Paris Whitney Hilton is an American heiress and media personality who was born in New York City, New York, to Kathy, a socialite and actress, and Richard Hilton, a businessman. She was raised Roman Catholic. She is the oldest of four children. Paris is of Norwegian, German, English, Irish, and Italian ancestry.She is a niece of two child stars of the 1970s, Kim and Kyle Richards. Paris moved between numerous exclusive homes in her youth, including a suite in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, Beverly Hills, and the Hamptons. As a child she was good friends with other socialites, including Nicole Richie and Kim Kardashian.
Paris attended her freshman year of high school at the Marywood-Palm Valley School in Rancho Mirage, California from 1995-1996. Then in 1996, when Paris was 14, her family moved to the East Coast. In New York, she briefly attended Convent of the Sacred Heart (while Lady Gaga was a student there) in 1996 before transferring again to the Dwight School. Paris then spent one year (likely beginning in the fall of 1997, when she was 16), at least part of which was in the spring of 1998, when she was 17, at the Provo Canyon School, a school for emotionally troubled teens. She then attended the Canterbury Boarding School, in New Milford, Connecticut from the fall of 1998 to February 1999 for her junior year, where she was a member of the ice hockey team. In February 1999, the month she turned 18, she was expelled from Canterbury for violating school rules, as she frequently had limos retrieve her from the school to take her to events in New York and New Jersey. After being expelled from Canterbury, she returned to the Dwight School before dropping out a few months later as a high school junior. She later earned her GED.
Paris began modeling as a child, initially at charity events. When she was 19, she signed with Donald Trump's modeling agency, T Management. She has also worked with Ford Models in New York, Models 1 Agency in London, Nous Model Management in Los Angeles, and Premier Model Management in London. She has appeared in numerous advertising campaigns, including Iceberg Vodka, GUESS, Tommy Hilfiger, Christian Dior, and Marciano. In 2001, she began to develop a reputation as a socialite, being identified as "New York's leading It Girl" whose fame was beginning to "extend beyond the New York tabloids".[18] She has appeared in several magazines, including the April 2004 issue of Maxim. She also made an uncredited appearance in the Brüno segment in the "Law and Order" episode of the HBO series of Da Ali G Show.
Paris has made cameo appearances in several films and co-starred in the Fox reality series The Simple Life, which premiered on December 2, 2003. The Simple Life ran for three seasons on Fox. The show was cancelled by Fox after a dispute between Hilton and Richie, but it was subsequently aired by E! Entertainment Television for the fourth and fifth seasons.
In recent years Paris is perhaps most known for starring in a number of her own produced reality shows such as Paris Hilton's My New BFF which was filmed in Los Angeles and aired in 2008 and which also resulted in a second season. The show proved to be a success and was branched out to Paris Hilton's British Best Friend filmed in London, UK and Paris Hilton’s Dubai BFF filmed in Dubai in the UAE. All seasons were broadcasted on MTV. In 2011, Oxygen Channel gave the go-ahead to air Hilton's reality series The World According to Paris following Hilton's everyday life.
Paris founded Heiress Records, a sub-label of Warner Bros. Records, in 2004 and released her self-titled debut album, Paris, under that label on August 22, 2006. Although the album reached number six on the Billboard 200 for a week, its total sales volume has been low – but the first single "Stars Are Blind" was a top ten hit in 17 countries.
In the autumn of 2004, she released an autobiographical book, Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose, co-written by Merle Ginsberg, which includes full color photographs of her and her advice on life as an heiress. Paris reportedly received a $100,000 advance payment for this book.
On January 22, 2007, Paris' private life was thrust into the media spotlight with the launch of ParisExposed.com, a website that features images of personal documents, video, and other material allegedly obtained when the contents of a storage locker rented by Paris was auctioned off due to lack of a $208 payment. The website began charging online access to this material and received 1.2 million visitors in just over 40 hours. Among the contents were medications, diaries, photographs, contracts and love letters, as well as a video of her shot by Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild. On February 3, 2007 Paris obtained a temporary injunction against ParisExposed.com, closing down the website.
Paris has been engaged to wed only to later call off the nuptials with no less than six different men over the last nine years. A homemade sex video of Paris and then-boyfriend Rick Salomon was leaked on the Internet in 2003, later released as the DVD 1 Night in Paris despite attempted legal action. It appeared a week prior to the premiere of The Simple Life.
Beginning in 2006, Paris has had repeated run-ins with the law over DUIs, speeding, driving with a suspended license, smoking marijuana, and possession of cocaine. She has been incarcerated and also gone through a number of treatment programs.
Paris claims to be reading her Bible, attending Roman Catholic mass regularly so let's pray that she will fully experience the love of her heavenly Father and have a close relationship with Him!
--Heidi
