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Hilton says she prefers to work with brands she uses in her life: When I got the call about this [she gestures to the set for the Uber Eats commercial she is filming], I was like, yes, I use this. And to be working with the Irwin family [Robert and Bindi Irwin also appear in the ad], I felt really aligned with my own brand.

If you ... do something positive with your brand, then its a good thing, Hilton says.

In her podcast, I Am Paris, she tackles subjects she thinks do not have enough mainstream media attention. In her conversation with actor Amy Schumer, for example, the pair talked about the autism spectrum, therapy and cancel culture.

What I love about the podcast is having my voice, Hilton says. I feel like growing up in the early 2000s, the media treated me and Britney Spears and a lot of those girls really unfairly. I feel like [with the podcast], I can tell the truth and speak about what I want to speak about. Its powerful to have that voice.

Hilton has also taken on a very personal cause: the abuse of students in Americas private behavioural education system. Hilton was a victim of such abuse herself, she says, revealing in the 2020 documentary, This Is Paris, she had been subjected to strip searches, force-fed medication, watched in the shower and confined in isolation as punishment.

Hiltons production company produces a podcast series, Trapped in Treatment, hosted by abuse survivor Caroline Cole and investigator Rebecca Mellinger. And now, Hilton, having successfully campaigned in several US states for new laws protecting teenagers in private schools with behavioural and mental health issues, is taking her crusade to Washington, DC.

Paris Hilton leads a 2020 protest calling for the closure of Provo Canyon School in Utah, where she has testified she was abused as a student.Credit:AP

Everything happens for a reason, and maybe I had to go through that, and maybe I was given this gift so that I could use my voice and make a difference, to stop it from happening to other children, Hilton says. In a way, this is my mission in life now. And its the thing that has the most meaning because I am making an impact.

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My whole life, its been a lot of fun and Ive done a lot of stuff: The Simple Life, all that, and playing a character, she says. But that was just the fun part. This is something thats really serious and making a difference in saving lives. That means everything to me.

Hilton believes the public persona of Paris Hilton the selfie-obsessed airhead is one she created as a coping mechanism for the abuse she went through as a teenager at Provo Canyon School.

It was just such a traumatic and horrible experience that I just didnt ever want to think about it again, she says.

I think I invented this bubbly Barbie-type, perfect life fairytale, so I didnt have to think about what had happened. And then it ended up being this whole brand, and then it became me, but it was never really me.

I am actually a pretty shy person, she says. [This other persona] is a mask I wear ... Im just playing someone else. The real me is a lot more serious. Im not a dumb blonde. Im just very good at pretending to be one.

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See original here:
The media treated me and Britney unfairly: Paris Hilton takes control of the narrative - Sydney Morning Herald