Paris Whitney Hilton is an American media personality, businesswoman, and socialite. Born in New York City, and raised there and in Los Angeles, she is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, the founder of Hilton Hotels. Hilton’s breakout came in 2003, when she starred with her childhood friend and socialite counterpart Nicole Richie in the Fox reality series The Simple Life, in which they lived for a month with a family in the rural community of Altus, Arkansas.