Like Hillary Clinton, Paris loves her cell phones and keeps her files on a personal server, which Paris relies on while traveling every week for work. She often travels with her boyfriend, the Austrian businessman Thomas Gross, but when he's busy running his own empire, she brings along her best friend and personal photographer Jennifer Rovero, a.k.a., Camraface.Read More: In Rachel Dolezal's Skin
Today, Paris idolizes businessmen like her great-grandfather Conrad Hilton. To run her day-to-day operations, she employs a full-time office in Beverly Hills, but Donald J. Loftus, the president of Parlux, the company that releases Paris's fragrances, says Paris helps design her fragrances' bottles, choose the scents, and plan the marketing campaigns. "She is the hardest-working person," he says. Paris estimates that only Elizabeth Taylor has sold more celebrity-branded perfume than she has. (She will probably eventually break Taylor's record, since the actress is dead.)At a "blogger breakfast" to celebrate the launch of her 18th fragrance, Paris Hilton Limited Anniversary Edition for Women, I see Paris's hustle in full swing. She struts from table to table to give bloggers quotes. (Paris struts—she never walks.) Wearing a blue dress and white jacket with studs, she explains how her outfit matches her perfume's sparkly, silver bottle."I wanted to design something like me," Paris says. "If I was to be a perfume bottle, I would be that perfume bottle."At the start of breakfast, Loftus gives a speech about Paris's business accomplishments in the fragrance business and presents her with a framed photo of herself holding a bottle of perfume. Paris's voice climbs to her high-pitch baby voice: "I love it. I'll put it in my new [apartment]," she gushes. "I couldn't imagine as a little girl I'd be in fragrances!" Then she sits down with Loftus and her publicist for breakfast at a white table. Her voice drops to her natural pitch: "I was in Hong Kong [for a charity event]," she tells Loftus. Then she turns around, pulls out her iPhone, takes a selfie with Loftus and Miller, and then returns to talking in her deep voice.Read More: Ann Coulter Is a Human Being
Richard realized what Paris was doing and stopped buying her pets, so Paris saved her allowance and paid for her own animals. Her parents had purchased Charlie's Angels star Jacqueline Smith's former mansion in Bel Air, and Smith had left behind a dollhouse with running water and electricity. Paris, Nicky says, hoarded her chinchillas, rats, mice, hamsters, and—at one point—a goat in the dollhouse. "I don't think [our parents] found out [about the goat]," Nicky says. "[The dollhouse] was [so] far away from the main house that my parents never went down there." Today, Paris credits the dollhouse as the inspiration for the life-size dog house in her backyard in Beverly Hills.If you're in on the joke, you know what you're doing, you're aware of it, and you're doing it purposefully, I think it's actually smart.
And the fantasy enraptured the city. In 1999, the New York Post became obsessed with Paris and Nicky's late-night personas. In an article, the tabloid published an article about local young heiresses, anointing Paris as the most fascinating girl in town. "The most outrageous [New York City-based heiress] is hotel-darling Paris Hilton, 19, a part-time model with a tendency to flash her thong," Michelle Gotthelf wrote in the Post on October 15, 2000. "Hot on her Prada heels is sister Nicky, 16—a high schooler who looks 25—who's been seen at clubs drinking champagne and smoking cigarettes." Paris and Nicky posed for David LaChapelle in Vanity Fair, Nicky wearing a black-and-white dress and Paris in silver short-shorts and a silver jacket with no top or bra, in September 2001. The Post went from writing about Paris nine times in 1999 and 2000 to publishing 17 stories about her in 2001. In one article, Gotthelf quotes someone describing Paris as a vulgar stupid party girl:"It's disgraceful the way most of them act these days," says the source. "If they had any respect for their families they would keep their noses clean."But even three years before The Simple Life's premiere, Paris knew how to manipulate her femininity for business opportunities. By breaking the Upper East Side's dated Edith Wharton rules about heiresses' behavior, Paris became the protagonist of the local tabloids. Everyone was talking about her, so everyone wanted her at their parties. Party promoters even started asking the sisters if they could pay them to show up, making them among the first people to receive a paycheck for going out.Read More: A Critical Look Back at MTV's 'The Hills'
Justin Stoney, a leading acting vocal coach who operates New York Vocal Coaching, says previous American icons also manipulated their voices in public. The best example, he says, is Michael Jackson. "[He] used the Michael Jackson voice in public, when he was in front of the cameras," Stoney explains. "There are audio recordings of him in voice lessons [speaking in a deep voice], and he's like, 'Hello, I'm Michael Jackson.'"If Jackson's media tactics made him the king of the 80s, Paris's performance anointed her the queen of the Bush era. Thirteen million viewers watched the premiere episode of The Simple Life in December 2003. For context, only 4.8 million people watched the highest-rated episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. ("It's nice to inspire people," Paris told Yahoo Style when asked about the Kardashians.) In 2004, Paris became the most googled person of the year—a title only Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Jennifer Lawrence, and Kim Kardashian have also held. She started selling her perfume and recorded an album, Paris, with Scott Storch that spawned the cult classic "Stars Are Blind." While other heiresses her age looked for husbands or lived off family wealth, Paris focused on work.I wanted to design something like me. If I was to be a perfume bottle, I would be that perfume bottle.
"I had people calling me off the chain," Vorias says. "I still became a development person that all these people were coming to me with ideas. Before that happened, I'd have to go in search for stuff. It changed everything."After The Simple Life, cable channels began programming reality television shows. MTV's second golden age consisted of The Hills; Andy Cohen reinvented Bravo with a repertoire of Real Housewives, and TLC started teaching Americans about Dance Moms and Honey Boo Boo. Paris created what academic Daniel J. Boorstin called "an image." According to Boorstin, "pseudo-events," news stories made up of moments that aren't particularly newsworthy, are images that sum up a moment of time. He writes, "An image is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service." Paris turned every moment into an image. In one Hollywood TV paparazzi video in 2008, for instance, she walks down Robertson Boulevard with a maltese in one hand and a shopping bag in another. A paparazzo asks her multiple questions, but she ignores him until he poses one that would be on-brand to answer.I don't think I would feel as happy if I was just accepting things from my family. You don't feel like you've worked for it, and it just doesn't feel as good.
"I feel that I have been so blessed in life that it is my duty to give back," Paris says. "I love being a philanthropist and shining light on causes I believe in. It is such a wonderful feeling to help others. There is nothing more rewarding than giving back and making a difference in the world to those in need."Paris entered a celebrity world before Jezebel and Tumblr's reign, a time during which the media could attack female celebrities' sexuality without getting labeled sexist, prudish, or "slut-shamey." But instead of apologizing, Paris continued behaving as she wanted.I don't really look up to socialites now.