makes me lose my phone, but it also makes me who I am, so if I'm going to love
my life, I have to love my ADHD first."
She echoed this sentiment in an interview with the Associated Press, as she explained,
"When people can harness it in the right way, it can actually be a superpower.
That's why I think in my career I've always been ahead of my time and taking risks and
being an innovator and someone who thinks outside the box."
Hilton also appreciates her husband for putting in the effort to understand her better.
As she puts it,
"Early in our relationship, [Carter] spent a lot of time and energy researching ADHD,
which is the most authentically loving thing any man has ever done for me."
She does sometimes experience disorganization and chaos with her ADHD, but, according to
her,
"Where most people see a dumpster fire, Carter sees Burning Man."
We're glad to see that Hilton has so much support in her life now and that she's finally
been able to reveal so much of her truth!
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available.
Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline
at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).