Paris: The Memoir(6)
Know your worth, girls. You’re not lucky to be at the party; the party is lucky to have you. Apply as needed to relationships, jobs, and family.
Like my wedding in 2021, my twenty-first-birthday celebration in 2002 spanned multiple days and time zones. I’d already been partying in clubs for years, but I was sick of bullshitting bouncers, passing off fake IDs—as if they didn’t know. It made pretenders of us all, and that seems like such a waste of energy. I was excited to be twenty-one and leave all that behind. This was my first time to go out all nice and legal, so I went big, planning parties all over the world and getting sponsors to pay for it all. My coming-of-age birthday bash was a dancing, drinking, hobnobbing multiverse that left people paralyzed with exhaustion.
Obviously, I coordinated an amazing wardrobe. This was a multiple-look event with a whole lineup of design-forward dresses, platform heels, accessories, and diamond tiaras. This was the genesis of my iconic silver chain-mail dress by Julien Macdonald—a dress Kendall Jenner cloned for her own twenty-first-birthday party in 2016. That’s how timeless this garment is. I wore mine again (hell yes, I kept it!) on my last night in Marbella, Spain, when I was DJing there in 2017.
Julien made me the chain-mail dress to wear at my London party at the end of London Fashion Week, where I walked in his show. I was the bride, and the bride’s dress was amazing, but the first time I laid eyes on that iconic chain-mail birthday dress, I was so blown away.
“This dress is everything,” I said. “This dress is going to end up in a museum someday.”
The weight and construction are exquisitely engineered, incorporating thousands of Swarovski crystals. It moves like a liquid Slinky. The neckline is cut clear down to Argentina, so double-sided tape is needed to prevent nip slip. That usually works pretty well until you work up a sweat on the dance floor, but dancing in that dress is better than a milk bath.
I fell on my face when I was running to hug somebody, so I thought I should get out of those six-inch heels. I think that’s when I changed into a floaty blue mermaid dress. Backless but well built. At GO Lounge in LA, I wore a sheer pink mini studded with a trillion hand-sewn diamante beads. But nothing made me feel the way I felt dancing my ass off that night in the Stork Lounge in London in that silver Julien Macdonald dress.
I want every girl to feel that way on her twenty-first birthday: free, happy, beautiful, and loved.
Invincible.
Heatherette made me a turquoise mermaid dress covered in Swarovski crystals to wear at Studio 54 in New York. Le Cirque put out this extreme gourmet buffet and made me a gorgeous twenty-one-tier birthday cake. After that, there was a party in Paris, France, because Paris, and then Tokyo, where I sponsored a massive party for thousands of fans, because I could never leave my Little Hiltons behind. Then I went back to LA and did a rolling bash that moved from LAX to my house on Kings Road with friends and family I’d known and loved all my life.
My house on Kings Road was piled high with presents. Friends and fans all over the world sent roses, rings, bracelets, stuffed animals. So many sweet, thoughtful gifts. I was so touched by the loving words written in cards, letters, and emails. I wrote thank-you notes until my arm was ready to fall off.
Curating a party crowd is a skill. Andy Warhol was the undisputed mastermind of party curation. Prince inherited the title from him and took it to the next level with the secret sauce—music. That’s what stays with me from all those parties. The music and the people. My sister and my cousins. Lots of childhood friends, like Nicole Richie. The hot matriarchs: Mom, Kris Jenner, Faye Resnick, Aunt Kyle, and Aunt Kim. Random legends like P. Diddy and the restaurateur Sirio Maccioni. All the family and friends who’ve been a constant in my life, but also a lot of cool people who came and went because some friendships just have their seasons, and that’s okay.
This fascinating assortment of people danced to my handpicked playlist. Every. Body. Danced. This was before my professional DJ days, but I always had an instinct for the ebb and flow. Club music of the early aughts was made for raging:
Chemical Brothers, “Star Guitar”
Depeche Mode, “Freelove”
DJ Disciple, “Caught Up” featuring Mia Cox
Funky Green Dogs, “You Got Me (Burnin’ Up)”
I also had to have my soul song: Ultra Naté, “Free.”
At the Bellagio in Las Vegas, DJ AM played, so I knew the music would be on point. I didn’t want that night to be over. For most of my adult life, if I slept without my dogs—and a lot of times even when I had them with me—nightmares chewed through my brain and tore up my stomach, so I was terrified to fall asleep. I put it off as long as I could, partying on—dancing, drinking champagne, dancing, dancing, drinking, laughing, dancing—until it was morning and my body was like, Bitch, stop. It is overrrrrrrrrr . . .
And the next thing I knew, my phone was vibrating in my armpit.
Someone was pounding on my hotel room door.
“Paris? Paris, wake up. We have to get to the airstrip.”
I opened my eyes. The room reeled like a disco ball.
“What? Why . . . are we . . . where are we going?”
And then I remembered that I had told everyone I was going skydiving.
No! Ugh.
This was going to suck, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself by backing out. I pulled on a tracksuit. Even after I chugged a bottle of water, my mouth felt like a sandbox. The water made me feel kind of ill, like I was about to throw up, but there was nothing else in my stomach. Maybe a little cake. I’d been so busy dancing, I never really made it over to the buffet. Usually champagne is good hangover insurance, but I also had some shots or martinis or whatever people drink at their twenty-first-birthday party. My right eyeball was in supernova. My hair follicles were screaming.