Paris Hilton Now in 2026: Mogul, Mom, and Advocate

The 2026 Snapshot: From "It Girl" to Working CEO

Twenty-three years after "The Simple Life" first aired in 2003, Paris Hilton has spent most of her forties rebuilding her public identity around a different word: builder. The great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton turned 45 in February 2026, and the version she presents in interviews, on the Peacock series "Paris in Love," and across her 11

Media social channels is noticeably different from the tabloid character that dominated the mid-2000s.

Hilton has described the shift in a number of recent sit-downs — with Glamour, Vogue, and on her own "I Am Paris" podcast — as moving from "the brand of Paris" to "the business of Paris." Her company, 11

Media, was founded in 2021 with longtime business partner Bruce Gersh, and Hilton serves as CEO. According to coverage in The Hollywood Reporter and Forbes, the company encompasses scripted and unscripted production, a podcast slate, consumer products, and licensing for the Paris Hilton name — much of which had previously been split across separate deals.

This 2026 era is anchored less by red carpets and more by board meetings, fragrance launches, two small children, and a long-running advocacy campaign that lands her, repeatedly, in Washington.

11

Media and the Business Behind the Brand

11

Media is the operational center of Hilton's current chapter. The company's stated focus is content and consumer products built around what Hilton's team describes as "the original influencer" — a positioning that draws on her two-decade head start on the creator economy.

Per reporting in Variety, The Information, and Bloomberg, 11

Media has produced or developed projects including the documentary "This Is Paris" (originally released on YouTube in 2020), her Peacock reality series "Paris in Love," and "Paris: The Memoir," her 2023 bestselling autobiography published by Dey Street Books. The company has also signed multiple podcast and brand-partnership deals across beauty, fashion, and tech.

Hilton has been candid in interviews — including with Time, where she was named to the Time100 in 2023 — that her business strategy is to own the intellectual property rather than license it out. "I'm not the face. I'm the founder," she told Bustle in a 2024 cover story. That framing has stayed consistent through 2026 press appearances tied to new fragrance drops and the continued promotion of her 2024 album, "Infinite Icon."

The Fragrance Empire That Refuses to Quit

When the Paris Hilton fragrance line first launched in 2004 with Parlux, few in the beauty trade press predicted it would still be a major business two decades later. By public counts in WWD and Allure, the line has released more than two dozen scents since 2004, and Parlux's parent company and Hilton herself have cited cumulative retail sales in the multibillion-dollar range across the line's lifetime — a figure widely reported in industry coverage and reflected in long-running category awards.

In 2026, the fseragrance vertical remains one of Hilton's most steadily covered business stories. New launches typically arrive with national retail distribution at chains such as Walmart, Ulta, and various drugstore partners. Her positioning — accessible price points, heavy on florals and gourmands — has stayed consistent even as the celebrity fragrance category has gotten crowded with newer entrants from Sabrina Carpenter to Billie Eilish.

She has spoken in interviews about her early skepticism that the line would last, telling Glamour that she initially thought of fragrance as "a one-and-done deal" before realizing it could become the backbone of a long career.

Family Life: Phoenix, London, and a Public-but-Private Balance

Hilton married venture capitalist Carter Reum in November 2021, in a multi-day Bel Air celebration that was documented in the Peacock series "Paris in Love." The couple has since welcomed two children, both via surrogate: son Phoenix Barron Hilton Reum, born in January 2023, and daughter London Marilyn Hilton Reum, born in November 2023.

She has used her platforms repeatedly through 2024, 2025, and into 2026 to discuss surrogacy openly — pushing back against early tabloid speculation about both pregnancies. In an essay published on her website and excerpted by People in 2023, Hilton described surrogacy as a deliberate choice and asked for more empathetic public conversation about non-traditional paths to parenthood.

Her 2026 social-media presence leans heavily on family content: birthdays, milestones, holidays, the occasional dressed-up appearance with both children at family events. She has been notably more selective about showing her children's faces than many celebrity parents, a privacy decision she has discussed on her podcast as one made jointly with Reum.

Advocacy: The Troubled Teen Industry Fight Continues

Perhaps the most consequential thread of Hilton's post-2020 life is her advocacy work around the so-called "troubled teen" industry. In her 2020 YouTube documentary "This Is Paris," Hilton publicly described abuse she said she experienced as a teenager at Provo Canyon School in Utah and at other youth behavioral facilities. Provo Canyon School, under a different ownership group than during Hilton's time there, has stated it cannot comment on operations before 2000.

Since then, Hilton has appeared multiple times before state legislatures and the U.S. Congress. According to coverage in The New York Times, NPR, and AP, she has been a leading public voice for the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, a federal bill aimed at increasing oversight of youth residential programs, which advanced through the Senate in late 2024 and has been the subject of ongoing implementation conversations into 2026.

She has also continued to back the survivor advocacy group Breaking Code Silence and partnered with the ACLU on related campaigns. In 2026, her public schedule has included statehouse appearances tied to state-level oversight bills modeled on the federal legislation, per local-news reports out of Missouri, Montana, and Utah.

Music, Television, and the "Infinite Icon" Era

In September 2024, Hilton released her second studio album, "Infinite Icon," via 11

Media in partnership with Republic Records — more than 18 years after her self-titled 2006 debut. The project, executive-produced by Sia, received mixed-to-positive reviews from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and Variety, with critics generally singling out its lead singles and Sia collaborations.

Throughout 2025 and into 2026, Hilton has continued to perform DJ sets — a sideline she has maintained since the mid-2010s — at fashion-week events, music festivals, and her own brand activations. She has said in multiple interviews that she wants "Infinite Icon" to anchor a longer arc than a single release cycle, and additional singles and remix packages have followed into 2026.

On the television side, "Paris in Love" returned to Peacock for additional episodes covering her early years of motherhood. Industry trades have also reported development deals for scripted projects through 11

Media, including animated and feature concepts, though release timelines remain in flux.

Public Image in 2026: The Long Reframing

If the 2000s framed Hilton primarily through tabloid coverage, the 2020s have been a sustained reframing. The 2020 documentary, the 2023 memoir, and the 2024 album have together formed what cultural critics — including Anne Helen Petersen and Jessica DeFino — have described as a "reclamation arc": the same person, narrating her own life, in her own order.

Hilton has been careful in interviews not to overclaim transformation. She has repeatedly told reporters that the giggly, soft-voiced public persona of the early 2000s was a character, but also that elements of her real personality overlap with it. "It's not all an act and it's not all the truth," she told The Cut in 2023 — a quote that has been recycled across more recent 2026 coverage tied to her business announcements.

For readers who came in through "The Simple Life" or the early-2000s tabloid years and want the full timeline, here is Paris Hilton's full profile and bio with dates, projects, and references.

A Note for Y2K Nostalgia Fans

If you found this piece because you love the Y2K blonde heiress archetype — the velour tracksuits, the small dogs, the rhinestoned everything — there is a separate, fully fictional corner of the internet built around that aesthetic.

AI Angels is a platform of fictional AI companions, including characters styled in that early-2000s glamour-pop register. The companions are not real people, are not based on Paris Hilton or any other public figure, and AI Angels is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Paris Hilton or 11

Media in any way. Chat is free, unlimited, and available 24/7. If you would like to try it, you can meet an AI companion free — 18+ only.