Paris Hilton Reveals What Fuels Her Drive In ‘This Is Paris’ Documentary
by Nadja Sayej
There’s a point in the new YouTube Original documentary This Is Paris, where Paris Hilton is about to go onstage at Tomorrowland in Belgium—her biggest DJ gig yet. It’s a record-breaking moment of her career, but her personal life was falling apart.
Her then-boyfriend Aleks Novakovic (also known as Aleks Supernova) nags her for giving attention to her fans, rather than him.
“I love you, please, just stop, my gig starts in three minutes,” she tells him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, as they walk up to the stage together. For a second, one wonders if they could reconcile. Bury the hatchet.
It didn’t work, though. Even seconds before stepping onstage, she’s about to break into tears as he hassles her with petty complaints, rather than encouraging her or showing support for this historic moment in her career (to date, Hilton is one of the highest-paid DJs in the world).
“Are you psychotic?” she asks. “Oh my God, stop!”
Hilton instructs security to remove Novakovic’s wristband, she gets him kicked out of the festival just seconds before going onstage.
It’s the kind of boss behavior that many women should not only follow, but make mandatory when a partner turns the spotlight on them, minutes before one’s dream comes true.
This Is Paris, which premieres today on YouTube, packs in the ups and downs of Beverly Hills’ most notable celebrity; from Hilton’s upbringing as a groomed debutante to etiquette school as a hotel heiress, then rebelling against the life that was set for her with a breakthrough photo shoot with David LaChapelle. She does a wide detour to make room for her own creativity as a songstress, DJ and perfume mogul in a world that wasn’t expecting her achievements, especially after the troubled teen industry and the paparazzi took full advantage of her in the public eye.
Though Hilton and her younger sister Nicky made a name for themselves on the New York and Los Angeles party scene in the early 2000s (initially, with fake ID to get into nightclubs), she inevitably created moments that personifies pop culture of the early naughts, from photos with Britney Spears to Lindsay Lohan, to her slogan “That’s Hot” and trailblazing reality TV moments that are still gif-able from The Simple Life.
It’s important how Hilton became a role model for women across the world, be it young entrepreneurs to the latest crop of influencers to storied businesswomen who are looking to expand their own brands—Hilton is relentlessly driven. At first, she says in the film, she was inspired to make $10m, now it’s $1b. “Then what?” the filmmaker asks behind the lens. “Then I’ll be happy,” Hilton says, smiling.
But as we know, money does not always equate happiness.
Directed by Alexandra Dean, the film was shot over the past two years, trailing along at Hilton’s DJ gigs to perfume launches, touring Japan to her California home, sitting in her disheveled walk-in closet.
It feels a lot like intimate girl talk and with Dean’s female gaze, proving to be an intimate portrait that offers a behind-the-scenes look at Hilton as the friend, the woman, the humanitarian behind the brand, the celebrity.
What’s uncovered here is probably more than she signed up for, be it dishing on the abuse she endured at the Provo Canyon boarding school in Utah, who locked her into solitary confinement, to reuniting with former classmates, creating a digital protest against the pain they endured and opening up about her trust issues, as a result of her experience. She even confronts her own mother Kathy Hilton, who checked her into Provo with her husband Rick.
Hilton explains in the film that the mistreatment she received at the school is what built the foundation for her success. That’s where she got the inner strength to achieve her dreams and goals, to prove herself to the world.
As she says in the film: “The only thing that saved my sanity through is thinking about who I wanted to become when I got out of there. I was going to do everything in my power to be so successful, that my parents could never control me again. I just wnated to be independent, make a name for myself and built my brand.” Words to live by.