After the recent premiere of the New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears, several talk show appearances have resurfaced, showing the numerous ways members of the media have mistreated famous women. One of those was a 2007 interview between David Letterman and Paris Hilton, which Hilton criticized during Monday’s episode of her podcast, This Is Paris.
“Letterman’s team kept calling my PR team to have me be on the show, and we kept saying no,” Hilton told her sister, Nicky Hilton. “And then, months later, I had a fragrance coming out, and his team called again, and basically my PR team made an agreement with them that [jail] was off-limits and he would not discuss it and we would only be there to promote the perfume and my other business ventures. I felt like it was a safe place because I’d been going on Letterman for so many years, and he’d always have fun with me and joke around, but I thought he would keep his word on this, and I was wrong.”
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During the interview, Letterman repeatedly asked Paris about the three weeks she had spent in jail that summer for violating her probation by driving with a suspended license. Telling the host that jail was “a really traumatic experience,” Paris was clearly uncomfortable during the interview. On her podcast, she recalled that “there was not supposed to be one question” about her time in jail, but Letterman “just kept pushing me and pushing me” to discuss it.
“I was just getting so uncomfortable, and I was so upset,” she continued. “It was like he was just purposely trying to humiliate me. And during commercial breaks, I would look at him like, ‘Please stop doing this. You promised me you wouldn’t talk about this, and that’s the only reason I agreed to come on the show. Please don’t bring it up again.’ And he’s like, ‘OK.’ And then [he did] again.”
“It was just very cruel and very mean,” Paris said. “And after it ended, I looked at him and I said, ‘I’m never coming on the show again. You’ve crossed the line.’” The 40-year-old ultimately returned to Letterman’s show four times in 2008 and again in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013, telling her sister that the two made amends after the host repeatedly apologized. Nicky noted that Letterman’s initial ask about Paris’ jail time wasn’t necessarily wrong, but it was “cruel” of him to continue pushing the topic. “I don’t think that would happen today,” she said.
