Paris: The Memoir
Paris Hilton
Dedication
For the family I was born into,
the family I made,
and the family I found along the way.
I love you all.
Prologue
Dr. Edward Hallowell, author of Driven to Distraction, says the ADHD brain is like a Ferrari with bicycle brakes: powerful but difficult to control. 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.
And I do love my life.
It’s June 2022, and I’m having one of my best weeks ever. My friend Christina Aguilera, my neighbor, invited me to be one of her top-secret special guests at LA Pride, and as my crew moved my DJ equipment out the door, I was so nervous and excited I left the house without my shoes and showed up at a backstage trailer in a tank shirt, velour track pants, and socks, which was even more embarrassing when I accidentally went into the wrong dressing room. Some backup dancers were in there getting dressed and screamed for joy when they saw me.
So, selfies. Obviously.
I always try to do it myself—like hold the person’s camera so it’s angled down, which is important if you’re tall, because it’s so unflattering when the angle is up your nostrils or the person’s hands are shaking because they’re maybe nervous and a bit shy, which I totally relate to, so I did that with “Loves it! Loves it! Sliving!” and all the things, and then off I went in my socks, doing this thing my husband, Carter, calls the “unicorn trot”: not fully running, more graceful than galloping, and less like skipping than dancing. I have a hard time going slow.
So then I’m there at Pride with Christina and about thirty thousand other people, all decked out in rainbows and sparkles, dancing, laughing, hugging, having the best time during my set, which came right after Kim Petras, who sang at our wedding last year—this beautiful ballad version of “Stars Are Blind” and then “Can’t Help Falling in Love” as Carter and I walked down the aisle—which is why that song brought tears to my eyes last week at Britney Spears’s wedding when our gorgeous angel princess bride emerged, after all those nightmare years, and floated down the aisle in Versace (because Versace, please) with that iconic Elvis Presley song, which has been sung at millions of weddings in Vegas, where my grandfather, Barron Hilton, started the whole Vegas residency trend by having Elvis at the Las Vegas Hilton International back in 1969, paving the way for Britney and so many other groundbreaking performers to flourish in that format, a perfect example of how one person’s creative vision sparks a cascade of genius that goes on and on into the future.
Another perfect example: my great-grandfather, Conrad Hilton.
Wait. Where was I?
Pride!
This crowd. Oh, my god. Energy. Love. Light. Unbreakable spirit.
I’m behind the board. It’s like piloting a spaceship full of the coolest people in the galaxy. My set is structured around iconic music like “Toxic” alongside a sick BeatBreaker remix of “Genie in a Bottle” by Xtina, Queen of the Night, plus a lot of other dope originals and remixes, which I should put up on the podcast or YouTube, because this set is so much fun. (Note to self: Make playlist for this book.) I was so hyper-focused on my set (note to self: add Ultra Naté to playlist), it didn’t even hit me until I was halfway through that I had left my phone on the counter in that trailer where I took the selfies with the half-dressed backup dancers.
Fuck.
I’m trying not to say fuck all the time. I don’t want to wear it out, because it’s such a good word for so many occasions. Noun. Verb. Job description. Fill in the blank. Fuck saves the day. So fuuuuuuuuuuck! Because I feel naked without my phone, and I’m super paranoid about someone getting hold of it and blasting the contents all over the internet, which has happened more than once, so thank God for Cade—best friend, guardian angel—who went and located the stray phone after I killed my set, and then we all went to the after-party Christina and I hosted at the Soho House downtown.
Now I’m home with my loves: Diamond Baby, Slivington, Crypto, Ether, and Harajuku Bitch, the OG chihuahua.
Shout out to Harajuku Bitch!
She’s twenty-two years old. Multiply that by seven dog years; she’s literally 154! She sleeps twenty-three hours a day and looks like Gizmo from Gremlins, but she’s still here living her best life. I know one night I’ll come home to find she’s fallen asleep forever. I’m so scared of that night, and I hate that random intrusive thought. Intrusive thoughts are my nemesis, cutting through my joy even when I’ve been part of an epic event with people who lift me higher than high and my husband is up in bed waiting patiently for me to take my bath and do my skin-care routine, which he knows I never shortcut.
From the time my sister and I were little girls, our mom instilled in us the value of skin care; I always feel her with me in the soothing ritual. Skin care, if you’re doing it right, means claiming a moment of tenderness in an abrasive world. You remove the mask—your brave face, your funny face, your enforcer face, your hard candy coating—and see yourself, cleansed and replenished, and it’s like, “Okay. I’m good.” You feel everything so keenly when you’ve just washed your face. Like a newborn feels that first sting of fresh air.
Kim Kardashian and I were making frittata and French toast coated with Frosted Flakes for breakfast one morning, and she said, “I don’t know anyone who parties as hard as you do and looks as good as you do.”