Pop Culture

Paris Hilton on Her Past Persona: “I Always Knew Exactly What I Was Doing”

Paris Hilton appeared on Friday’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to hype her new podcast This is Paris and accept some congratulations concerning her recent engagement to her venture capitalist boyfriend Carter Reum. (“I mean, stop it, right now …” Jimmy Fallon gushed while looking at the lovely down-on-one-knee snaps.)

In Hilton’s recent biographical documentary, also called This is Paris, she disclosed that she allegedly received psychological and physical abuse as a teen while attending the Provo Canyon School. In early February she gave testimony in the Utah State Capitol. (The private school was sold by the previous owners in 2000.)

As Fallon reminisced how Hilton always seemed so cool when he did bits with her on Saturday Night Live (this one is particularly dopey) she explained how, after her experiences at the school, it was easy to “be in character.”

“I built a shell,” she said, then did The Simple Life, and from there it just stuck. “I’m not a dumb blonde, I’m just very good at pretending to be someone else,” she said, adding “I always knew exactly what I was doing.”

Hilton also allowed that she was, indeed, the “O.G. influencer” as Fallon listed her accomplishments, including $1 billion in perfume sales.

“Anyone with a phone and a talent can literally make a huge brand and a lucrative business,” she said of the new wave of entrepreneurs.

Upcoming guests on This is Paris include Amy Schumer, Demi Lovato, Whitney Cummings, Ashley Benson, and Paris’s sister Nicky.

The full segment is below.

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