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“We laugh about it,” she tells me. “All
the costumes last Halloween were people
dressing up as us, so we were sending each
other photos of different outfits people
were wearing. The show is streaming in all
these different places right now so everyone
is rewatching it, which is awesome.” Rumours
may be rife of a reboot, but there’s no money
in the world that would persuade Hilton to
get back into a pair of dirty overalls. “My
schedule is just so insane,” she reasons. “I can’t
imagine leaving my life and going to the
middle of nowhere and doing that again. Plus
the show is so timeless and iconic, you can’t
remake that.” But isn’t there a plan to redo it
with new people, I probe. “They asked me
who I would recommend if I didn’t want to
do it myself.” Who did she suggest? “I can’t
tell! I’ve signed a confidentiality agreement.”
So they are bringing it back? “I don’t know.
I don’t think it’ll ever be what it was, but it
will be fun to watch other people do it.”
Hilton’s love life has been a source of
speculation and fascination since a sex tape in
which she appears with her ex-boyfriend Rick
Salomon was leaked in 2003 and later released
as a DVD. Having weathered the storm of one
of the earliest viral sex tapes, does Hilton have
any advice, in our age of nude-photo scandals
and social-media leaks, for protecting privacy?
“I would say that none of these things are 100% secure
so I wouldn’t have anything on there that’s private and
that you wouldn’t want the world to see.”
Trust is, unsurprisingly, a big issue for Hilton. She’s had
“a little bit” of therapy in the past, but implies she’s not
able to properly take it up because “I don’t really
trust anyone”. She’s been single for over a year
now since ending her engagement to actor/
model Chris Zylka and says this is the first
time in her life she’s enjoyed being on her
own. “It feels good to not have someone
controlling me,” she explains. “With
dating certain people, [there’s the risk of]
not trusting them and the fear [that] if I
go out of town they might do something
to embarrass me. I feel lucky now to not
have that fear because I’m independent.”
Was it a difficult decision to end the
engagement? “No. It was the best decision I’ve ever made
in my life. I just don’t think [he] was the right person and
I feel like I’m an incredible woman and I deserve someone
so amazing. It just didn’t feel right. I’ve worked way too hard
to just give my life to someone. They have to be perfect.”Whether it’s because of her protective family or her
privileged life, there is something inherently youthful and
curiously childlike about Paris Hilton. A real-life Peter Pan
(but make it fashion); as if the rest of the world has grown up
and moved on, but Hilton is still that 21-year-old in the
chain-mail dress, frozen in time. I ask her if she
feels old or young: “21 forever,” she murmurs.
“And I’m all natural. I feel so lucky that my
mum always told me to stay out of the
sun. I feel lucky I haven’t had to resort
to what most people do in this town.”
Does she worry about getting older?
“I don’t think about it.” In 2018 Netflix
documentary The American Meme, which
followed four reality stars including Hilton,
she said her biggest fear was dying. “Death
scares me because I don’t know what happens. I
just don’t want it to be nothing because that would
be so boring,” she says. “I’m trying to figure out a way –
freezing myself or inventing the fountain-of-youth pill – so
people could live forever, like that movie Death Becomes Her.”
She regularly visits “world-renowned psychics”. Has she
ever been freaked out by what they’ve told her? “No, they STYLING DANIELA GUTIÉRREZ. STYLING, PINK DRESS, AMY BANNERMAN. MAKE-UP STEVEN TABIMBA. HAIR EDUARDO PONCE. NAILS QUISA FISA. PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANTS RYAN HACKETT/TUTU LEE. STYLING ASSISTANT ANGELA FUERTES. PRODUCTION MADRID: ASHA MARTINEZ.N