By Jon Kelly
WITH a £20million fortune, party lifestyle and legendary ignorance of the reality outside her five-star life, Paris Hilton is the world's most famous heirhead.
But now the girl who once boasted "I never realized people work for their money" has picked up another, even less desirable reputation. As one of the world's most famous porn stars.
When a grainy 27-minute tape of Paris having sex with ex-boyfriend Rick Solomon was leaked on to the internet last year, she became famous for all the wrong reasons.
The footage - which includes Paris answering her mobile phone mid-coitus - was an instant cyberspace hit, downloaded by millions worldwide. Now she has been warned to behave by her family.
"They were not too impressed with some of the publicity I was getting," admits Paris, 23. "And while I do my own thing, I don't want my family getting hurt.
"I want them to be proud of me and what I achieve."
The leak - which made her name the ninth most popular Google search entry last year - left Paris, who had been trying to build an acting career, mortified.
"I feel embarrassed and humiliated," she says. "I was in an intimate relationship, never thinking that my foolish actions would become public. I can't walk the streets and don't want to go out any more. I don't want to party."
So for the first time in her life, Paris has turned from partying to real work - or TV work, at least.
Her public image went from decadent parasite to America's sweetheart when she appeared in the US reality show The Simple Life with fellow rich girl Nicole Richie, daughter of pop star Lionel.
The pair were filmed as they worked on a farm in Arkansas, with hilarious results - such as when Paris was asked to pluck a chicken. "I'm not plucking anything except my eyebrows," she replied.
Best of all, she had never heard of Wal-Mart, America's biggest supermarket chain and she asked her bemused hosts: "Is that where they sell stuff for walls?"
Now she laughs off her unworldly image. "I can't help it if I didn't know what people were talking about half the time. They shop in stores I have never even heard of.
"They couldn't understand why I wanted bottled water. I couldn't understand why they couldn't understand. I had no idea what supermarkets were like. I'd seen them in the movies but being inside one was totally different. They are fun if you don't have to go into them very often.
"We did it to prove something. Just because we were born into a wealthy family, it doesn't mean we are not normal.
"I get fed up with being seen as a different type just because of my name and the life I was born into.
"The Simple Life proves that girls like Nicole and me can walk away from our usual life and turn our hand to anything. It just so happens that the TV show takes us to a farm in the South.
"It didn't bother me too much to live rough. I learned a lot from the experience and would do it again."
She certainly learned plenty. At one point she asked her hosts what a well was and was caught on camera spitting with disgust: "I'm never going to drink milk again now that I know where it comes from."
The public soon warmed to her. The Simple Life was watched by 13million viewers in America and is now showing in the UK on Channel 4.
Most viewers might be laughing at her, rather than with her. But one man who can see past the scandal and hype is boyfriend Nick Carter, the one-time Backstreet Boys singer.
Rumours have been circulating that the couple are about to wed and Paris hints that it may well be true.
"Watch this space," she teases. "It just feels so right when we're together. We have been inseparable since we started dating and that's the way we like it.
"Nick is lovely. He has been a great influence on me. He's helped me get my head together and be more in control of my life. We both feel the same way about it."
And with Nick's love to keep her stable, Paris is determined to prove she is no spoiled brat.
"Everyone told me I was made for life and wouldn't have to worry about working. It had the reverse effect on me.
"I didn't want to sit around filing my nails. I wanted some action to prove that with or without an inheritance, I could make something of myself."
Buoyed by the success of The Simple Life, Paris now wants to make it in films.
"I had the kind of upbringing you would expect from someone in my shoes," she says. "I wanted to make my own way in life. I did some modelling and TV work and now I'm going to be a movie star.
"I have done a few movies and the parts are getting better all the time. I know I can act and others are beginning to believe it, too."
Of course, Paris, who is Michael Jackson's god-daughter, is already a film star of sorts - that porn tape won her millions of fans. But she's unlikely to include it on her CV.
Her screen roles to date have only confirmed her public image, being mainly cameos as a partygoer in the 2001 film Zoolander and last year's The Cat In The Hat. But Paris is already dealing with the pressures of fame.
"I am getting used to being asked for autographs," she says. "I used to be nervous of being among people and might have seemed a bit rude. I'm much better at that now and I try to be nice to people all the time, even if I have never met them in my life."
BUT her public have not quite accepted her yet. Her recent remark that "my parents always taught me to be humble" met with hilarity. And Paris is still better known as a socialite than a down-to-earth farmhand.
Her dress sense remains notoriously gaudy and last year earned her the title of Worst Dressed Woman by influential US fashion critic Mr Blackwell.
She and her 20-year-old sister Nicky were barely in their teens when they became a regular sight in New York's most exclusive clubs. Sharing a penthouse suite in the city's Waldorf Astoria hotel, the pair were filling gossip columns long before they could legally drink.
Famously, Paris held five 21st birthday parties - in New York, Las Vegas, London, Hollywood and Tokyo - where she was said to have danced topless and thrown cocktail glasses at love rivals. Raised in her parents' 40-room LA mansion, the great-grandaughter of hotel baron Conrad wanted for nothing.
These days, she swishes around town in a Mercedes CLK bought by daddy, while sister Nicky studies for a fashion course in New York. Paris insists they are not the party animals they are portrayed as.
"We just go out to have a good time," she says. "We have fun and everyone else joins in. "But I've started to get too much attention and not be taken seriously. I try to associate with people I know and trust. I haven't thought about trusting people in the past - the result has been things I'd rather had not happened."
She laughs off rumours of a romance with Leonardo DiCaprio, saying, "Leo and I never really dated, we just turned up at the same parties. One report said we had a fight in a taxi - Leo and I have never even been in a taxi together. That's the kind of publicity I can live without. I was also described as the latest It girl. I still haven't discovered what that is."
Her tribulations don't seem to have made her any smarter. When an interviewer joked that a second series of The Simple Life might be set in Alaska, she said: "That is not funny. Doesn't everybody in Alaska live in igloos?"
Even so, Paris has the drive to succeed. The only thing she is stuck with is a daft name. She laughs: "I thought of changing it once but I couldn't think of anything better. Anyway, it's a nice name and it's not my fault if my parents decided to call me after a hotel."
So she may be keeping the silly name but it seems Paris is doing her best to shed the silly image.