Paris Hilton: now for the cookery show
She’s been a reality star, a writer and even a DJ, now the hotel heiress is making food in her own cookery programme – high heels and all
SHE sashays into the kitchen holding a Chihuahua dressed as a French maid before announcing that she – yes, Paris Hilton – is an amazing cook and she’s going to make her famous lasagne. “People say it’s hard, but lasagne is very fun and easy,” she drawls. “But I guess it is hard compared to, like, making toast or something.”
She puts her pooch down and struts around her huge, gleaming kitchen in skin-tight jeans and heels, blonde hair swishing loose – because, really, why should she tie it up just because she’s, like, cooking?
On her hands are fingerless black leather gloves or “chef ’s gloves” as she calls them – except we can’t think of a single chef in history who’s ever worn them.
Welcome to the first episode of Cooking with Paris, which recently made its debut on YouTube.
You’re probably thinking what on earth does Paris – a pampered hotel heiress with a wild-child past and more money in the bank than she knows what to do with – know about cooking?
The answer is probably not much – but the 38-year-old goes about it in a way that’s so honest and at times so hilarious you can’t help watching.
She nonchalantly uses a potato masher to break up the minced meat and declares “I don’t know what this is” when she spies a spatula.
Her drawer of spoons is “brutal”, Paris speak for “there are so many spoons here I don’t know which one to choose”.
Chopping onions and garlic is far too tedious a task so she just leaves them out of the lasagne although, as she explains, she did bring along a pair of her favourite
shades because she doesn’t want to “cry and ruin my mascara”.
She turns the black pepper grinder 11 times for no reason other than “I love 11 and it’s good luck”.
But the pièce de résistance is the bottle of “unicorn mist” she randomly sprays on herself because, well, who wants to smell like lasagne, right?
IT’S almost as if she’s taking the mickey out of her dumb-blonde party-girl persona – but whatever it is, it’s working. The first – and so far the only – episode of Cooking with Paris raked in more than 3,3 million views. As one viewer put it, “She’s the original millennial. I love her humour and how stupid she pretends to be.”
The cooking show is just the latest in a dizzying line-up of activities and ventures the leggy blonde has dabbled in.
Over the years Paris – who’s the greatgranddaughter of Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton Hotel chain – has pretty much tried her hand at everything, some with more success than others.
She’s been a model, a reality TV star (in the late ’90s she starred in the series The Simple Life with her then bestie, Nicole Richie), an author (she’s released two books, Confessions of an Heiress and Heiress Diary: Confess It All to Me), a singer, an actress and, in recent years, a professional DJ with a residency on the party island of Ibiza.
She’s also lent her name and face to perfumes, handbags, watches and footwear, and coined the catchphrase “that’s hot”, which she went on to trademark.
As one writer for ABC News noted, “She’s made a lot of money with a hodgepodge of traditional celebrity revenue, but what she’s best at is being Paris Hilton.”
Her personal life has been tabloid fodder for years, starting with her leaked sex tape, One Night in Paris, which came out in 2003 when she was 22 and brought her worldwide notoriety.
In her twenties she was one of Hollywood’s biggest party animals, with a constant rotation of boyfriends and pals, including fellow wild child Lindsay Lohan. But it came with several brushes with the law – a reckless driving arrest in 2007 saw her do a brief stint in jail and in 2010 she was bust with cocaine in her bag, resulting in a year’s probation.
PARIS is notoriously fickle when it comes to men, with three broken engagements behind her. In the early 2000s she was first engaged to model Jason Shaw (now 46) then to Greek shipping heir Paris Latsis (37), but she didn’t make it down the aisle with either.
It seemed third time would be the charm after Leftovers actor Chris Zylka ( 35) popped the question with a $ 2 million ( R30m) sparkler during a ski trip to Aspen in January 2018.
But they hit a rough spot just six months later and called it quits in October.
“When I fall in love I fall fast and hard, and this was a whirlwind romance,” she explained at the time.
“I’ve always been obsessed with Disney stories and I thought it was gonna be my happy ending, but after time I realised it wasn’t the right decision.”
These days she’s all about focusing on herself and her work and she says she doesn’t have time for love. Not that there’s a shortage of men vying for her attention.
“There are always a lot of guys everywhere,” she said last year. “When I’m ready though . . .”
As for her ideal guy, the most important thing is, “someone who’s your best friend, and who you can trust and who loves you for you.
“When you know, you know. But I don’t know yet.”
She says she’d still like to get married and have children.
“I’m really immersed in my work but I’d love that one day,” she told Us Weekly while promoting her 25th fragrance, Electrify. “One day I will, and I’ll be the best mom.”
Paris is already a doting aunt to her younger sister Nicky’s two children, daughter Lily-Grace (3) and son Teddy (2), with her British financier husband, James Rothschild.
“I’m obsessed with Lily-Grace,” she said in 2016 soon after the little girl’s birth. “It gives me a lot of joy to see my sister and the family she’s building.”
Her younger brother, Barron (28), is also due to become a parent soon – his socialite wife, Countess Tessa von Walderdorff, whom he wed in 2018, is pregnant with their first child. But Paris is clearly still happy doing her own thing and living life her way. In her own words, “The only rule is don’t be boring, and dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in.” Not that she’d know what a blender was if it knocked her
over the head.
‘There are so many spoons here I don’t know which one to choose’