Paris: The Memoir(69)
JIMMY: Is the Paris Hilton roomy?
ME: It might be for you, but most people find it very comfortable.
JIMMY: I’m a VIP. I might need to go in the back entrance.
ME: It doesn’t matter who you are. Not gonna happen.
Like I said: comedy gold. And I made a lasting friend. Jimmy Fallon was so cool and so kind. This was another moment when I needed to be reminded that kindness exists, and he was there for it. When he calls me to come on his show, I’m there.
The second episode of The Simple Life surpassed the series debut with 13.3 million viewers. The show was a massive hit, sparked a whole new reality television marketplace, and stands as a comedy classic. I promise you, someone is streaming it right now, and I hope they laugh until their ribs ache.
I’m deeply grateful to the Leding family and incredibly proud of Nicole and me and the whole crew who worked so hard on that first, groundbreaking season. I know in my heart that the success we earned was despite the sex tape, not because of it, but some cynical people will always claim that we couldn’t have done it organically. I wish we’d had the chance to find out.
It makes me want to vomit when people suggest that I was in on the release of that footage on the internet or involved in the video that was released later and—in a stunning fit of bad taste—dedicated to the memory of victims of 9/11. (WTF!) The release of that private footage devastated me, personally and professionally. It followed me into every audition and business meeting for years. Even now, in a corporate world dominated by men, I look around a conference table knowing that most of the people sitting there have seen me naked in the most degrading way imaginable. No matter what I do—despite everything I’ve accomplished in the past two decades—90 percent of the articles written about me see fit to mention it. It wouldn’t matter if I solved climate change by inventing a Fanta-powered bullet train, the headline would be “Planet Saved by Paris Hilton, Who Did Sex Tape When She Was 19.”
The release of that video cost me an insane amount of money, and more important, it devastated my family. And it will never go away. It’s out there waiting for my children, who will be confronted with it someday. 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.
Please, hear me when I say I would never—NEVER—under any circumstances be involved in the production of an amateur teen porn video, and if I had been involved in this one:
The lighting would have been better.
I would have had proper hair, makeup, and wardrobe.
The camera angles and editing would have been more flattering.
I wouldn’t have packaged it like a sleazy low-budget piece of garbage.
I would not have had the poor taste to dedicate a porn flick to the victims of a terrorist attack. (Seriously. What the actual fuck does that even mean?)
Most important: If this was something I had chosen to do, I would have owned it. I would have stood tall in my Louboutins and said, “Yup, that was my choice, and anyone who wants to judge me can pound sand up their ass.” I would have stood by it, capitalized on it, licensed the shit out of every frame, and then boogied on over to the bank without apologizing to anyone.
I’m not judging any woman who does choose to do all that.
I’m saying that choice was taken from me, and it hurt me.
It makes me so angry to think about how many girls are exploited because of flabby, toothless laws pertaining to revenge porn and other unauthorized use of private images. If I were to take a photo of a teenage boy, slap it on an inflatable hemorrhoid ring, and sell it for fifty bucks, you know what that would be?
Illegal.
How is it that the law allows me to trademark and protect the word sliving but refuses to protect a woman’s right to control images of her own body?
Not long ago, I was in my hotel suite in Washington, DC, getting ready to do a press conference and meet with legislators about the federalization of laws guaranteeing oversight and regulation in the troubled-teen industry. I looked in the mirror, inspecting the sleek line of my black business suit, trying to decide if the modest scoop neck was better than an alternative look with a high neck and silk bow—not as comfortable, but it left no skin showing below my chin.
“Carter? Babe, what do you think?” I presented myself with the scoop neck and then held the second look in front of it. “This or this?”
He kissed me on the forehead because my lips were freshly glossed.
He said, “You look great, and we need to go.”
“I’ll take this with me.” I stuffed the high-neck blouse in my bag. “Just in case someone screams ‘whore.’?”
Because this is something I’ve had to think about every day since that sex tape was released. People screaming “whore” at me—that’s a thing. I have to anticipate and steel myself against it, and I resent every particle of energy this drains from my emotional life force. I can’t even let myself think about what my life could have been if I hadn’t participated in something I knew was a bad idea at a moment when I was so vulnerable, working so hard to put my life back together. It destroyed a huge sector of my business before I even had a chance to build it. No matter where I went or what I did after that, I carried a scar.
My family and friends celebrated the premiere of The Simple Life with a party at Bliss, a hip new restaurant on La Cienega. The paparazzi swarmed the street outside. When the limo pulled up, I sat in the back seat with my heart hammering, knowing what everyone was talking about, not knowing what to say.