LOS ANGELES, June 27, 2007
Paris Hilton: "I've Been Through A Lot"
Tells Larry King She Was Treated "No Better, No Worse" Than Other Inmates
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Play CBS Video Video People's Paris Interview Julie Chen speaks with Jess Cagle, People magazine's assistant managing editor, about his exclusive interview with Paris Hilton, given hours after her release from a Los Angeles prison.
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Video Eye To Eye: Saving Paris Only On The Web: Hattie Kauffman speaks with Hollywood publicist Michael Levine about Paris Hilton's time behind bars, and whether the heiress can revamp her seemingly tawdry image.
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Video Paris: A Free Woman Amid much media hoopla, Paris Hilton was released from jail after spending a total of 23 days behind bars. However, the heiress will remain on probation until 2009. Hattie Kauffman reports.
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"I'm just going to follow all the laws," said Paris Hilton, in her first TV interview since getting out of jail, on CNN's "Larry King Live," June 27, 2007. (Kyle Christy/CNN)
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Paris Hilton waves to the paparazzi, June 28, 2007, in Los Angeles, as some scream "Paris, we love you!" while trying to get a comment from the heiress on her way to her first interview since leaving jail. (GETTY IMAGES/Frederick M. Brown)
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Paris Hilton, seen here walking away from the jail on June 26, 2007, says the feeling was "exciting" and hard to describe, and, "one of the happiest days" of her life. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
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During the interview, Hilton, in toned-down lace, spoke softly as she sat across from King.
"I've been through a lot," said Hilton, her blond hair cascading across her forehead. "And it was a pretty traumatic experience, something that I really have grown from."
Asked why she was going public about her experience, she told King, "I just want to let people know what I went through." It was her first broadcast interview since being released.Photos: Paris Gets Ready For Her Close-Up
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She added that going to jail was the last thing she expected when Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ordered her to his court in May for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case."God does make everything happen for a reason... it gave me, you know, a timeout in life just to really find out what is important and what I want to do, figure out who I am."
Paris Hilton"I was walking in there assuming I was just going to get community service," Hilton said. "That's what my lawyer said at the time. So when he sentenced me to that much time in jail it was shocking, because that doesn't happen, ever.
"It wasn't for DUI, it was for suspended license," said Hilton.
The heiress revealed that her red carpet visit to the MTV Movie Awards the night she entered jail in early June was a ruse to throw off the press.
"Actually, I was playing a trick on everyone," she said. "Because outside my house, outside the Lynwood facility, there were paparazzi, I heard, from all around the world. So I thought, if I went to the MTV Awards, snuck out during the show, I could get there unnoticed. And that's what we did. No one even saw me going in... I don't want to cause a whole media circus going in."
King asked Hilton for her opinion of fellow celebrities Nicole Richie, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan.
She described Spears as "sweet" and a "good mom," who "loves her children."
Hilton is concerned for Richie, who is now facing the possibility of serving time for a DUI. "She's like my sister," said Hilton. "I love her so much and I don't want anything bad to happen to her."
She said she wishes only the best for Lohan, who is currently in rehab, and agrees that she's talented. Asked how well she knows the young actress, Hilton said simply: "I know her."
A few minutes later, King asked whether Lohan had any friends in rehab, and Hilton said "no."
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- Paris Hilton is an idiot and unfortunately you people don't appear to be much smarter. Do you people actually believe that she has been through "a lot"? There is nobody in the real world that isn't sickened by this load of ***. She will never know what a hard time involves. She may have been uncomfortable, I don't even believe that, but, she has never seen a "tough time".
Michael Blaisdell
Bethel, Maine - Reply to this comment
- Her life's purpose has been to be seen. Period. She put herself in the position to be seen as someone out of control and needing someone of authority (her parents are diptwads)to set boundaries for her. It may have been extreme...for Hollywood and celebrities...but what she went through for 'just a suspended license' happens to ordinary people hundreds of times a day all over this country. Injustice? Please. She got exactly what she had been asking for and now she needs to take her lesson learned and turn it into something useful for someone else. Still a cry baby.
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- I wanted to place a comment under the article "Who's Hollywood's Wildest Child?" but there wasn't a comment section - maybe it should have been titled 'Who's Hollywood's Worst Role Model' or 'Who's Got The Biggest Divide Between Their Celebrity And Societal Respect For Their Contributions To Society', or something like that instead.
I think it's a huge mistake to sort of glamorize their misdeeds as just 'wildness' because apparently part of their appeal to young kids is the fact that they are 'naughty' but everybody still gives them all that attention and wants them to be in interviews and movies and come to their parties. Like some impressionable kids are apparently getting the message that so long as you work hard to dress cute and act ditzy you're going to have a cool life. If these girls are going to be media fixtures for a while then hopefully at least the media will give some thought to repackaging their behavior as socially undesireable . . . - Reply to this comment
- "I've been through a lot," said Hilton...
Oh I'm crying!
Hope she didn't break a nail... - Reply to this comment
- I was interested to hear that she will continue to club hop and party. Excuse me, but didn't she just say (while in jail), that she needed to seek out new friends? Wearing less makeup and TRYING to quote the Bible doesn't a new, changed person make.
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- I am honestly sick to death of hearing anything about this idiotic selfish person. She has no idea what real suffering is or any other tragic event in a normal persons life. I can't understand what makes anything she does newsworthy. She has no real value and contributes nothing to real life. I only responded to this story to say just how uninterested I am in her or anything about her and I won't be buying anything that has a story about her in it. Just had to tell you this.
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- I hope there is a God and she never procreates.
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- Shame on Larry King and the public for watching and me for contributing to this sad story.
I think Paris' parents should have shared adjoining jail cells for their roles in "raising" this spoiled brat. - Reply to this comment
- She has been thru a lot? What a joke!!! This kid has no clue what is like to go thru a lot!! Too much money to little knowledge!!! She has no clue what is to go thru a lot.... she has not gone without food or clothing, or without a job and, and.... I could go on and on....how come the media spends so much time on this issue when there are other major issues like the war in Iraq, the situations in countries like Venezuela, the people starving in the US as well as in Africa..... I could careless what she has to say.... how about if you donate all your money to those that are in major need and experience the true difficult times in life? maybe then, I will be believe and listen to what this kid has to say...... To the media, please focus on more important issues than this....
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- ***FAKE****FAKE****FAKE**
man was that a waste of breathe on the larry king show. the *** couldn't even think of a favorite bible phrase. I thought she was writing down notes as she had her papers by her side. not one verse was taken down. hmmmmm? fake a$$ beeeyotch.
oh and then she said she had ADD. the wench didn't even know what it was. she said she had it ALL her life, then turns around and says she had it since she was 12/ was she born at 12?
oh wait a minute; she does act like she is.
anyhow had to throw my 2 cents in...
p.s. excuse my grammer - this is not an english class. - Reply to this comment
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