Paris Hilton Isn't Pregnant—But She's Ready To Be
This interview is part of “Netflix Cooking School," Delish’s new partnership with Netflix where we bring readers exclusive content tied to the premieres of some of their most popular new (and returning!) food shows.
There she is, commanding the cereal aisle wearing a fuchsia ball gown and matching face mask outlined in rhinestones. Botticelli’s Venus by way of Barbie, her cool blonde hair waterfalls down to her elbows. An ‘80s synthesizer and slow motion cues you to recognize the dream girl in the grocery store, even as she struggles with produce bags and vegan milks. Minutes into the first episode of her new “cooking” show for Netflix (skeptical quotation marks are theirs, not ours), Paris Hilton turns to a friend and asks, “What’s a whisk?”
Cooking with Paris finds the heiress in couture while shopping for ingredients. She purchases, preps, and then cooks with a friend, typically around a theme: Italian with Demi Lovato, or breakfast foods with Kim Kardashian. The tone is sort of a campy disco fever dream, as she slices a russet potato with a giant butcher knife and nearly saws off a lacy-gloved finger, or instructs her guest to cut baby blue glitter marshmallows into unicorn shapes. On-screen text ups the whimsy: COOKING TIP, reads one, as Paris purrs in voiceover, “Just so you guys know, this is a whisk.”
The show is a major near-end-pandemic vibe: the desire to put on a party dress and spin a disco ball, yet also stay inside with friends where it’s all less exhausting. The global shift toward home cooking is real and enduring. But Paris Hilton setting up camp in the zeitgeist and filming a not-quite-reality show that defines American culture, for better or for worse? It’s been happening for decades.
“It’s definitely not your average cooking show,” Paris says via Zoom from her L.A. home. “I'm not a professional or trained chef, so I'm learning a lot in the kitchen as I go.” Like a lot of us, she started cooking more while stuck at home during the pandemic, and one day a “super fan” emailed her and encouraged her to film a YouTube video cooking her strongest dish, lasagna. As he’d predicted, it went viral and multiple networks came calling. (“It’s the best feeling in the world to be able to help someone that you have looked up to your whole life,” says the super fan, Raul, who’s 25 and lives in Mexico. “I just gave her the idea, but the rest was her and her brilliant mind.” He says Paris sends him a birthday gift every year.)
While she famously spent her teenage years living in the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, Paris’ childhood in Los Angeles was (slightly) more down to earth. “My mom would always be in the kitchen, cooking for the holidays or just having Italian night. That's how I learned to make the lasagna,” she says. As an adult, her work life found her traveling around 250 days a year, eating primarily on planes and in hotels.
As a result, she’s retained the palate of a kindergartener, which her sister Nicky has ribbed her for repeatedly and publicly. “She's right, it is like a five-year-old. I love kid food. I love making little heart-shaped grilled cheese sandwiches and having cereal and candy. And I love McDonald's Happy Meals and fast food and pizza,” Paris says. The first episode of the show finds her attempting to make vegan McDonald’s fries, Beyond Meat burgers, and milkshakes for her friend, the comedian Nikki Glaser. “Yeah, I don't eat that healthy, but now I'm trying to learn how.”
The show’s comedic tone is very much that of The Simple Life, the 2003-2007 phenomenon that brought her global fame. Again she is a glamorous fish out of water; again she is doing the Marilyn Monroe, breathy rich dumb blonde thing. The character is present even on this Zoom; when asked for her dream dinner party guest list, she rattles off a list of other golden-haired (and recently reconsidered) celebrities with nary a pause. “It would be Britney, Madonna, Christina, my sister, and Marilyn Monroe,” Paris says. “If she was alive.”
It’s nice to laugh again! Still, the whole act is a surprising departure from the more serious persona she spent last year cultivating. In September 2020, she released a documentary opening up about the physical and psychological abuse she allegedly she suffered while in behavioral camps for bad teens and at a boarding school in Utah, which she is still fighting to close.
But the two sides she allows the public to see are quite consciously and purposefully linked. “That character, it was something that I developed because of really traumatic experiences at these boarding schools…almost a protective shell, or a mask, to live in this fantasy world and portray this perfect life,” Paris explains. “I think it was a coping mechanism. Doing that character, I ended up creating a huge empire and now I know exactly what I'm doing.”
Really, she always did. “Of course I know what Walmart is. I knew everything, I knew what I was doing on that show,” she says, referring to one of The Simple Life’s most notorious moments, where she asked a rural family if the store sold walls. And now, “Maybe I don't know what some cooking utensils are—that part's real. From being on camera for so long and portraying that character, anytime a camera is around, I revert back to that. Because I'm a naturally shy person, it makes it easier for me to be that bubbly character.”
The cooking show allows her a very 2021 dualism, where she and Demi Lovato can discuss the importance of opening up about one’s mental health while they giggle through a disastrous ravioli-making session. “You’re the one who inspired me to be vulnerable,” Paris tells them.
Paris’ circa ‘00s bubbly-ness is what allowed her to create an empire that includes 19 product lines, including clothing, shoes, lingerie, jewelry, makeup, handbags, home goods, sunglasses, and nearly 30 fragrances. She’s also invested in wellness and tech companies, and is wildly excited by NFTs (and if you don’t know what that means, we’re too firmly planted in glitter blue marshmallow land ourselves to explain it). A theme of the documentary was her workaholism; at one point she admits that she can’t rest until she earns a billion dollars.
“I think that was just my goal because I was not happy in my personal life,” Paris says. The pandemic forced her off planes, and into the arms of her then-new boyfriend, venture capitalist and longtime family friend Carter Reum, whom she reconnected with in November 2019.
It was the perfect convergence of events, immediately post filming the documentary. “It was such a healing experience—I finally let down all these huge walls I put up around my heart and my soul,” she says. Social distancing did the rest. “For me, I really needed that break, and to stay at home… it wouldn't have been possible if the world was still happening. I would have had to travel and we wouldn't have become as close as we have.”
The pair got engaged in February 2021, and their wedding planning process will be featured on another upcoming reality show, Paris in Love, on Peacock. Any wafts of cynicism that it’s her fourth engagement are not welcome here; she is genuinely ebullient about the man she calls her “twin flame.” “He's like no one I've ever met in my life before, the first person that I've let into my heart that I trust completely. He's my biggest supporter and just lifts me up and makes me feel so safe,” she gushes. That sense of safety is paramount, as she’s disclosed physical abuse from at least five previous boyfriends. “It's just amazing to finally feel what real love is. I don't think I ever experienced it before.”
The isolation encouraged them to nest intensely. “Now, I'm more focused on babies than billions,” says Paris. Despite a recent rumor on Page Six—which she blames on an outing in an entirely too successful push-up bra from her own lingerie line—she’s not pregnant yet, but she froze her eggs this past year. “I hate needles and shots and having to inject yourself several times a day. It's just painful and uncomfortable, and I hated that part. But I'm so happy that we did it. We have tons of eggs and all of the kids ready to go,” she says. “It is a hard process and definitely is very emotional, but I'm just so lucky that I have such an amazing partner in Carter." She plans to name a daughter London Marilyn Hilton Reum (the middle name is for her beloved grandmother, not Monroe); her podcasting company is already called London Audio. There’s another location name in mind for a son, but she’s keeping it private for now.
She also has a strong vision for the type of mother she’d like to be. “I want to be like my mom—like their best friend, where they feel like they can come and talk to me about anything. Very supportive and fun and playful,” Paris says. “I can't wait just to do all the fun kid things together and have amazing birthday parties for them. Celebrate Santa Claus for Christmas and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy and just all of those really cute, special moments.” Paris is aglow, her lip gloss freshly applied just for this Zoom conversation, her voice veering in and out of its cotton-candy register. “I just want my children to feel so loved and so lucky and happy.”
And when the babies arrive, she’ll be ready to cook for and with them. In her guest episode, Kim Kardashian chats with Paris about pizza nights where her children roll out the dough and experiment with toppings. “That’s the fun part of having kids—you can cook with them,” Kim promises. The actually appetizing and very fluffy frittata the two besties make on the show is now a weekend staple in her home, Paris says. After a year of puttering around in the kitchen and filming, “I'm comfortable basically doing anything,” she boasts. “I make the best sandwiches, especially for my fiancé. I make his favorites, like turkey sandwiches and peanut butter and jelly.”
And she cooks for us, her audience, in a reality show to sink into when our own realities get to be too much: Here’s Paris Hilton flailing as her rhinestone-encrusted spatula melts into a vegan burger patty. MAKE SURE YOUR BLING IS FOOD-SAFE, the show’s text warns. “It's just so hilarious and just what people need right now. To laugh and be entertained and smile, and also learn how to cook some really cool things,” Paris says.
Toward the end of one episode’s strutting-through-the-grocery-store scenes, the golden lighting and dreamy lighting abruptly drop away to reveal a camera crew hovering around her, one guy frantically waving a lighting panel to create the wind effect while a boom mike hovers over the Raisin Bran. Paris Hilton is in on the joke. She always has been.
Photographer: Tyler Joe, Fashion Director: Kristen Saladino, Editorial Director: Joanna Saltz, Editor: Tess Koman, Art Director: Allie Folino, Deputy Visual Director: Allison Chin, Animation: Vineet Sawant, Hair: Eduardo Ponce, Makeup: Katie Nova, Prop Stylist: Erin Lark Gray/Holly Corbett Represents, Food Stylist: Michelle Gatton/Hello Artists, Fashion Assistant: Laynie Rouch, Additional Art Direction: Marc Davila, Cakes Provided By: Magnolia Bakery.
Look 1, TOP & SKIRT: Alice + Olivia, EARRINGS: Cicada, RING: Bea Bongiasca, BELT: B-Low The Belt. Look 2, DRESS: Nicole + Felicia, NECKLACE: Lele Sadoughi, EARRINGS: Ben Amun, GLOVES: DuJu Design. Look 3 (video), DRESS: Pamela Roland, EARRINGS: Elsie Frieda, GLOVES: DuJu Design, SHOES (worn throughout, not shown): Sophia Webster
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