THE CERULEAN SKY over Beverly Hills is silvering its way toward nightfall when I find myself trapped at Paris Hilton’s. The photographer and crew have packed up and left with their sundry equipment. The stylists have packed up and left with countless lumpy bags and a large box they’d struggled to fit in their car. The landscapers have packed up and left in a white truck laden with an alarming amount of foliage. Even the helicopters overhead have stopped their mosquito whine. A hush has fallen over Hilton’s stately driveway (where her pink Bentley sits with a flat tire) and over her Italianate mansion (where a neon-pink glow emanates from one entire wing). And here I am, shaking the curlicues of an elaborate wrought-iron gate that had been wide open earlier and wondering how the hell to get out of this gilded paradise.
It is, admittedly, not a bad place to be stuck, I think to myself as I wander the grounds looking for an alternate means of egress. There are palm trees of biblical proportions and a multitiered fountain. There are potted plants and cherubic statues. There is an entrance as imposing as the Vatican’s, save for a neon-rainbow welcome mat and a grand, columned foyer in which stands a life-size, stuffed alpaca (a gift from the Kardashians, as it turns out). Down a soaring hallway, there is a well-appointed family room of sorts, if family rooms typically boasted neon signs of the Chanel logo and studded Versace pillows and a smudge stick resting on an ashtray emblazoned with the words “You’re Fucking Awesome.” And in that very room, just moments ago, there was Hilton herself, nestled into a corner of the creamy couch, cozy in a hot-pink tracksuit and rainbow socks, and talking about her newish husband and her new baby and her even newer book, Paris: The Memoir, which, she later tells me, she wrote because she “suppressed so much” and found that “opening up was just so healing.” And because she knows what you might think when you hear the words “Paris Hilton,” and, truth be told, she was “so over that narrative.”
Plus, the narrative doesn’t even track. Now she’s a wife. Now she’s a mom. Now, on this day in late February, she has a one-month-old baby boy, Phoenix Barron Hilton-Reum, who is not just named for a city, like his mother, but also for a mythical creature that rises from the ashes. Now, she and her husband, venture capitalist Carter Reum, have successfully pulled off one of the most impressive moves in the history of celebrity by keeping their baby’s entire existence a secret until a full week after he was born. The Hiltons didn’t even know. The Reums didn’t even know. The only people who knew were the medical team and the surrogate, who watched episodes of The Simple Life while pregnant so that the fetus would get used to the sound of his mother’s voice. Hilton had thrown on a brunette wig when they got the news that Phoenix was arriving a week and a half early, and the couple rushed to Cedars-Sinai hospital, where they cried as they witnessed their baby being born. He’d been so healthy, they’d taken him home that very night, dispensing with staff (save for a baby nurse) and hunkering down in their mansion in awe at what they’d accomplished. “It was just like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m a mom,’” says Hilton. “My life has just been so public, my whole life has been, just, invaded; I felt like, for my baby, I just wanted him to come into the world and just be here and not have all this weird…” she trails off, not even sure how to articulate what “this” is, or the extent of its weirdness.
Then the moment gets meta: One of the most photographed women in the world — who in fact had just come from a photo shoot that was itself documented by a film crew for the second season of her reality show Paris in Love — begins scrolling through her phone for a picture of her own literal creation. She lands on the image, holding out the device to proudly show the tiny little features of a tiny little human under a tiny little hat. “This is when he was three hours old,” she says. “He was so freaking cute. He came out camera-ready.” She says this and then laughs at the ridiculousness of the statement, the Paris Hilton–ness of it. But then also: Look at him. He really did!
Reum, a boyish and buoyant Midwesterner in navy sweats, lopes into the room to check on his wife. “Oh, you got the preview!” he says to me excitedly when he sees the picture of Phoenix. Hardly anyone has yet seen the actual baby, though a few days ago at Hilton’s birthday party — a small gathering that included Sia, Rebel Wilson, and Hilton’s sister, Nicky — some friends had crept upstairs to take a peek.
Full interview: rollingstone.com