The couple tied the knot in 2021 and welcomed their son in early 2023.
Paris Hilton questioned her sexuality before she met her husband. The 41-year-old DJ covers the March 2023 issue of Harper's Bazaar, and reveals in the accompanying interview that, in her 20s, she started to privately think of herself as asexual.
"I was known as a sex symbol, but anything sexual terrified me," she explains. "I called myself the 'kissing bandit' because I only liked to make out. A lot of my relationships didn't work out because of that."
When she met Carter Reum at a friend's event in 2019, that all changed.
"It wasn't until Carter that I finally am not that way," Hilton says, before quipping, "I enjoy hooking up with my husband."
As for what attracted her to the 42-year-old venture capitalist, Hilton says, "He's not famous. He's smart. He comes from a nice family. He's a good person. It was the opposite of what I had been used to when I was looking for guys."
"I just feel like after all the hell I've been through, I'm finally getting what I deserve," she says, "which is someone I can trust and someone to build a real life with."
The couple started building that life when they tied the knot in November 2021, and continued it when they welcomed their son via surrogate in January 2023. The arrival of their firstborn was a surprise to friends and fans alike, as Hilton, Reum and their surrogate were the only people privy to their baby on the way.
"My entire life has been so public. I've never had anything for myself," Hilton says. "We decided that we wanted to have this whole experience to ourselves."
Now that she's a mom, Hilton says she's "more interested in babies than billions."
"I want to protect him and to be with him every second. You have this mother instinct that kicks in, which I've never had before. I feel so complete now," she says, adding that she hopes to have a daughter one day.
Earlier this month, a source told ET about Hilton's joy amid motherhood.
"Paris finally feels like everything in her life is picture perfect. A baby was the last piece of the puzzle for her to truly live out her fairy tale. Her greatest purpose is being a mom and her priorities have shifted," the source said. "Paris and Carter are thinking about long-term plans and they want to enjoy parenthood and focus on that together. They're talking about winding down a lot in the future and giving all their attention to their baby above all else. They are so over the moon and they're so over the moon to finally have started their family."
Hilton's life as a mom is a far cry from how she became known to the world, as someone with a ditsy persona that she describes as "dumb blonde with a sweet but sassy edge." That act was Hilton's "steel-plated armor," covering up the trauma she says she experienced at boarding schools as a teen.
"I started thinking, 'What am I going to do when I get out of here? I am going to work so hard and become so successful that my parents, these people, a man -- no one will ever tell me what to do again,'" she says. "I really equated money to freedom, independence, and happiness. That became my laser-beam focus."
As a result of that "deep trauma," Hilton developed "this whole Barbie-doll, airhead 'perfect life' persona" as soon as she reentered the world.
"I had no agent, no publicist, no stylist. I had a fake email address and would pretend to be my [own] manager," she says. "I remember walking out with my sister and having 50 photographers screaming my name. I was like, 'Oh, this is what love is.'"
Then came The Simple Life, the reality series she starred on with Nicole Richie.
"That's when the character really came out, because the producers wanted Nicole to be the troublemaker and [me to] be the airhead. Everyone assumed that's who I was in real life," Hilton says, adding that she didn't exactly push back on that idea.
"I made sure I never had a quiet moment to figure out who I was without her," she says of her persona. "I was afraid of that moment because I didn't know what I'd find."
After the release of her 2020 documentary, This Is Paris, and her subsequent outspokenness against the troubled-teen industry, Hilton feels "so proud of the woman that I've become."
"I just was not secure," she says of life in her teens and 20s. "Now I feel that people finally respect me and get me in ways that they never did."
Now that there's been a change in how the public views her, Hilton says "it's a good feeling to be real [and] to not feel like some cartoon character all the time."
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