I’m Sorry, Paris Hilton.
Growing up, I was made to believe that there were only two types of girls: the overly feminine, pink-clad girly type, and the tomboy. I was the latter. My brother was my biggest hero and all I wanted was to be as cool as him: to wear the same ripped jeans that he did, to listen to the same music, to watch all the same shows, and to live in a wholly masculine world. I negated makeup as I didn’t “see the point” and thought that to like pink was the devils work.
This engrained mindset didn’t change coming into my teens. In fact, it perpetuated itself and spun out of control. By mid-high school, I was caught in a web of playing drums in a band, feeding myself to death, rarely washing my hair to give off that natural dreadlock look, writing songs for a band that was coming but never quite made it, and immersing myself in my art. I had no time for much else, and the idea of embellishing myself with fake tan, proper hair care and nicer clothes was far beyond my reach. Mix this with my chubby teenage body and low self esteem, looking back now, I know that I drowned myself in those things because I was hiding from the world around me. I was scared to be judged, so I became swallowed in large clothes, trying my utmost to pass the vibe off as grunge.
As time went on, I began to slowly but surely discover different feminine traits and experiences that I would partake in (note: I emphasise the term ‘feminine’ as traits, hobbies or behaviours should not be gendered, but this is how they were once perceived in my life). Yet, that inner voice—that demon—was still there. I denied liking so many things, and never gave so many people a chance, because their look and who I thought they were as a person didn’t align with the type of image that I was trying to portray. I suppose what I’m trying to say is, I moulded myself into what I thought I should because I was after external validation from people (boys).
I grew up in the age of online and reality celebrity. I grew up looking at the likes of Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, judging every move that they made: feeding into the twisted media headlines, getting further and further sucked into the judgement surrounding them. I was putty in the media’s hands. Keeping Up With The Kardashians then premiered and, without hesitation, I boxed Kim Kardashian in with the rest. Mindless, talentless, attention-seeking and so many more words sprung to mind when I thought about these celebrities individuals. After all, that’s exactly what the media told me to think. So I consumed, I didn’t question.
My first proper introduction to Paris Hilton was when her sex tape was disgustingly leaked online. Curiosity got the best of my teenage brain, so I watched it and was utterly bemused by what I saw. The internal and external judgements flourished, friends and I discussed and watched over and over again. How could she do something like this? She’s obviously looking for attention! Thoughts like these flooded my immature mind. Thinking back to how I reacted, I feel sick to my stomach. She was just a girl, in love, coerced into doing something by someone who she thought loved her back. That person, whose name doesn’t even deserve a place in my brain or in this essay, took advantage of her—and yet, she was demonised.
No one deserves to be thought about the way that I thought about Paris back then.
At this point in my life, although I began making what I thought to believe was progress in my physical appearance, my judgemental mentality remained the same. To me, Paris Hilton was nothing short of a mindless idiot who was just trying to be as famous as she possibly could. The most ironic part of all of this was that Paris’ fragrance was my signature scent for years—I drowned myself in it, but felt squeamish whenever people would ask me what I was wearing. Because of my idiotic mentality, I would reply sheepishly yet confidently “It’s Paris Hilton…but I don’t like her, I just like the smell!”
What I didn’t see was all of the hard work she was (and still is) putting in to maintain her brand and build her empire. What I didn’t see was the level of love and admiration she had (and still has) for the people who love and adore her. What I didn’t see was the mistreatment by her partners and how the media still made her out to be the enemy. What I didn’t see was the pain, she suppressed it. What the media did was always make her out to be the villain, and I believed it.
As I began to get older, and the years rolled by, my thoughts started to become more my own. I began to question and rebel against the status quo. I read more, I researched, I had hard conversations with friends, I listened to alternative viewpoints and culminated my own. I began to see the way that the media manipulated (and still do) people women to feed their agenda and sell more copies. I honed in on what truly fed my soul, rather than what I believed I was meant to like in order to maintain some sort of image for outsourced approval. To be honest, from that point on, I’ve never looked back.
I began to realise the beauty in the colour pink—that embracing my femininity was powerful. That pink didn’t mean I was weak. I began to realise that laughing at Britney’s 2007 meltdown was the worst thing I could’ve done. I began to realise that me thinking that Kim wasn’t a good image for Kanye’s career was putting the lives of people I didn’t know into my own hands and that I would never want to do the same. Kim was like Paris—Kim is like Paris. The media have done whatever they could to use their names to sell and diminish them as humans.
Fast forward to my mid-twenties and I began to truly appreciate what these celebrities people meant to pop culture. Paris singlehandedly paved the way for the online and reality celebrity. She was the one that started what we have today. She continues to create her empire, against a lot of odds. Despite all the shit that is thrown at her, she still keeps going. I began to realise that Paris Hilton was an icon of our generation. A trailblazer. But still, I didn’t know the whole story.
Last week, I took a writing break and tuned into the premiere of This Is Paris—a tell-all documentary, opening the world up to the life of one of the most recognisable faces. I went in knowing that there would be some hard truths documented, but what I didn’t know was that my heart would be torn into a thousand little pieces. What I didn’t know was that I would become so incredibly protective over this fragile, powerful and lonely human that I only know through a screen. What I didn’t know was just how much people have taken from her, how much people have hurt her, how little time she gets to be still with her own thoughts, and how much heartache she’s been carrying. What I didn’t know was just how much the world around her has let her down.
I wept as I watched her navigate her life. My heart ripped into pieces when I saw the mistreatment of her and others during their schooling, yet the broken pieces were put back together when I saw them come together to fight against it. My fists tightened as I watched her self-indulgent, emotionally manipulative, piece of shit boyfriend ruin the biggest gig of her DJ career (as a quick side-note and spoiler: watching Paris kick him and tear his Tomorrowland wristbands off was the most iconic moment of the whole documentary and I hope that she never apologised to him because, seriously, fuck that guy). I felt inspired by her determination to still show up as the fabricated version of herself, even when it got too hard.
At the end of the documentary, I sat still on my bed for a couple of minutes, sinking into my thoughts and trying to make sense of what I’d just watched. Everything I thought I knew, I actually had no idea. Paris Hilton’s power and courage embedded itself so deeply into my heart and soul, and I haven’t stopped thinking about or talking about it since.
All of the above said, now comes the moment I’ve been waiting for. The moment for me to say to Paris, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for believing what the media told me about you. I’m sorry for judging you based on your physical appearance and not for the brilliant mind and heart that make you whole. I’m sorry that people who should’ve taken care of you hurt you. I’m sorry that I created a version of you in my head and stuck by that false narrative for so many years. I’m sorry that the world demonised you. I’m sorry that you had to live with the pain for so long. I’m sorry that it took me so long to realise it all.
I’m sorry, Paris Hilton.
