Y2K PRINCESS, PARIS HILTON, RE-ENTERS MAINSTREAM POP CULTURE
Throughout the 2000s, a clear female icon embodied the era through and through; Paris Hilton. Hilton captivated the public with her overtly luxurious lifestyle, blunt valley girl personality, and steady stream of content that allowed people to view the life of one of the wealthiest families in America. Despite dominating the Y2K era, Hilton slowly faded into pop culture's background in the early 2010s, becoming a niche celebrity with little public interest.
Source: Byrdie
After spending all of the early 2000s in the spotlight and the Hollywood party scene, she almost disappeared. People would see her every now and again at public events; She had been featured in tabloids due to her legal troubles, but compared to the coverage that she used to receive, it was absolutely abysmal. Paris herself has said that at some point during those years, she didn't want to be a reality tv star anymore but a true businesswoman. She stayed behind the scenes all that time working on her nineteen product lines. Her products include everything from fragrances to tracksuits to dog toys.
Source: Vogue
She tried to integrate herself into the public sphere around 2012 as a DJ with her debut at Brazil's Pop Music Festival. Most people, including some famous DJs, saw this as a publicity stunt or a joke. Overall, the initial reaction to her DJ career was extremely negative. Many people believed that she was not actually DJing herself and that someone else was doing it for her. After that, Paris modeled a bit, was featured in music videos and TV shows, and still had articles written about her. But didn't receive the attention that she had when she was younger.
Source: Fact Magazine
It wasn't until 2020 that Paris was making serious headlines again. She began to protest schools that are known as "emotional growth schools" as she had experienced intense abuse at the multiple ones she had attended. Her outcry sparked tons of other people to come forward and share their experiences of abuse at these types of schools and programs. She, along with other survivors, ran a whole campaign about breaking code silence on this topic. Her goal was to become the ultimate advocate for survivors of educational abuse or neglect like her and shut these kinds of schools down for good. Hilton took her case all the way to the state senate of Utah and testified about the abuse she experienced at the Provo Canyon School in Springville, Utah, in order to help pass a bill that would make government supervision over independent schools necessary.
Source: The Lambert Post
Despite that the movement on her protests and activism has slowed down, her initial outcry sent her straight back in the spotlight. Later in 2020, she released a documentary about her life on YouTube called, This is Paris. The documentary gave audiences a completely different view on the ex-reality star's life. She no longer used the persona and voice that she had used throughout the beginning of her career and tried to show her genuine self on camera. Paris broke down a lot of the assumptions about her being dumb and shallow by admitting that the majority of her reality TV appearances were acting. She allowed herself to be vulnerable in a way that audiences had never seen before.
Since 2020, she has exploded back on the scene. She has joined and created content for current social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, is currently producing nineteen different product lines, and will be releasing new music soon. Paris was most recently seen on Miley Cyrus's New Year's Eve Party singing a new rendition of her song, "Stars Are Blind." This was in conjunction with the announcement of her releasing new music, including a new version of "Stars Are Blind," called "Stars Are Blind (Paris's Version)."
On a more personal note, Paris married author and entrepreneur, Carter Reum, in 2021, and they welcomed a baby boy via surrogate just last month, which both garnered huge attention. It has become clear that Paris is back and here to stay!
It is pretty rare to see a celebrity so easily slip back into the spotlight after being gone for a good period of time, but Paris Hilton seems to be the exception and has done it effortlessly well.