Lindsay Lohan’s making a sequel to Freaky Friday, Charli XCX is singing about Von Dutch, and flip phones are cool again. As one person perfectly put it on X (formerly Twitter): “oh we’re SO back!” In the past couple of years, much of what defined the early ’00s has been filtering its way back into pop culture, from the fashion trends to the musical styles. And perhaps no figure has been at the head of that charge more so than Paris Hilton.
The reality star, socialite, fashionista, DJ, and mother of two has been enjoying quite the renaissance. When Hilton starred on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar back in March 2023, she had just welcomed her first child via surrogate, and she was also about to release her third book, Paris: The Memoir, which dug deeper into the personal themes she explored in her 2020 docuseries This Is Paris. Since then, she has welcomed another child, dropped a cookware collection, and launched a virtual world called Parisland, and now she is releasing her second studio album, Infinite Icon, all while wrapping filming on the highly anticipated reunion special for The Simple Life. To put it simply, Hilton is #sliving.
“So much is happening,” she tells me when we chat days before the release of Infinite Icon. In the background, I hear Hilton’s kids running around, and I imagine the chaos of trying to promote a new album while touting around two little ones. But in classic Paris fashion, she can’t help but effuse positivity: “I’m just having the best time in New York.”
It’s been almost 20 years since Hilton released her first LP, Paris, which featured the Top 20 hit “Stars Are Blind.” It was an album full of bouncy pop, sultry R&B, and even some reggae influences, but since then, she has taken her musical love in a surprisingly different direction, becoming a DJ at venues across the globe. Based on the singles so far from Infinite Icon, like “I’m Free” and “Chasin’,” it seems this passion has influenced the sound of her new release, which is tailor-made for the dance floor.
“I really just utilized all of my experiences of being onstage to create this album,” Hilton says, noting that she’s been able to witness firsthand what gets audiences excited. However, she adds that while Paris was a capsule of her “party girl era,” Infinite Icon gets more personal than ever. “I’m telling my story,” she says. “The songs on this [album] are very introspective.”
Naturally, becoming a mom changed everything for Hilton, and that milestone can be felt in the Infinite Icon songs too, even within the clubby tracks. “Being in the studio, [I was] just like, always picturing [my kids] and thinking of them,” she says. “Definitely you can tell in the music that a lot of the songs are about them.”
When asked about her favorite tracks, Hilton notes that she “wanted to have something for everyone.” She lists “ADHD”—which discusses the stigma around people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—as a personal highlight, while also mentioning “Bad Bitch Academy” (featuring Meghan Thee Stallion), which she says you can play “if you just need to remind yourself of the bad bitch that you are.”
She then shouts out the song “Legacy,” saying that the track serves as a love letter to all her fans. “My fans have been with me through so much, and I love them so much, and they’re like my little brothers, little sisters, and we’re all like a family,” she gushes.
That feeling resonated late on Thursday night, when Hilton held a party in collaboration with Nylon to celebrate the release of the new album and kick off New York Fashion Week. As she handed out ice cream cones and danced with fans, she also posed with her pink Motorola Razr—a phone she famously debuted back in the 2000s, and one which she’s been using throughout the promo for Infinite Icon. “It’s just like very stylish and is a really cute accessory, and it’s also fun to have in all my content because it’s like, when you think of phones and you think of Motorola or any of that, you just think of me.”
It all felt wonderfully 2000s: fans dancing to a remixed version of “Stars Are Blind” and taking pictures with bedazzled Razrs that they clapped shut with fierce snaps. I couldn’t help but think: Oh, we’re so back.
Joel is the editorial and social media assistant for HarpersBAZAAR.com, where he covers all things celebrity news. When he steps away from the keyboard, you can likely find him singing off-key at concerts, scavenging thrift stores for loud wardrobe staples, or perusing bookstores for the next great gay romance novel.
