The Londoner: Why Paris Hilton has given up quest for a billion dollars

In today's Diary: Paris Hilton says "true love" is key to happiness / Bike valets at The Goring / Secret Barrister denies he is Keir Starmer / James Duddridge on his colourful tie / Hunt for Boris and Sadiq in the West End 
Getty Images for American Heart
9 September 2020

Paris Hilton says she has given up her aim to become a billionaire. “My goal … was to make a billion dollars,” the society heiress told an AllBright event, adding, “but now, all I really care about is being happy, my love, my relationship, and the future”.

Hilton, who shot to fame in the early 2000s as a reality TV star, features in a new documentary about her life released next Monday. This Is Paris touches on Hilton’s experiences of school as well as the infamous 2003 sex tape.

“I would say that the tape is something that I will regret for the rest of my life,” Hilton told the all-female AllBright last night as part of a series of events on female resilience and entrepreneurship. And although she told the event “success is something that drives me and makes me so happy,” she explained: “I thought that being successful and making that kind of money would equal freedom and would mean I would never be controlled again”.

Hilton, who has a perfume brand worth £228 million, now says “I’m not going to put my business first any more”.

She continues, “money doesn’t buy happiness. I think the thing that does, is true love”. A few hundred million might help though.

My bar job? That wasn’t so swill...

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MINNIE DRIVER’s father made her job as a waitress at Wodka, Kensington, tricky. “My dad knew a lot about wine,” she explains. “I would constantly be contradicting the people about the wine that they’d ordered and I would be like, ‘That’s awful you don’t want that, it’s absolute swill.’” She adds to Jay Rayner’s podcast: “Anyway, I got fired from there.”

Wheely posh! Bike valets at The Goring

NIGEL HOWARD ©

THE Goring doesn’t do things by halves. “The trumpets sounded and the doors to The Goring were majestically thrown open” as it reopened last week. But it was a smaller detail that caught The Londoner’s eye in their email to guests. “PS,” added CEO Jeremy Goring, “if you are cycling to The Goring our bicycle valets will be on hand.”

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The Secret Barrister, the anonymous legal Twitter star and best-selling author, has confirmed to The Londoner that they are not Keir Starmer, following online speculation in Labour circles — “It’s the most wonderfully batshit thing I’ve read all year.” The Secret Barrister was speaking after ex-Art Attack host Neil Buchanan was forced to deny he was Banksy. Tin foil hat time.

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MICK JAGGER is many things, but maybe not a retailer. As The Rolling Stones open a flagship store (who knew a band could have a flagship?) the rocker strikes a low-key note to GQ: “Most of these kinds of shops are quite often over-stocked and messy. We wanted to keep the front clean and easy ... there’s not so much stuff that you’re going to get bogged down in.” It’s only rock and roll.

SW1A

Jessica Taylor

James Duddridge, the Minister for Africa, has revealed where his splendid tie in the Commons yesterday came from. “It was a gift from the Minister of Finance in Ethiopia,” Duddridge tells us. “I promised him I would wear it at the dispatch box and send him a photo.” The minister added: “Diplomatic ties with Ethiopia are strong.” Too right.

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Move over Where’s Wally, the hunt is now on for Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan. Simon Thomas, the CEO of the Hippodrome Casino, is offering cash to anyone who spots either politician out and about in the West End. “I think my money’s safe, but anyone who grabs a quick photograph of them hereabouts gets my £500,” Thomas says. Get hunting.

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