Paris Hilton remembers being ‘publicly humiliated’ by David Letterman, Sarah Silverman

Paris Hilton is talking about facing media “abuses”, explaining how David Letterman and Sarah Silverman used their prison sentence in 2007 as a joke.

“There’s no way that could happen today,” said the 40-year-old businesswoman and media personality during an episode of her podcast This is paris. “It is such a different world today.”

Still, while reflecting on the New York Times Presents documentary Framing Britney Spears, Hilton admitted that television presenters and nighttime comedians had certain targets for his comedy at the time, including her, Spears and Jessica Simpson. Some of Hilton’s worst experiences came around his arrest for DUI in 2006 and subsequent arrest in 2007.

“So at that point, I haven’t given an interview in months and months because I just didn’t want to talk about it. So Letterman kept calling my PR team so I was on the show and we kept saying no. And then, months later, I had a fragrance being released and his team called again. And basically, my public relations team made a deal with him that it was off limits and he wouldn’t discuss it and that we would be there just to promote the perfume and my others commercial ventures, “explained Hilton. “I felt it was a safe place because I had been using Letterman for so many years and he always had fun with me and played, but I thought he would keep his word about it and I was wrong.”

The interview recently resurfaced on social media, as people began to draw attention to old interviews with young celebrities and to reevaluate how many were mistreated by the media. With this one in particular, Hilton said Letterman was “trying to humiliate me on purpose”.

“So there wasn’t supposed to be a question [about jail time] and then he continued to push and push me and I was getting very uncomfortable and very upset, “continued Hilton.” During commercial breaks, I looked at him like, ‘Please stop doing this. You promised me that you wouldn’t talk about it and that’s the only reason I agreed to go to the program. Please don’t touch the subject again. ‘He’s like,’ Okay. ‘ And then again, it’s just the whole audience, he was making people laugh. It was very cruel and cruel. And then, after it was over, I just looked at him and said, ‘I will never go on this show again. You crossed the line. ‘”

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Hilton said Letterman immediately made attempts to apologize to her “by sending letters, calling my team”. Eventually, she ended up returning to the program when she was promoting another perfume.

Someone Hilton has not spoken to since he was targeted by the comedian before his 45-day sentence, however, is Silverman.

“What Sarah Silverman did was so disgusting and cruel and mean,” Hilton said of being mugged for her prison sentence while watching the MTV Awards, which Silverman presented, hours before Hilton surrendered.

“Just getting dressed, going over there, I had made that commitment … I was trying to be brave. Just to sit in the audience with [Silverman] literally humiliating me publicly, being so cruel, so cruel. I was sitting there wanting to die. I was trying to hold my tears so tightly, I had tears welling up in my eyes, I literally wanted to run out of the entire room, but I was just trying to be strong and sit there. The whole audience is laughing, “recalls Hilton.”[She] it would not stop. It was so painful, especially what I was going through in my life, so having someone so mean about it was really difficult. “

Hilton posted a clip of her podcast about Silverman’s roast on her Instagram, where she called it one of the “most traumatic experiences of my life.”

“I understand a joke, but being taken by surprise by a fellow artist kept me going,” Hilton said in the post on Monday. “On the first day of Women’s History Month, we should all be happy with the advancement of comedy and the fact that the bar has been raised for the sake of today’s young women in entertainment.”

Silverman was recently asked to bake Spears at the same MTV Awards, calling the singer’s children “adorable mistakes” shortly after her performance. Although Silverman has not yet publicly apologized to Hilton or Spears, the comedian addressed the comments she made about the singer on Twitter.

According Us Weekly, Silverman also addressed the offensive jokes a few days after the performance.

“The joke that upset everyone – me calling children ‘adorable mistakes’ – was the most innocuous joke. It never occurred to me that it would be considered offensive or exaggerated,” she told the publication at the time. “I don’t want to get into fights with girls half my age. I’m in it to be funny and not for drama. It’s embarrassing.”

In the podcast episode, Hilton praised the growing conversations about mental health and the #MeToo movement for the way “women are now being respected”, saying people are “finally doing the right thing”. And while she did not want the kind of harassment she faced in the hands of the media against anyone, Hilton admitted that previous abuse was what helped her deal with it.

“I think the only reason I was able to go through all this and be so strong is because I went through hell and came back as a teenager, being abused verbally, physically, emotionally and psychologically daily for almost two years of my life. So, that was before I was famous, it was before I was anything. It was when I was developing as a young woman, “explained Hilton, referring to her time at Provo Canyon School. “I think going through something like this made me very strong, almost as if I was used to it. Which is sad to think, but I think if I hadn’t been through this, I don’t know where I would be at this point because that kind of abuse … It’s literally abuse. “

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