Out went the age of Paris Hilton and her TV reign with her famous show shared with Nicole Richie, The Simple Life, and in came the new generation of TV celebrities, the Kardashians with their show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Paris Hilton had her heyday back in the early 2000s—a simpler time when celebrities made strange fashion choices just like us.
But that era is gone now, and Paris herself is approaching 40 years old. The once household name and hyper-visible party personality has shied away from the white-hot spotlight for almost a decade now. However, she has shown up in a few music videos like Demi Lovato’s Sorry Not Sorry video, and she has appeared as herself on a few shows like the documentary The American Meme and as a host for The Hollywood Love Story. Yet, this is nothing but child’s play to the professionally famous Hilton whose show The Simple Life once drew 1.3 million viewers. All this might prompt the question, “Where is she now?”
It’s that exact question that the new documentary, This is Paris, seeks to answer. Paris herself has said, “This is completely different from anything I’ve ever done.” Rather than a reboot of the Paris we’ve all come to know, This is Paris will do what it purports to do—it will reveal the real Paris, the Paris that lives behind a well-groomed image-turned-brand that the world has always known her to be.
Paris believes that our current place in time no longer requires the artificiality and staging that was her domain during the height of her fame. With this documentary, she’s taking down the walls and dissolving the image she played for all to see for years. In her own words, Paris said: “I’ve been judged on a character that I created at the beginning of my career, and now I feel like it’s really time that people see who the real Paris is.”
In This is Paris, you’ll notice the loss of that baby-soft, high-pitched and breathy voice that had become inseparable from the image of Paris. Yet, is this stripped-down version of Paris the “real” Paris, or are we merely being teased into following the next chapter of Paris-brand revival? You’ll have to watch This is Paris to judge the celebrity by the display of realness she says she’s never been judged by before.
