In today’s crowded influencer space, one of the original creators of the personal brand is looking to take back her crown.

Paris Hilton is back on TV screens with a cooking show on Netflix, her 2020 documentary “This Is Paris” and a new reality show about her engagement to venture capitalist Carter Reum on the way. She has a new memoir in the works, has launched podcasts and sold NFT art.

“I built a global business and brand over the last two decades,” Ms. Hilton said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I wanted to take it to the next level and bring all my companies under one media entity.”

She created her new company, 11:11 Media, with Bruce Gersh, a former Disney and Time Inc. media executive, to cement and expand her brands.

In the 2000s, Ms. Hilton burst into popular culture during the early days of reality television, with “The Simple Life,” securing her image as the quintessential socialite—the partying great-granddaughter of hotel magnate Conrad Hilton. She soon became one of the digital age’s first influencers—before the existence of the term or the proliferation of Facebook or Twitter, let alone the cult of celebrity on Instagram and TikTok.

“Paris is considered one of the first modern celebutantes, which could be defined as a young woman who is not famous for a talent like acting or singing but merely because she is beautiful and wealthy,” said Kelli Burns, an associate professor at the Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications at the University of South Florida.

Ms. Hilton paved the way for others who followed, such as Kim Kardashian and her sisters, Dr. Burns said. While the Kardashian clan’s exploits were widely consumed over 20 seasons of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” Ms. Hilton has also been quietly creating an empire of her own.

According to 11:11 Media, Ms. Hilton has since 2006 built a company comprising 45 branded stores and 19 product lines, which have surpassed more than $4 billion in revenue. She has launched 27 fragrances over the past 15 years and has investments in wellness products and a plant-based seafood company.

But social-media influencers are no longer reserved for the wealthy or the few. Ms. Hilton’s re-emergence comes at a time when influencers, famous for being famous, are the norm. Creating a lucrative personal brand is a highly competitive field. Not only are TikTok influencers half her age signing deals in media, television and movies, celebrities and athletes have also moved toward making brands and companies based on their identity.

Influencer marketing is on the rise, and its market size world-wide more than tripled between 2017 and 2020, said Lubna Nafees, an associate professor of marketing at the Walker College of Business, Appalachian State University.

“Increasingly, consumers are turning to social-media influencers to find products and services that align with their lifestyles, which means brands have to work through this channel in order to be present where their consumers are,” said Dr. Nafees, who studies the impact of social-media influencers.

That goes for more traditional celebrities, too. Basketball stars LeBron James and Kevin Durant mix their star status with businesses that span entertainment, endorsement, investments and other sectors. Actresses Reese Witherspoon and Jessica Alba have built successful media and consumer-goods businesses.

“Paris Hilton and Reese Witherspoon are doing exactly that. They are present where their consumers are,” said Dr. Nafees.

Ms. Hilton said she believes media companies in the future will rely less on legacy brands alone and instead lean more on personalities. “I believe we are living in the golden age of creators,” she said. Competition in the influencer space remains fierce. But Ms. Hilton has a distinct advantage, according to Dr. Burns: She has been in the public eye for more than two decades.

“We’re anchored by a global personality and someone who has true influence over consumers,” said Mr. Gersh, Ms. Hilton’s business partner.

To carve out new spaces, Ms. Hilton has doubled down on her roots in media and fashion and was an early adopter of cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs.

“I’ve always been into innovative tech and am an undercover nerd,” Ms. Hilton said.

The heiress and entrepreneur said she believes NFTs are the future of art, in part, because they give power to digital artists and creators of all types to own the use of their work. Ms. Hilton in June became an investor and adviser to Origin Protocol Inc., a decentralized e-commerce platform. In August 2020, Ms. Hilton sold an NFT drawing she made on an iPad of her kitten for charity. The artwork was bought with cryptocurrency.

As for the name of her new company, Ms. Hilton says she has always found special meaning in the time 11:11. “It’s my favorite time of day,” she said. “I love posting on Twitter at 11:11 to remind myself and my fans to ‘make a wish,’ keep taking risks and keep dreaming.”

Source: wsj.com

Paris Hilton is shooting down those pregnancy rumors.

In a new installment of her This Is Paris podcast titled “This Is… I’m Pregnant??” the star, 40, addresses a report from Tuesday morning that claimed she was expecting her first baby with fiancé Carter Reum.

Hilton, however, says she is not pregnant — “yet.” She says she “can’t wait to have children in 2022” after her wedding.

“I also woke up to about 3,000 texts, all my iPhones are blowing up — all five of them — everyone wishing me congratulations and so happy for me and, yes, I’ve heard from people I haven’t heard from in years. Thank you everyone for all the messages,” she says with a laugh. “It’s a busy day today so I haven’t answered anyone yet, but yes, I am pregnant with triplets. … I am so excited for motherhood.”

“Actually,” Hilton then says, “I’m just kidding. I am not pregnant, not yet. I am waiting until after the wedding. My dress is being made right now so I want to make sure it looks gorgeous and fits perfectly, so definitely waiting for that part.”

Hilton says she doesn’t know where the rumor came from, joking that she “shouldn’t have worn” her push-up bra from her new lingerie line while recently stepping out for dinner in Malibu with Reum.

“People always make up rumors, I’m very used to it at this point, being in the industry as long as I have,” the television star adds.

“… You can’t always believe what you read. I’ve learned that, definitely, over the years of just being in this business.”

She explains that it’s her “dream” to one day have a daughter named London, and she also has a boy name picked out, which she won’t reveal.

“The only thing in the oven at the moment is my ‘sliving’ lasagna!” the Cooking with Paris star jokes, referencing her dish which stands for “slaying and living.”

Hilton and Reum, also 40, got engaged on Feb. 13 after more than a year of dating. She has previously been open about her desire to become a parent.

Source: people.com

Paris Hilton is cooking up a new project: a new series with Netflix, “Cooking With Paris,” Variety has exclusively learned.

The amateur cooking show will feature the hotel heiress and business mogul learning her way around the kitchen with the help of her famous friends. The series will take a spin on the traditional cooking show, as Hilton is not a trained chef and doesn’t really know how to cook — but she certainly knows how to entertain viewers at home.

“Cooking With Paris” will launch globally on the streaming giant on Aug. 4 with six half-hour episodes.

In the series, Hilton will invite her celebrity friends into her kitchen, as she navigates new ingredients, new recipes and exotic kitchen appliances. Hilton will take viewers from the grocery store to the finished table spread. According to Netflix, Hilton will embrace her “very newly domesticated side,” while she “learns to sauté, sear and zest,” and show off her “culinary expertise (or lack thereof), glam kitchen wardrobe and party-throwing skills with some of her fab celeb friends.”

“Cooking With Paris” is inspired by her YouTube video of the same name, which went viral in January 2020, when Hilton made lasagna at home. To date, the video has over 5 million views.

Hilton will serve as an executive producer, along with Aaron Saidman, Eli Holzman and Rebecca Hertz. The series hails from The Intellectual Property Corporation, an Industrial Media company.

“Cooking With Paris” is the latest project for Hilton, who has been keeping busy in the biz. Earlier this year, she launched her own production company, Slivington Manor Entertainment, and signed an overall deal at Warner Bros. She also has a wedding reality show coming up at Peacock, tentatively titled “Paris in Love,” which she will also executive produce. The series follows her as she prepares to get married to venture capitalist Carter Reum.

The heiress to Hilton hotels, the multi-hyphenate first rose to fame in the early 2000s as a socialite, whose life played out in the tabloids. Known as “the original influencer,” Hilton first got Hollywood’s attention with her hit reality show, “The Simple Life,” with Nicole Richie. Last year, Hilton released a YouTube documentary, “This Is Paris,” which explored her childhood trauma and received rave reviews, showing a very raw, different side of her life. The doc premiered at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival.

Source: variety.com

An OnlyFans horror story from Ashley Benson is officially in the works.

Earlier this week, the Pretty Little Liars star revealed on Instagram that she would star in and produce the “pandemic-inspired slasher” flick, 18 & Over.

According to Deadline, the basic premise of the movie revolves around the rise of the OnlyFans economy during quarantine, though no further plot details were provided. Instead, the focus was placed on the star-studded cast, which will apparently include appearances from Paris Hilton and Sky Ferreira.

Co-created alongside director Jimmy Giannopolous and Diomedes Raul Bermudez, the indie film’s star-studded cast will also feature Pamela Anderson, Duke Nicholson, A$AP Nast, Winnie Harlow, and Benson’s beau G-Eazy (who also reportedly composed the score).

“After deciding to shoot this film in the middle of the pandemic, we wanted to make something that would be fun but still a terrifying slasher for audiences during these tough times,” Giannopolous said in a statement. “A film relevant to today’s issues of a global pandemic, reality shows, isolation, OnlyFans, and obsession.”

Source: papermag.com

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Paris Hilton returned to Salt Lake City Tuesday for a ceremonial bill signing for a law that regulates treatment centers for troubled teens in Utah.

The legislation for facilities that treat teens with behavioral and mental health issues gained final approval in the Legislature in early March, about a month after Hilton gave emotional testimony in support of the bill. Gov. Spencer Cox signed the bill last month but held a ceremonial signing with Hilton on Tuesday.

The new law will require more government oversight of youth residential treatment centers and documentation for when they use restraints. It will also prohibit treatment centers from using sedation or mechanical restraints without prior authorization.

Hilton testified she was abused mentally and physically at a Utah boarding school, where she said staff members would beat her, force her to take unknown pills, watch her shower and send her to solitary confinement without clothes as punishment.

The socialite and reality TV star also spoke about the abuse in a documentary titled “This is Paris” that was released this fall.

Since the documentary was released, other celebrities have spoken out about their experiences at the school or others like it, including Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris Jackson and tattoo artist Kat Von D.

Source: apnews.com