Paris Hilton opens up about husband Carter Reum and ‘taking back’ her voice after surviving abuse — exclusive

As comeback stories go, there isn’t any more powerful than Paris Hilton’s, who has finally reclaimed her narrative after 25 years. At the January 20 premiere in Los Angeles of Infinite Icon: A Visual Memoir, a project Paris calls the “third part of my trilogy,” the mother-of-two was sliving on the red carpet – but inside the theater became clearly emotional as she thanked her family and friends, and her “Little Hiltons,” (the name she calls her fans) for sticking by her.

“This film is my story in the way I’ve never told it before,” she told the audience. “For the first time I am getting to share with the world the real me.” Paris was joined by celebrity friends Demi Lovato, Heidi Klum, and Sia, as well as her mom and dad, and husband Carter Reum, and their two children, three-year-old son Phoenix and two-year-old daughter London, who have become her biggest supporters. 

Paris and Carter – who have been married since 2021 – had run in the same circles for year, but it was in 2019 that everything changed for the star, when she saw him at a family friend’s Thanksgiving dinner.

“I really believe that timing is everything and he was the first person that I trusted: I let down the walls that I had around my heart for so long to let him in and now I finally feel safe,” she tells HELLO! “He lifts me up, and supports me in ways that no man ever has – and he doesn’t try to change me.”

In the early 2000s, Paris was synonymous with nightclubs and paparazzi, known for DJing and partying across Los Angeles and New York City with the likes of Nicole Richie, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan, in a time before social media and cell phones. “I’m so happy I grew up in a time where we didn’t have that – it was so fun and so free. You weren’t worried about taking a photo or needing likes,” she says. 

“But I also feel proud that I was able to build a personal brand before there was all this technology. Everyone said, ‘Oh my God, she’s famous for being famous,’ but I was actually very ahead of my time. I knew the power of building a personal brand and monetizing it and creating something out of attention.”

Paris now runs her diverse business empire through her company 11:11 Media which spans beauty, fashion, podcasts, TV, and DJ’ing as well as brand partnerships, but her most important job is raising her two children, which she calls “the most fun and best era of my life”.

“I’m such a kid at heart always, so I love that I can experience all of that with them: going to Disneyland and the arcade and the holidays and Elf on the Shelf and I can’t wait for the tooth fairy and they love the Easter Bunny.” she laughs. 

“Every moment is so special, I want to soak everything in, I’m obsessed with them.”

Paris is raising her children to be close to their cousins – her sister Nicky and brother Barron both have three children – with the family vacationing together, such as a recent trip to Saint Barths, and spending time at each other’s homes. “I love having all of the kids come over to our new house because it’s a kid’s paradise here: they’re running around on the pink tennis court and the golf course, and going down the water slides, or they’re in the movie theater. It’s so nice to see them all growing up together because family is really everything.”

“After becoming a mom, everything changed,” she says. “Time is the most precious thing in the world, and I will say no to so many things because I will always put my children first.”

Yet Paris is also aware of the pitfalls that are coming, as her children become teenagers, get their own phones, and learn the heartache that their mother has gone through. 

The great-granddaughter of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton, Paris’ teen years were spent sneaking out of her bedroom window to go clubbing in New York City and struggling at school as she made her way through the world with undiagnosed ADHD.  

At the age of 16, Paris was sent to a series of boarding schools for troubled teens, including Provo Canyon School, where she was allegedly mentally, physically, and sexually abused by staff. Paris kept her abuse secret for decades, before going public in 2020, and the original club kid says that she “buried a lot of pain because I didn’t know how to talk about it,” but that “reflecting on everything I endured has been a huge part of my healing and allowed me to take back my voice.”

The decision to send her to the school was made by her parents, Kathy and Richard Hilton, who were “manipulated” by educational consultants who made a commission from each student that was sent to the controversial residential treatment center. 

“They saw brochures of the smiling kid riding a horse, and my parents thought I was going to a beautiful, nice place with therapy. They didn’t realize what was happening behind closed doors,” she says. “My heart breaks for my family that they were lied to and manipulated like that. But it’s also been healing for me to explain that to other survivors – a lot of families are broken because they didn’t know that their parents were lied to – and I’m so proud that my mom now flies with me to Washington DC for advocacy work, and she will speak with me to senators and legislators.”

Paris left the school system at the age of 18 and found an escape in music and the club scene, but in 2004, at the height of her fame, ex-boyfriend Rick Solomon released, without her permission, a sex tape he had filmed with Paris when she was 19. 

“It was really hard to live through, to have the whole world judge me based upon one night of my life with someone I loved and trusted,” she says. “Today, that would be illegal and the person would be in jail for doing that, and it makes me happy that other girls don’t have to go through what I did.”

Everything Paris had hoped for in her life changed in that moment, including the knowledge that the way she would be viewed by the world, no matter the advocacy work she worked on, was tainted. 

In one scene in Infinite Icon: A Visual Memoir, she tells the camera that she always admired Princess Diana but knew there would now never be comparisons between the pair.

But Paris has not allowed the actions of one man to determine her story, and says that while filming, it was British director Bruce Robertson who reminded her that she is living the same life as the late Princess.

“He said, ‘Look at what you’re doing, what you do for children and all the incredible advocacy work, you passed two federal bills and 20 state laws to protect children, you’re shining a light all over the world, spreading love and sparkle and joy, and always leading with kindness.’ I had never thought about it like that. I really thought that [Solomon] had taken that away from me… it is making me emotional to think about it, but I’m really proud, and I’m really happy.”

Paris began to reclaim her narrative with the 2020 documentary This Is Paris and then went deeper with the book Paris: The Memoir. “Both of those experiences were truly transformative for me, but releasing my album in 2025 felt like the culmination of reclaiming my voice and accomplishing something that had been inside of me for so long,” she says.

She appeared on the Duchess of Sussex’s podcast Archetypes, and in 2024 she returned to the stage for one-night at the Hollywood Palladium, performing hits from her two albums for 4000 fans.

Infinite Icon: A Visual Memoir traces the rehearsal process and is part concert film and part documentary, connecting Paris’ past heartbreaks with the future joy.

“It was really important to me that this was authentic and vulnerable; life isn’t perfect, and people have emotions, and I wanted people to feel less alone when they see this,” she says of the film. “For me, the character I play I definitely see as an armor, a shield that I put around myself as a trauma response. Hollywood and The Simple Life expanded this character around the world – I would go on the talk shows and play the character again – and I almost forgot who the girl was before the world tried to hurt me. 

“Now, it’s amazing to take the mask down and show people that there’s so much more to me, and that I am making a true impact in the world. Now I see that character not as armor, because I don’t need to be protected anymore, but instead a fun, playful side that will always be a part of me – I like that there can be so many sides to a woman.”