Last January, Paris Hilton revealed that she and her husband, Carter Reum, had welcomed their first child together, a son called Phoenix who was born via surrogate.
Then, in November, Paris and Carter announced the arrival of their daughter London, who was also born via surrogate less than a year after her big brother’s birth.
But the following month, Paris’s parenting came under scrutiny when a clip from her reality TV series Paris in Love went viral on TikTok.
The show has captured Paris’s introduction to parenthood, and viewers were left stunned when she casually admitted that she didn’t change Phoenix’s diaper herself until he was a month old.
The viral scene was filmed on Paris’s birthday, which is a month after Phoenix’s, and in it she says that she is “scared” to change her son for the first time.
Her sister, Nicky Hilton, is left visibly shocked by the comment and asks: “You’ve never done it?” to which Paris confirms: “No.”
Phoenix’s nanny then steps in to show Paris how it’s done, and at one point, the star appears clueless as she asks her which way round the diaper is supposed to go. Nicky and the nanny are also shown telling Paris to speak to her son, and to be “gentle” with him.
Many were left saddened by the footage, and as the backlash grew, Paris took to social media to insist that she was only joking when she said that she hadn’t changed her son’s diaper before.
Doubling down, she added that she was playing her “whimsical” The Simple Life character when she shot the scene, and added that it was “interesting” how “seriously” people were taking what was a “playful comment.”
Paris also told followers that she is “fully involved” when it comes to looking after her two children.
And now, Paris’s mom, Kathy Hilton, has shared her empathy for her daughter as she navigates this new phase of her life.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star told Us Weekly that she remembers her own fears when she became a mom, and that she has tried to support Paris as much as she can.
Kathy said: “When I had Paris, my mother came and helped for three weeks.” She went on to add that she will “never forget” the first time that she put her daughter in a car seat admitting: “I felt like I was going to break her.”
“It has been really special to see your first baby with her first babies,” Kathy continued, before sharing a pretty gross anecdote that highlighted Paris’s baptism of fire into parenting.
“I did crack up a few months ago when I was teaching her some things,” Kathy said. “I forgot to put the diaper on top of the private part, and [Phoenix] started peeing, and it went all in her face.”
“She’s like: ‘Oh, why didn’t you warn me about that?’” Kathy recalled. “I’m like: ‘OK, this is what we do…’ So, she’s learning little by little by little.”
“I knew she would be a great mom,” Kathy added of Paris, saying that both Phoenix and London are “very relaxed and mellow and a joy.”
Paris opened up about her fear that she isn’t “responsible” enough to care for her children in another episode of Paris in Love, where a therapist confronted her over the role that her nanny plays in raising her son.
“You’ve given up authority to the baby nanny, I’m sorry but that’s wrong,” the therapist told her, prompting the confused star to ask: “Is it?”
“You’re the expert, not her,” the therapist continued. “It doesn’t matter how many babies she’s raised, that’s your baby. You’re the expert on your child. I think the question is, do you want the nanny to be the primary attachment figure? Or do you want to be the primary attachment?”
