Paris: The Memoir(80)

The warden felt it would be too disruptive and dangerous to put me in general population, so he put me in solitary. My cell had a narrow cot, a toilet with a tiny sink above it, and a wall-mounted desk with a little round stool built in. I was alone there twenty-three hours every day. For one hour, I was taken to the shower and allowed to use the pay phone. I could speak to my parents through a Plexiglas window once a week.

Media outlets offered up to a million dollars for photos of me in the orange jumpsuit. All the talk shows wanted to get me on the phone. A male guard kept coming into my cell, rubbing my head, and offering to bring me a Sprite. I woke up in the middle of the night to find him standing over me with a camera. I pulled my blanket over my head and screamed bloody murder until another guard dragged him out and took me to the warden, who was annoyed to see me but was actually on my side.

“This is ridiculous. We don’t have beds for the people who pose a genuine threat to society. This is a joke. What a waste of resources,” and on and on like that as he paced back and forth in his office.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Somewhere down the hall, a TV was blasting CNN. Heiress Paris Hilton blah blah blah. My lawyer promised to keep fighting it, but a weird, exhausted calm settled on me. I told him, “No. Just leave me alone.” I huddled on the small cot, hugging my knees to my chest, and made myself go to that place I used to go to during those long hours in Obs.

My beautiful world.

I was not surprised to check in and find that, overwhelmingly, the life I was living was very much the life I had visualized. What didn’t make sense to me was how I could be having so much fun and feel so little satisfaction. I had everything I wanted. But it wasn’t enough. Maybe there was no such thing as enough, and my only salvation was to just keep grinding. Do more projects. Date more guys. Partner with this person or that manufacturer. More fragrances, properties, movies, music. More parties. More people. More money, more money, more money.

I read The Secret, a book that had always given me faith in myself and the world. A compassionate guard played the audiobook on the speaker system so everyone could hear Rhonda Byrne’s reassuring words. Energy . . . trust . . . love . . . abundance . . . education . . . peace. I believed in these things. I wanted to receive and give them. I thought a lot about how much I had changed—and had not changed—over the past ten years. For a minute it seemed like I had my arms around it all, but now it was impossible to know what my world would be like after I was released, impossible to say how this would impact my brand—the brand I’d built and should have been protecting. It was all I had. In many ways, the brand was me; if I failed to protect it, I was failing to protect myself, and then what would I do?

It was about how I wanted to feel. Not what I wanted to get.

I would not forget that again. I would not be vulnerable.

The character I played—part Lucy, part Marilyn—was my steel-plated armor. As a teenager, I created her: the dumb blonde with a sweet but sassy edge. I used her to get into clubs, portrayed her on TV and in movies, and let her out to play with the paparazzi. People loved her. Or they loved to hate her, which was just as marketable. I leaned into that character, my ticket to financial freedom and a safe place to hide. I made sure I never had a quiet moment to figure out who I was without her. I was afraid of that moment because I didn’t know what I’d find.

The answer came the week before I was released. They opened my cell door and brought in several plastic bins full of letters from Little Hiltons all over the world. I’m with you. Stay strong. You inspire me. You can do this. Among these thousands of letters, there was not one that expressed anger or judgment—it was all love. It was all kindness. I spent the last several days of my sentence writing back, answering as many letters as I could. Little Hiltons, I don’t have words to tell you all what you mean to me. You’ve given me life a million times over. I’m so grateful and so proud of the beautiful people you are inside and out.

I also started writing a song that pretty much sums up the whole experience:

CNN and MTV, all cameras focused on me

Helicopters up above, oh what a travesty

There’s a crazy world at war

Right outside of my front door

They’re wasting time on me

I’m just a jailhouse baby

Oh, I’m singing so sweetly

Oh, jailhouse baby

Oh, no window to the world

I’m a little, I’m a little jailbird

Cold nights and freezing water, fluorescents always on

Stuck here behind this glass, my parents see their daughter

Judge, you’re no celebrity

You’re a desperate wannabe

Seems like you’d rather leave

Real criminals on the streets

All those lonely nights of terror

I thank you for your letters

Words from around the world

For the lonely little jailbird

In the state of California, you get one day off your sentence for each day of “good time” served, so I was there for twenty-three days. The evening I was released from jail, helicopters filled the air while paparazzi and mainstream media pressed against the chain-link fences that created a long alley I had to walk down to get to the car where Mom and Dad were waiting for me. The air was full of flashing lights, chopper blades, and shouted questions.

The press line was bigger than any red carpet or film festival I’d ever seen. I was wearing jeans, a stubby ponytail, and no makeup, but I walked out of there like a fucking supermodel. I just walked—and then ran, unicorn trotting in my Louboutins—into my mother’s arms. In all that madness, I felt a calm core of pure happiness. I had stepped out of hell for a second time.