Paris Hilton

Paris Whitney Hilton (born February 17, 1981) is an American media personality, businesswoman, and socialite.

Born in New York City, and raised there and in Los Angeles, she is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, the founder of Hilton Hotels.

Hilton was born on February 17, 1981, in New York City, to Richard Hilton, a businessman, and Kathy Hilton, a socialite and former child actress.

The oldest of four children, she has one sister, Nicky Hilton (born 1983), and two brothers, Barron Hilton II (born 1989) and Conrad Hughes Hilton (born 1994).

On her father's side, she is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, who founded Hilton Hotels, and granddaughter of Barron Hilton.

Her maternal aunts are television personalities Kim and Kyle Richards.

Hilton has Norwegian, German, Italian, English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.

The family followed the Catholic faith.

Hilton moved frequently in her youth, living in Beverly Hills, the Hamptons, and a suite in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.

Her relatives have described her as "very much a tomboy" who dreamed about becoming a veterinarian.

Her mother recalled her saving money to buy monkeys, snakes, and goats, and once leaving "the snake out the cage [...] at the Waldorf".

Hilton was raised in a very "sheltered, conservative" atmosphere; her parents were particularly strict and she was not allowed to date, wear make-up or certain types of clothes, or go to school dances.

Her mother enrolled her in etiquette classes with the idea of introducing her as a debutante, which Hilton was at first reluctant to do, as she did not find it to be "real" or "natural".

She described it as "very proper, very prim, almost like a Stepford wife".

The family's social circle included figures such as Lionel Richie, Donald Trump, and Michael Jackson.

Hilton first attracted tabloid attention in the late 1990s, when she became a fixture in NYC's social scene, and ventured into modeling at age 19, signing with Donald Trump's agency Trump Model Management.

Growing up in Los Angeles, Hilton attended the Buckley School and St. Paul the Apostle School, finishing elementary school in 1995.

Her freshman year of high school (1995–96) was spent at the Marywood-Palm Valley School in Rancho Mirage, California.

In 1996, Hilton and her family left California for the East Coast.

At 15, she attended Professional Children's School.

She skated and played ice hockey while in high school.

In New York City, Hilton had a rebellious youth, regularly skipping classes and sneaking out to parties.

On this period, Kathy remarked: "Let's put it this way —it got very out of control and I was scared for her. And my husband was very scared for her. And, you know, those nightclubs go on all night."

Her parents eventually sent her, then 16, to a series of boarding schools for emotionally troubled teens, including Provo Canyon School, where she says that she was mentally and physically abused by the staff.

In her documentary This Is Paris, Hilton and other former students from Provo Canyon School recall the abuses they faced, including solitary confinement, forced medication, restraint, battery and strangulation.

She attended Provo for 11 months and was released in early 1999, around the time she turned 18.

She then attended the Dwight School before dropping out a few months later.

"She knew no one at [Dwight]", said her mother in an interview, while a classmate described her as "sort of more sophisticated. She was different from everybody else".

She later earned a GED certification.

After David LaChapelle photographed her and sister Nicky for the September 2000 issue of Vanity Fair, Hilton was proclaimed "New York's leading It Girl" in 2001.

A polarizing and ubiquitous public figure, Hilton is said to have influenced the revival of the "famous for being famous" phenomenon throughout the 2000s.

Critics indeed suggest that she exemplifies the celebutante —a household name not through talent or work, but through inherited wealth and lavish lifestyle.

The reality television series The Simple Life (2003–2007), in which she co-starred with her friend Nicole Richie, and a leaked 2003 sex tape with her then-boyfriend Rick Salomon, later released as 1 Night in Paris (2004), catapulted her to global fame.

Hilton published her debut book, Confessions of an Heiress (2004), which became a New York Times Best Seller, landed her first major film role in the horror remake House of Wax (2005), and released her eponymous debut studio album, Paris (2006), which reached number six on the Billboard 200 and respectively produced the successful single "Stars Are Blind".

Forbes included her in its Celebrity 100 in 2004, 2005, and 2006, and ranked her as the most "overexposed" celebrity in 2006 and 2008.

Hilton has parlayed her media fame into numerous business endeavours.

Under her company, she has produced content for broadcast media, launched a variety of product lines, and opened a chain of self-branded boutiques worldwide, as well as an urban beach club in the Philippines.

Her perfume line alone has brought in over US$2.5 billion in revenue,.

Her media ventures have included the reality television series Paris Hilton's My New BFF (2008–2009), The World According to Paris (2011), Hollywood Love Story (2018), Cooking with Paris (2021), and Paris in Love (2021–present); the documentaries Paris, Not France (2008), The American Meme (2018), and This Is Paris (2020); the books Your Heiress Diary (2005) and Paris: The Memoir (2023); as well as the podcast, I am Paris (2021–present).

She has also recorded a line of standalone singles and performed as a disc jockey.