It’s been almost a decade since their feud began, but have Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian finally called a truce?
This past week I’ve seen my fair share of articles about the decade-long war between the ex-BFFs, but none of them seemed to get it right. They either based their account of the tiff off of miscaptioned Tumblr gifs of Paris telling Kim to “clean her closet,” or misconceptions about Kim’s role in Paris’ life to begin with (No, she was never Paris’ maid). So I figured it’s my duty as the only person who cares about mid-2000s tabloid culture to set the record straight.
The year is 2006; Britney is driving with a baby on her lap, Mel Gibson’s in rehab, and David Miscavige is thanking Xenu for a little gift called Suri. In the world of Paris Hilton, though, things are hotter than ever.
In the year since her split from one-time BFF Nicole Richie - rumored to have been spurred by a “sex tape” viewing party, or Hilton’s penchant for racial slurs - Paris had cycled through an array of temporary pals, generating countless headlines in the process.
2005 welcomed a brief public companionship with Taradise star Tara Reid, who later claimed she wasn’t even close with the fellow party girl to begin with: “Yes, I hang out with Paris and we’re friends. She’s a great girl, she’s fun, but we don’t arrange to go out; I normally just see her out and someone says, ‘Let me take a photo of you two.’ I don’t have her number, she doesn’t have mine.” (The leaked contacts from Paris’ '05 Sidekick hack proved this to be true).
After a summer of drinking and nip slips in St. Tropez, the girls’ tabloid truce fizzled, and Paris kicked her to the curb for a new BFF: Kimberly Stewart.
While the girls had been childhood friends, it wasn’t until Nicole left the picture that Paris saw a potential new soul to suck the life out of in the motorcycle-crashing daughter of Rod Stewart, even pitching to FOX executives that Kimbo should replace Nicole on The Simple Life. While Paris’ request was never granted, mostly because nobody has ever given a flying fuck about Kimberly Stewart, she still held on hope, keeping Stewart by her side throughout 2005 - and even having her ride shotgun during an infamous In-N-Out-bound DUI in September 2006, but 2006 also welcomed a new face to the Hilton entourage.
While Stewart & Reid had long been photographed with Paris before their highly publicized dalliances in 2005, Paris’ new pal was a relative unknown. On April 12, 2006, Hilton appeared at a Hollywood event with a Blackberry in one hand, and a girl named Kim Kardashian in the other:
The choice to introduce Kardashian to the world was hardly an overnight decision, though. Two months earlier, filming for the fourth season of The Simple Life had begun, and the show’s premiere that June introduced Kardashian as Hilton’s latest pal:
The season’s premiere would be Kimmy K’s first foray into reality TV, after dropping out of Joe Simpson’s Simple Life knockoff Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive the previous year, later to be replaced by her sister Kourtney.
Why she dropped out of Cattle Drive is unknown, but history’s proved that the decision was probably for the best. After debuting their friendship for red carpet cameras in April, Kim & Paris continued to be photographed at events together amidst Paris’ many feuds with other former pals, like Lindsay Lohan.
While Lindsay & Paris had been friends since even before the Mean Girls days, 2006 welcomed a headline-making bust-up between the two party girls - the reasons for which vary, but that’s a story for another post. A month after hitting the red carpet with Kim, Paris was spotted cackling outside of a Hollywood club with sister Nicky, longtime friend Caroline D'Amore, super-publicist Elliot Mintz, and former frenemy Brandon Davis (Also known as 'Greasy Bear’ or 'Fat Elvis,’ I’ll affectionally refer to him as both throughout this post). While Paris & Greasy had been friends once upon a time, in 2004 they parted ways due to Paris’ racism and anti-Semitism. Greasy found it in his heart to forgive Paris, however, and during this infamous May 2006 night on the town, he branded La Lohan a “Firecrotch,” and made several racially-charged jabs at Lindsay’s ex-boyfriend Wilmer Valderrama - I guess we can see why he forgave Paris!
The bloodbath between Hilton and Lohan would carry out throughout 2006 and 2007, and would later play a role in another feud brewing in Hilton’s world. Prior to the Lohan entanglement, though, Paris was already sparring with another starlet in the press - Greasy Bear’s ex-girlfriend Mischa Barton.
Unlike the other feuds, and a special one to come, Paris & Mischa were never pals. Actually, Mischa’s involvement in the Hollywood it-girl circle started with her friendship with Nicole Richie, which grew after Nicole and Paris parted ways. This, combined with the fact that Mischa dumped Greasy for Hilton’s then-pal Kimberly Stewart’s ex-fiance Cisco Adler (Obligatory NSFW picture of his balls), ignited a war between the two girls, culminating in a February 2006 statement from Mischa to the Daily Mirror: “[Paris] seems to hate everyone around her age who is more successful.” Like the Lohan feud, this tabloid tussle will play a role in another one of Paris’ battles to come, and Mischa’s remark will prove to be quite prophetic.
As the spring of 2006 turned to summer, Paris was enjoying the height of her fame. June welcomed the release of her song Stars Are Blind, and July spurred a reunion in St. Tropez between Hilton and her ex-boyfriend Stavros Niarchos, who had been spotted canoodling with Lilo days after he split with Paris earlier that year.
Also in St. Tropez was the latest addition to Paris’ posse, Kim K.
The girls laughed it up as they attended Pam Anderson’s wedding to Kid Rock, and then united with Greasy Bear & Scott Storch at Diddy’s annual White Party:
When they returned to Hollywood in August, though, Kim’s own celebrity would begin to rise. During a night on the town later that month, the Hilton/Kardashian duo strutted up to the door of the Sunset Blvd. hotspot Hyde as Hilton’s one-time pal Tara Reid was left waiting outside.
In a very “Was I the new 'Queen Bee’?” moment, Tara had officially entered the D-List, while Paris’ new BFF had quietly risen on the Hollywood totem pole. With her name suddenly making headlines, Kim’s presence only continued to grow in the fall. Despite a DUI arrest in early September, German wine producer Rich Prosecco had no qualms with Paris as the face of their brand for a weeklong European promotional tour in late September. Kim tagged along as Paris visited Munich’s Oktoberfest:
And then the girls closed out their trip with a visit to Venice:
It wasn’t until the girls’ return to Hollywood that the cracks in their friendship began to form.
In October 2006, Paris became embroiled in yet another Tinseltown battle, this time with Travis Barker’s ex-wife Shanna Moakler. After Paris and Travis were spotted getting cozy at a club, the two blondes threw down at Hyde, and filed police reports against one another afterwards.
But despite her growing list of feuds, an embattled Paris finally decided to call a truce with one of her greatest frenemies: Nicole Richie. A week after the Moakler brawl, Paris reunited with her Simple Life costar at Dan Tana’s in Hollywood, - amidst daily reports that Nicole was in or out of rehab and allegedly struggling with a deathly eating disorder, all of which she denied.
But while Paris was making amends with one friend, her summertime pal was cozying up to another:
While the Kardashians had already known La Lohan, this was the first time the girls were all photographed together. Also with them was another Hilton frenemy: Sarah Howard, an aspiring actress who Paris described as “desperate” in a 2003 interview.
But despite a tumultuous yearlong tiff filled with Blackberry hackings and Scott Storch-produced diss tracks, the Hilton/Lohan war seemed to have cooled when the girls were spotted at Hyde, days after Paris helped Kim celebrate her 26th birthday in Vegas - at one point taking the house mic and shouting: “Hey you fuckers - it’s my friend Kim’s birthday! I love you bitch!”
But peace in it-girl-dom was short-lived.
November 2006 brought upon a resurgence of the Hilton/Lohan feud, allegedly because of Paris hooking up with Lilo’s ex-boyfriend Harry Morton, and while leaving the Roosevelt Hotel one night, Lindsay told paparazzi that Paris was a “cunt.”
The following night, Lindsay reunited with Kim:
But before Hilton had time to address the latest shot from Team Firecrotch, she made a new best friend… Britney Spears.
The newly single popstar and the internationally-despised heiress debuted their love for one another during a weekend in Sin City:
And when they returned to Hollywood, they blessed X17 photographers with daily crotch shots, nights out at Les Deux, and eventually a meeting of the minds with good ol’ Lilo (Who told paparazzi hours earlier that Paris had hit her):
But despite all the Britney buzz, Kim was still not yet a thing of the past.
She joined Paris and Britney for many of their nights at Area, Social, and Teddy’s, but her profile remained low until days after Christmas 2006, when she joined Paris for one last Olsen-esq world journey. The destination? Australia.
Days before the new year, the girls jetted off to Sydney for some shopping and partying:
And even a hospital visit:
But the trip also marked another turning point in Kim’s own celebrity. A blind item that surfaced on the Internet prior to the girls’ landing in Sydney suggested that Paris’ pal, too, had a sex tape, the costar being her ex-boyfriend Ray J. Kim, however, denied the rumors and claimed: “There is no tape! It is false!”
Despite her insistence on the story being a lie, the girls’ first appearance of 2007 would become their swan song. Days into the new year, the duo attended the Los Angeles premiere of Alpha Dog, arm in arm like the good ol’ days:
But not long after, the Kardashian sex tape went from a gossip blog rumor to confirmed and available to the highest bidder. Less than a month later, the tape leaked online, and the curtains came to a close on Paris and Kim, the first blow coming with Paris’ 26th birthday in February 2007.
While she was joined by the usual suspects - Nicole, Fat Elvis, Stavros, and Nicky, her onetime-pal Kim was noticeably absent. Several gossip sites reported at the time that Paris declined to invite her due to jealousy, believing that the newly quasi-famous Kardashian would steal Paris’ thunder on her big day.
Around the same time, Kim was in Manhattan for Fashion Week and received a text from Paris’ former party pal Britney asking to hang out, but declined fearing that her newly-anointed frenemy would get mad. She also claimed to have seen Britney get coked-up once, and even heard of her screwing a guy in a club bathroom - rumored to have been Greasy Bear himself. This tidbit comes from an angry blog written by Kim’s self-proclaimed former publicist Jonathan Jaxson, though.
Jaxson went on to claim that at LA Fashion Week weeks later, Kim tried her best to avoid Paris, fearing a confrontation if the two girls crossed paths. He capped off his post by stating that when he would talk to magazine editors on Kim’s behalf, they seemed eager to feature her, as they had grown tired of Paris and felt it was time for someone new to step into the spotlight. The timing seemed perfect for Kim to step out of Paris’ shadow and become her own. Kim said as much during a MySpace back-and-forth with Haylie Duff - who’d feuded with Paris years prior over the song Screwed (Kim later called Haylie a “horse” and a “slut,” but Haylie’s since maintained the messages are fake… despite them coming from a blog on her own MySpace):
And it was true. By 2007, the Paris backlash was in full effect. Shortly after Kim and Paris’ final public appearance, the contents of Paris’ storage locker were leaked online via a website called ’Paris Exposed.’ Amongst the leaked material: medical records, Paris’ Valtrex prescription for her long-rumored herpes, homemade sex tapes, videos of Paris and Nicole doing drugs, in addition to videos of Paris and her friends using racial slurs. Weeks after getting the website shut down, a fading Hilton was busted driving on a suspended license, resulting in a Los Angeles judge throwing the book at her and sending a tearful Paris to jail that June. The media coverage of her legal troubles was so intense that the Associated Press imposed a weeklong ban on Paris news, and to top it all off, Paris’ claim to fame (aside from the sex tape), The Simple Life, was coming to an end.
August 2007 marked the finale of the fifth season of the reality show that propelled onetime best friends Paris and Nicole to international fame, and with Nicole expecting a child with boyfriend Joel Madden, her days as Paris’ tabloid companion seemed to be over.
Paris sought desperately for a replacement, hitting the club circuit with everyone from her House of Wax costar Elisha Cuthbert to failed reality star Brittny Gastineau (Who’d later switch firmly to Camp Kardashian) to porn star Jenna Jameson and even Kimbo Stewart… again… months after calling her a “ho” on The Simple Life, but none of these temporary pals seemed to stick.
Meanwhile, Paris’ former friend was snapped with her enemies: La Lohan and Mischa Barton - who accurately predicted the power of Hilton’s jealousy a year prior:
And a little over two months after the final episode of The Simple Life aired on E!, a new reality show was premiering on the same network: Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
The show catapulted Paris’ ex-BFF into her own, and soon tabloids began to introduce Kim Kardashian without a title prefacing it, just the name. While she had snitched about Paris’ secrets to tabloids like In Touch for months prior to the demise of their friendship, she now got the exposure she wanted in return, and Hilton was far from pleased.
(I went through my tabloid collection & found that In Touch was the only magazine to regularly feature Kim throughout 2006/2007 - I wonder why!)
Paris’ first public dig at the newly-famous Kim came in April 2008 when she was a guest on a Las Vegas morning radio talk show. When asked if she’d rather have “Jessica Simpson’s rack or Kim Kardashian’s ass,” she responded that Kim’s ass was “gross” and that it reminded her of “cottage cheese inside of a big trash bag.”
Paris quickly told In Touch that the comment was just a “stupid joke” and that she called Kim to apologize. Kim confirmed and said: “Paris and I have been friends since we were kids and I’m glad she made the effort to say she’s sorry.” The following January, the girls smiled together for a picture at Sundance:
But the war between the two was far from over. Less than a month after Kim split with Reggie Bush in 2010, he was photographed partying with her arch-enemy:
Even though Paris claimed there was nothing going on between them, Kim was peeved, and a few months later she made a dig at Hilton during a club night in Vegas. When Paris requested her song Stars Are Blind, Kim, who was there with Jonathan Cheban, reportedly took the mic and said: “Now let’s hear some real music!”
The following year, Kim told Harper’s Bazaar: “There comes a point in life where you just grow apart and you realize you’re not as similar as you thought. I never run into [Paris] anywhere? Isn’t that so weird?”
While Paris was promoting her soon-to-be-cancelled TV show The World According To Paris months later, an interviewer asked her if she felt her moment had “passed” and if Kim had overshadowed her. Without saying a word, she turned to her publicist, got up and left.
A friend of Kim’s told The Huffington Post afterwards that Kim laughed when she saw how Paris had acted during the interview, and that she “doesn’t talk about her or even think about her, which is pretty much the same as everyone else in America.”
Another Kim confidante, Jonathan Cheban (Who used to leech off of Nicole & Paris prior to joining Camp Kardashian), said: “Paris is so jealous. Forget Paris, Kim is now bigger than movie stars. Paris who?” Another Z-Lister that used to leech off of Paris before switching over to Team Kardashian, Brittny Gastineau, echoed similar sentiments: “I think it’s really sad that she can’t be happy for a one-time friend and doesn’t realize what goes around comes around.”
To further the sting, the following month Kim invited Hilton Enemy No. 1, Lindsay Lohan, to her Kris Humphries wedding extravaganza, while Paris’ invite was, well, nonexistent.
Kim and Lindsay had remained good friends since their parting of ways with Paris, and Kim even supported Lindsay during her jail stint in 2010, while she hadn’t said a peep to Paris during her own jailtime in 2007.
And while Paris enjoyed the backlash Kim received after her marriage to Kris blew up, she still felt the sting in May 2012 when the girls were reunited on Diddy’s yacht in Cannes… also there? Tara Reid.
But things came full circle when Kim and Tara chatted it up, leaving Hollywood’s former Regina George sitting by herself. Tragic.
But Paris and Kim did play nice later that year when they ran into each other at a club during Art Basel. TMZ reported at the time that they were chatting it up like old times, but while Paris continued to claim Kim and her were on friendly terms in interviews, there was still envy on her end. In 2014, she ’accidentally’ tweeted a link to an article titled: “Kim Kardashian Making It The Old-Fashioned Way; On Her Back” She quickly deleted the link and tweeted this in its place:
Oops, just realized I mistakenly retweeted a story someone sent me. Hate when I leave my phone unlocked in my purse & it tweets & texts.
— Paris Hilton (@ParisHilton)
April 11, 2014
When the girls ran into each other later that year in Ibiza, however, they seemed to be on good terms:
And while the girls have since shared nostalgic #TBT images of each other on Instagram, and shared social media birthday wishes occasionally, Paris still harbors some resentment over the way things have turned out in the grand scheme of celebrity. When asked about her impact on Kim’s fame in a 2015 interview, she responded that it’s “nice to inspire people.” And most recently in July 2016, she liked a image on Instagram further alluding to her impact on the Kardashians:
Paris’ sister Nicky liked a similar photo, and Paris’ longtime friend/personal photographer Jennifer Rovero shared this shortly after:
But at Kris Jenner’s Christmas party a week ago, the Hilton family made a rare appearance and seemed to be on good terms with the clan that’s usurped their fame. Kris and Kathy Hilton shared a kiss, while Paris and Kim posed together for a rare shot:
Love my #SexyMamas