Paris: The Memoir(76)
In 2006, Facebook opened up to the general public. (Thanks again to my first manager for screwing me over on that.) Twitter did a soft launch in 2006 and then went huge at SXSW the following year. Twitter was an ADHD wet dream—a steady stream of new ideas, images, directions, and possibilities.
At twenty-five, I was just having fun, shouting out little things that made me happy. But there was no denying the commercial power—the direct, bankable influence—of that happy little shout-out. If I tweeted about a bag or a shoe or a shirt I loved with a link to the designer or store, there was an instant surge of sales. It wasn’t an advertisement—and most of the time I didn’t get paid for it. I wasn’t thinking about how I might control and monetize it, and I think that’s why it worked. It had to be organic. The smartest thing I did was keep living my life, figuring it out as I went along.
Meanwhile, designers and marketing trend spotters noticed what I was doing and started sending me all kinds of gifts—clothes, accessories, sunglasses, dog toys, the newest gadgets, and even cars—hoping I’d post about them. Every day UPS pulled up and unloaded a ton of boxes. Every closet and spare room was overflowing. Faye Resnick was helping me renovate my house and suggested I ask Kim Kardashian to help me organize it all.
Kim had started a business where she went into the closets of famous people, took whatever they didn’t love, and sold it on eBay. It was genius and generated tens of thousands of dollars for charity and fun money. She did an incredible job, and we had so much fun working together.
We balanced each other. I was a disorganized night owl; Kim was an efficient early riser. It felt good to have someone I knew I could trust and depend on. We went everywhere together—New York, Las Vegas, Miami, Australia, Germany, and Ibiza.
The song of the summer—at least my summer—was “Stars Are Blind.” For me, it will always be the quintessential beach blanket song: a little vacation-destination reggae, a little boardwalk ska, all love and sunshine. Sheppard Solomon and Jimmy Iovine were working on an idea with Gwen Stefani in mind, but when Warner Bros. told them I’d been signed to do an album, Shep said, “I have something that might be perfect.” Shep fleshed out the song, tailoring it to my voice and style, and I loved it. The song was produced by Shep and Fernando Garibay, who knows his beats. I trusted their instincts, and they trusted mine. That song felt right in every part of me.
It made me happy.
You can hear it in the music.
There’s no tricks, no extra tech. That’s me being the most me I’d ever been up to that point in my life. I stood in the booth, relaxed and joyful, and for a little while, all the sadness of my teen years fell away. The character I played on The Simple Life—a character who was taking over more and more of my life in the real world—is nowhere to be found in this song. Every line was produced with care and precision. Every time we punched in a moment, a breath, a word—every little nuance—it got better and better. I couldn’t wait for the world to hear it.
“Stars Are Blind” dropped June 5, 2006, reached number 18 on Billboard’s Hot 100, and then took on a life of its own. To this day people tell me how it defined that specific summer for them, along with the movies Nacho Libre, Talladega Nights, and The Devil Wears Prada. A few years ago, Charli XCX tweeted, “Stars Are Blind is a pop classic” and cited it as a major influence. In a red-carpet interview, Lady Gaga said, “?‘Stars Are Blind’ is one of the greatest pop records ever. You laugh, but it would be interesting to get such an iconic blond woman in the studio with me.”
I’m so proud of that song! I just want it to live forever. I recently remastered it, inspired by Taylor Swift taking control of her backlist.
In 2019, I got a letter from writer-director Emerald Fennell, asking for permission to use “Stars Are Blind,” which she’d written into a pivotal scene in Promising Young Woman. The movie sounded funny but dark, and she had a genius idea for this song that was her “ultimate bop.” She said, “I need a song that, if a boy you liked knew every word to it, you’d be incredibly impressed.” If you’ve seen the movie, you know what she means. (If you haven’t seen the movie, go now and watch it!) The scene takes place in a drugstore. Cassie (Carey Mulligan) dances with Ryan (Bo Burnham), an old acquaintance, and their passing friendship evolves before our very eyes. They fall in love in the sweet, happy space of this song. Promising Young Woman is a rape revenge story full of latent female rage, but that moment lets in the light and air that has to be there for us to know that Cassie’s baseline innocence is still alive in her.
Promising Young Woman was released for streaming on Christmas Day, 2020. The world was deep in quarantine mode, so it never got the full theatrical premiere it deserved. It got Oscar noms for days—Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Editing, Best Original Screenplay, and the screenplay won—but I would have loved showing up in full splendor for that premiere.
Instead, Carter and I watched it in bed. We were on a yacht somewhere on a Christmas vacation. In the sweet, happy space of that song, I let myself feel my own baseline innocence—a baseline joy—that no one could ever take from me. I loved this good, good man. And he loved me. I had it in me to love and be loved. What a relief it was to know that about myself after years of reasonable doubt.
In 2007, Tumblr launched, and Apple unveiled the iPhone. I felt something momentous beginning, but at the same time, an era was ending for me. The Simple Life was in its final season—the one where Nicole and I were camp counselors—and it seemed like there was a shift in the party vibe. The wide-open windows of social media made it easy to go viral one day and get swallowed whole the next. People popped up and disappeared so quickly, you never had a chance to know who they really were. My peers and I went hard, and not everyone lived to look back on it. I saw so many people pass through the meat grinder of fast fame.