Paris Hilton - Paris: The Memoir

The opinions Ive expressed in this book do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hilton family, 11:11 Media, or any organization with whom I do business. This is my story, to the best of my imperfect memory. If others remember things differently, I respect their right to tell their own stories from their perspective. Ive tried to process it all with love and compassion, and I hope others do the same.

So many THANK YOUs need to be said! Theres not enough room in this book or a whole library to say how grateful I am for the support, good humor, and love of my family and friends. Mom and Dad: You gave me the world and taught me how to live in it. I am forever your girl. Nicky: You can always read my mind, so you know how important you are to me. You are my best friend, and I cant imagine my life without you. Conrad, Tessa, and Barron: You make me happy just by being yourselves. To my cousins Brooke, Whitney, and Farrah: So many fun memories around the world together. To all my other cousins, aunts, and uncles: You rock. My found familyNicole, Jen, Allison, Holly, Cade, Brit, Kimand too many others to mention: Youve been there for me with laughter, love, common sense, and insane amounts of fun when I needed it most. Little Hiltons: I hope you see yourselves in all the happiest parts of my story. I want every single one of you to feel my love and gratitude.

My life was forever changed by the documentary team who refused to settle for less than my real story. Huge gratitude to Alexandra Dean, Aaron Saidman, and all the talented people who worked on This Is Paris . My advocacy and legislative work wouldnt be possible without my impact director, Rebecca Mellinger, and supporting staff. With you on my side, I know we can change the world. Bruce Gersh, the president of my media company, does the impossible every day and keeps this whole crazy carousel spinning, assisted by everyone on my incredible team at 11:11 Media. Special thanks and love to everyone who works with me on my fragrances, product lines, podcasts, social media, metaverseall of ityou make it work. And you make it fun.

My dream book team traveled with me through the looking glass and back. Albert Lee, my literary agent at UTA, found us the perfect publishing home. Editor Carrie Thornton and her staff at Dey Street moved mountains and created a gorgeous design. Joni Rodgers helped me find my voice and held my hand through the chaos, supported by her agent, Cindi Davis-Andress, and researcher, Patty Lewis Lott. None of that would matter without the people who read this book, so thank you for your time and thoughtful energy. I look forward to hearing from you on social media and seeing you out in the world. A huge thank-you to all my little Hiltons around the world.

To Carter: Conrad Hilton said good luck means being with the right people in the right place at the right time. Babe, you are my person, place, and time. Our family and our futurethats my everything. Thank you for making me feel like Im a princess living a fairy tale every single day. You are my world, and just like I said at our wedding, Im going to make you feel like the luckiest guy in the world for the rest of your life. Love you.

Paris Hilton

Spring 2023

I wrote this book in an effort to understand my place in a watershed moment: the technology renaissance, the age of influencers. There wasnt room in this book for all the stories I wanted to tell, so I focused on key aspects of my life that led to my advocacy work: how my power was taken away from me and how I took it back.

I set out to create the truest possible representation of the life Ive lived and the motivating factors that steered my course. The best and hardest thing for any of us to do is be honest, and Ive tried to do that here. I hope youll accept me as I am, but if you cant, I understand. Ultimately, I hope my story made you laugh and think and prompted you to love yourself a little more than you did at the start.

In telling my story, Ive tried to be careful not to tell my version of the stories that dont belong to me. Not everyone whos important to me shows up as a character in this book. In addition to being Conrad Hiltons great-grandsons, Conrad and Barron grew up being Paris Hiltons brothers, but they both have their own stories. Fame is famous for inflicting collateral damage, and my little brothers were in that blast radius from the time they were small children.

Nicky has lived an extraordinary life in which Im just a supporting player. I hope she and Mom will write their own memoirs someday, because intelligent, funny, hardworking, compassionate women rock this world, and sometimes their true stories get lost in the fog of toxic Real Housewives melodrama. My dad isnt the memoir type, but he could totally do a Be My Guest type business book.

Conrad Hilton ended Be My Guest with a bulleted list of long-winded advice for entrepreneurs. Maybe someday Ill write another book on that subject, but for now, Ill just say:

• Follow your curiosity. Its calling you toward your true purpose.
• Dont waste energy living a life someone else designed for you. Life is one per customer. Let them do theirs. You do yours.
• Accept the necessity of endless reinvention. Staying the same is (a) boring and (b) impossible.
• Theres no substitute for hard work. Keep killing it and something will happen. Probably not what you expected, but something.
• Know the star you are. And see yourself as part of a galaxy.
• Celebrate the positives, recognize value in the negatives, and be grateful for both because it all makes you who you are.

Youre a woman who lived eight lives at once, Elliot said recently. You breathed Marilyn Monroe oxygen.

I was born to great privilege, and Im living an extraordinary life. The sheer quantity of media surrounding my life story is staggering. I had to hire someone to help me make sense of it all. Sifting through thousands of pages for more than a year, we barely made a dent. I had to let all that go. This book is my way of walking through that looking glass.

With each passing year, it matters less and less to me how other people love, hate, adore, or dismiss me. Weirdly, that makes me feel closer to understanding people in general. Im not trying to say Im just like you. Im trying to say I see you, and I think its possible that we know each other better than one might think. I have secrets like every other woman in the world. Like every other woman in the world, Ive had terrible things happen to me, and Ive come out on the other side.

I know were supposed to spin terrible things to make it sound like they were actually good, but thats bullshit. That heart attack did not save your life. Cancer is not a gift. Your abuser did not give you strength. Terrible things are terrible. Lets just acknowledge it. If you found strength, wisdom, or a new way of thinking, thats awesome, but notice that the strength, wisdom, and new worldview came out of you, which means it was all there inside you to begin with.

Advocacy saved my life. Carter is a gift. Good things are good, and Im grateful. Terrible things can go fuck themselves, but I like to think that everything happens for a reason.

Every life story is a web of cause and effect. I was born at precisely the right time to exactly the right people. This cosmic alchemy made me who I am and placed me in a position where I could help someone in desperate need. And in the Spirograph of it all, advocacy work blessed me with the silver bullet that transforms my ADHD from disability to superpower: purpose .

For years I told myself I was incapable of focusing on anything; now I know that I can be a laser beam when I focus on something that truly matters.

When Mom and I went to Washington, DC, in 2022, Rebecca set up a replica of the Obs isolation cell so people could go inside and get an idea what it was like. Me going in there was an obvious photo op.