HOLLYWOOD—The original "famous for being famous" celebrity reflects on the thing that first launched her into stardom—her 2004 sex tape 1 Night in Paris—in a new documentary making its debut Friday night at New York's Tribeca Film Festival.
The documentary, titled The American Meme, was directed by Bert Marcus and positions Hilton as the progenitor of the modern-day internet celebrity. As he told The Hollywood Reporter, "Paris paved the way for creating a brand and a celebrity out of being herself and she turned it into a phenomenon. ... Paris flawlessly figured out how to parlay her fame into something that's tangible. She created the blueprint."
On the subject of what it calls "her nonconsenting role in the 2004 release of a personal sex tape she made with ex-boyfriend Rick Saloman," THR reports (after fallaciously stating that 1 Night was distributed through Vivid Entertainment—it was in fact released through Red Light District) that Hilton says in the documentary, "It was like being raped. It felt like I've lost part of my soul and been talked about in such cruel and mean ways. I literally wanted to die at some points. I was like, 'I just don't want to live.' Because I thought everything was taken away from me. I didn't want to be known as that. ... I would never be who I could have been."
Following tonight's Tribeca screening of The American Meme, Marcus, Hilton and other cast members will conduct a live Q&A that will be streamed on the festival's Facebook page beginning around 9:30 p.m. EST.
Read a THR interview with Hilton about the movie and see a preview here.
Screen cap of Hilton in The American Meme taken from YouTube.
