The reality star looks back on the infamous sex tape in her upcoming book, 'Paris: The Memoir.'
Paris Hilton is revealing the story behind her infamous sex tape.
In an excerpt from her upcoming book, Paris: The Memoir, published by The Times in the U.K. on Saturday, the reality star-turned-entrepreneur opens up about the sex tape she made with then-boyfriend Rick Salomon when she was 19. According to USA Today, which confirmed the validity of the excerpt, Hilton does not mention Salomon by name in her account but noted that they began dating when she was 18 and referred to him by his nickname, "Scum."
"I don’t remember that much about the night he wanted to make a videotape while we made love," Hilton, 42, wrote in the excerpt, according to USA Today.
Hilton detailed that Salomon, a professional poker player, "kept pushing" for them to make a tape until she eventually agreed.
"I wasn't capable of the level of trust required to make a videotape like that," the heiress wrote, reports The Insider. "I had to drink myself silly. Quaaludes helped. But I did it. I have to own that. I knew what he wanted, and I went with it."
"He told me if I wouldn’t do it, he could easily find someone who would, and that was the worst thing I could think of -- to be dumped by this grown man because I was a stupid kid who didn’t know how to play grown-up games," Hilton wrote, via USA Today. "The truth is, I wanted to be alive in a sensual way. I wanted to feel like a woman who’s comfortable in her own skin."
Hilton wrote that she "felt like my life was over, and in many ways it was," speaking specifically to the aftermath of the sex tape's release. "Certainly, the career I had envisioned was no longer possible. Everything I wanted my brand to be, the trust and respect I was trying to rebuild with my parents, the sliver of self-worth I’d been able to recover -- all that was instantly in ruins."
Hilton also cleared up speculation that she had anything to do with the leak, years after she and Salomon had split and amid the launch of her Fox reality series with Nicole Richie, The Simple Life.
"If this was something I had chosen to do, I would have owned it... I would have stood by it, capitalized on it, licensed the shit out of every frame, and then boogied on over to the bank without apologizing to anyone," she claimed in the excerpt.
In 2020, Hilton told People that she "never" would have made the sex tape with Salomon had it not been for childhood trauma.
"I would never have let anyone into my life like [Salomon]," she said at the time. "I met the worst person I could meet and if I hadn't gone to [boarding school], I wouldn't have entertained the thought of letting him into my life. [Boarding school] affected my future relationships."
"I didn't really understand what love or relationships were. I thought that them getting so crazy meant that they were in love with me. Looking back, I can't believe I let people treat me like that," Hilton said.
With the release of Paris: The Memoir (out March 14) one week away, Hilton spoke with ET about what readers can expect from the tell-all book.
"Everything," she said in December. "I was just reading it again the other night. There's so many things I haven't spoken about with my sister, with my mother, none of my friends. No one. It's an important story, just things that I went through." Hilton hoped that when people read her book, they get wisdom from her life experiences -- from "what to do in life, what not to do." "I've had all this time to really tell my true story."
RELATED CONTENT:
