LOS ANGELES – You’ve seen her on the red carpet, famously walking out of jail, and working on a farm in “The Simple Life”.
But now Paris Hilton says she is showing a side of herself on television that fans have never seen before — the down to earth, funny, relatable girl who nevertheless has a multimillion business based on being famous for being famous.
“On ‘The Simple Life’, I was playing a character. Now people will get to see my real world, my friends, my house, my business,” Hilton said on Friday.
“I would never have done a show like this five, ten years ago. I wasn’t really comfortable with myself. I have been through so much. I have nothing to hide. It’s like, what else can happen?. I was ready to show myself,” she told TV journalists.
“The World According to Paris” debuts on the U.S. cable channel Oxygen in June, and follows Hilton, her mother Kathy Hilton, and friends including Brooke Mueller, the third ex-wife of actor Charlie Sheen.
Hilton, 30, the great-granddaughter of Hilton hotels founder Conrad Hilton, has rarely been out of the headlines in the last 10 years.
She got her hands dirty with friend Nicole Richie in “The Simple Life” from 2003-2007, and searched for a best friend in a 2008 reality TV series. In 2007, she famously spent three weeks in a Los Angeles jail for violating her probation on a reckless driving conviction, and last year she was convicted of cocaine possession in Las Vegas.
In between, she launched international lines of fashion, hair, fragrance and shoes that she either helps design or endorses.
Executive producer Arthur Smith said the new TV show was “an all access look at Paris.”
“There has been so much written about Paris over the years. This was a great opportunity to get to know the real Paris,” he said.
Smith said his view of Hilton had completely changed from his preconceptions before starting work on the series.
“She really is so down to earth. She goes through things that every woman goes through — so many relatable thing. She is also really funny and likes to have a good time,” Smith said.
