On a heat Friday August afternoon, in an Italianate mansion within the hilliest (learn: gatedest) a part of Beverly Hills, Paris Hilton breezes into the room. The assembled label reps and journalists had been politely requested to take our footwear off within the marble-floored lobby of the property that serves because the workplace of Hilton’s 11:11 Media, a content material firm for manufacturers and creators. Upstairs on this white carpeted room, the woman of the home wears stilettos.
The event for this gathering is Hilton’s new album, Infinite Icon, out right this moment (Sept. 6), 18 years after the discharge of her self-titled debut. The album is a dance–pop hybrid that finds Hilton in full pop mode, with a gaggle of collaborators that features Meghan Thee Stallion, Rina Sawayama, Sia and Meghan Trainor. Paris set a precedent for achievement with its “Stars Are Blind,” which spent 12 weeks on the Scorching 100 in 2006, peaked at No. 18 — and, to today, bangs.
The home/workplace is embellished to remind onlookers of what Hilton has achieved. There are posters on the wall for her present The Easy Life, a Y2K-era rankings juggernaut that helped make Hilton and co-star Nicole Richie family names. Her 2021 actuality program Paris in Love tracked her marriage ceremony to now-husband Carter Reum, who welcomes us into the home and affords Weight loss program Coke and a tour of the “Sliving Spa,” a set of facilities that features hyperbaric and cryotherapy chambers arrange in what was once the storage. There’s a show of pink purses and a neon wall signal proclaiming “That’s Scorching,” the catchphrase Hilton trademarked in 2004, lengthy earlier than “very demure” grew to become the patent-pending slogan of the summer season.
As an assistant leads up upstairs, we go racks (and racks) of clothes (shiny, bedazzled, feathery) pulled for, amongst different issues, an upcoming music video shoot for Infinite Icon‘s “Unhealthy Bitch Academy.” A temper board for the video, amongst different very fierce, very empowering imagery, has an image of the well-known 2006 picture of Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan that the New York Put up revealed with the headline “Bimbo Summit,” which on the moodboard has been swapped for “Unhealthy Bitch Summit.”
However a lot of the clothes won’t finally seem within the video; it’s going to as a substitute be incinerated in an RV hearth that may occur exterior the L.A. video set every week from now. An accident triggered by what Hilton assumes was {an electrical} challenge, the hearth began simply after they shot the primary scene and destroyed practically every thing contained in the RV, amongst it Hilton’s garments, footwear, hair extensions, 300 pairs of sun shades, and different extra irreplaceable ephemera.
“With my ADHD, I’ve notepads the place I’ve like, 1000’s of notes, and all of that burned together with all my journals,” Hilton tells Billboard within the wake of the hearth. “It’s simply been heartbreaking, actually.”
However even with the tamed blaze nonetheless smoldering, Hilton and the staff carried on with the shoot. “Lots of people thought it was going to be over,” she says. ” I’m like, ‘No, no, we’re powering by means of.’” You possibly can genuinely say that precise hearth can’t cease Paris Hilton from her pop star desires.
Definitely a second album laden with hooks and family names visitors would possibly assist her get there. However in a manner, with the celebrity, the wealth , the outfits and the pre-existing Scorching 100 hit, Hilton has at all times been a form of pop queen — now she simply has extra music to go along with it. “I’ve at all times had that perspective and vibe and really feel,” she agrees. “Even after I go to my fragrance line [release] signings and all of this stuff around the globe, my merchandise, my books, I really feel like a pop star on a regular basis. So that is simply the following degree, with this album.”
The challenge finds her in what’s at all times gave the impression to be her consolation zone: surrounded by a gaggle of gal buddies. Infinite Icon was government produced by Sia, a flip of occasions that occurred after Hilton appeared with the singer and Miley Cyrus to carry out “Stars Are Blind” on Cyrus’ on NBC’s 2022 Miley’s New Yr’s Eve Celebration particular. The day after, Hilton flew residence with Sia on the latter’s non-public jet and divulged her dream of constructing extra pop music, which Sia inspired into existence with classes at her home.
“The primary time I sang in entrance of her, I used to be, like, freaking out,” says Hilton. “I’m like that is the best songwriter, singer of our time, and I’m singing in entrance of her — and I’m so shy, however she actually introduced out one thing in me that I didn’t even know I had. Earlier than I used to be extra within the child voice and being very breathy and form of like, Marilyn [Monroe] vibes. After which with this album, I simply felt like a girl.”
Infinite Icon was recorded at Sia’s place, L.A.’s Sundown Studios and the studios Hilton had constructed on this home and her different home not removed from right here.
The final vibe is that everybody who labored on it’s a bff. Sia is “my guardian angel, my fairy godmother. I really like her a lot.” Meghan Trainor — “such a sweetheart. I really like her. She is my sis for all times” — wrote two Infinite Icon songs, which she additionally sings on. Co-producer Jesse Shatkin, who produced Sia’s “Chandelier” amongst many different issues is “superb,” whereas music video director Hannah Lux Davis is “such a badass.” The album takes inspiration from pop stars that made the mildew — “I’ve at all times appeared as much as Madonna” — together with these Hilton has been precise associates with: “I at all times cherished Britney.”
The challenge can also be influenced by Hilton’s longtime love of dance music, a relationship cultivated by attending lots of the world’s best events over time. (“All my associates are like, begging me to go [to Burning Man], and I’m like, ‘Guys, I’ve an album popping out subsequent week. I can’t be there,” she says once we converse throughout Burning Man week.) She can also be, after all, a longtime DJ herself.
“My DJ profession has positively had an enormous affect on me and my life and making this album,” she says. “Performing all around the globe at music festivals, for 1000’s of individuals and being on stage and simply actually listening to what makes individuals transfer and the best way to create these unforgettable dancefloor moments — I needed to deliver that very same power into the album.” To that finish, Infinite Icon‘s “Infinity” is pure fist-pumping Tomorrowland fare.
Different songs traverse extra nuanced matters like her ADHD prognosis, unhealthy relationships, the love she says she’s now discovered with Reum and their two younger youngsters (son Phoenix is nineteen months, daughter London will probably be one in November) the vacancy of fame and even demise. These themes additional the enlargement of Hilton’s public picture that began in 2020 with the discharge of her documentary, This Is Paris.
In it, she disclosed her experiences at Provo Canyon College, an involuntary residential middle for younger individuals the place she was taken in opposition to her will in 1997, when she was 16. The psychological and bodily abuse she skilled there was revealed within the doc, which has been seen 80 million occasions on YouTube alone. The movie fell squarely into the broader public reassessment of the misogynistic and infrequently abusive remedy many feminine celebrities (Britney Spears, Pamela Anderson, Janet Jackson, and so on.) acquired from the media and tradition at giant within the Perez Hlton period.
Hilton went deeper into her story in her 2023 memoir, which an assistant fingers out copies of after the mansion workplace album listening session. The e-book particulars adventures just like the time she and photographer David LaChapelle snuck into her grandparents’ home for an impromptu picture shoot (the grandparents had been asleep upstairs) — and thornier topics, like how the discharge of a non-public intercourse tape in opposition to her will by an ex-partner derailed her rising profession when she was 19 years previous. (One would possibly, for instance, learn the primary half in a single sitting on a Friday night time in August.)
“That was simply such a therapeutic expertise,” Hilton says of the documentary, “delving into my life and actually taking that point simply to replicate on my life and every thing I’d been by means of, and simply seeing how robust I’m, and resilient, and simply what I’ve needed to endure. Then with the e-book, it took it to the following degree, the place I even began going even deeper, after which by means of the music. So, yeah, I don’t assume the album would have been as deep as it’s if it wasn’t for doing the documentary after which that e-book.”
She’s acquired a couple of reside exhibits behind the album lined up and says whereas her primary focus is her household and her enterprise empire she’d like to play Coachella (“that may be iconic”) and make music with Charli XCX. “I’m the unique brat,” she says matter of factly.
“Each time I’ve spoken with [Charli],” she continues, “she’s like, ‘You’ve at all times been such an inspiration to my music.’ So I simply assume it simply makes a lot sense for us to do a tune collectively.” Fortunately, the few issues that didn’t deplete within the hearth included a pocket book with concepts for her third album.
All in all, the impression one will get is that Paris Hilton is certainly — in a phrase she trademarked in 2022 — “sliving.” Given the intoxicating but in addition typically poisonous realm of movie star that she emerged from, it’s simple to see how issues may have gone otherwise for her. As a substitute, she’s acquired her household, a worldwide enterprise, and now, the album she’s spent practically 20 years dreaming about. She’s candy, and she or he appears comfortable.
“Being the blueprint for contemporary movie star, and actually redefining what it means and pioneering a brand new form of movie star, and being somebody that blends trend and media and enterprise and popular culture into a robust private model — I really feel pleased with that,” she says. “I really like seeing so many individuals now who can comply with in my footsteps and take that blueprint and be capable to create their very own manufacturers and their very own companies and create a ravishing life to assist themselves.”
It’s maybe not the long run even she’d dreamed for herself again when “Stars are Blind” was on the charts.
“It simply makes me comfortable anytime I meet somebody who says like, ‘Thanks a lot. You’re the rationale that I do what I do,’” she says. “Or, ‘If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.’ Or, ‘Thanks a lot for at all times being my position mannequin.’ Rising up as a youngster and every thing I went by means of, I by no means thought I’d ever hear that. So it’s simply been very validating to me.”