Driving through the panoramic hills of L.A. to Paris Hilton's home, it strikes me that interviewing her for a series titled Just Like Us feels like a bit of a stretch. This area is home to some of the most extravagant properties in the most unrelatable city in the world. After a 15-minute security check to access her estate, it's clear my instincts are right. I find myself in a home unlike any I've ever experienced before. The scale is so immense, you barely notice the 50 or so staff buzzing around, going about their jobs. The mansion, a 30,500-square-foot structure emblazoned with a "P" for Paris on its roof, features a five-hole golf course, a pink tennis court, an ice skating rink, an 8,000-square-foot spa and longevity center and an on-site office where her 30-person team builds her empire. I knew Hilton had done well, but I didn't realize her success supported such a scale of opulence. The idea of Paris Hilton still conjures an image of someone impossibly unrelatable. She was the original influencer, the socialite queen of nightlife with a famous last name. But after a very public betrayal involving a leaked sex tape, she did something unexpected: she leveraged her notoriety to create a groundbreaking reality show and an entertainment empire valued at approximately $1 billion. Today, the 44-year-old mom of two (she and her entrepreneur husband of four years, Carter Reum, also 44, are parents to son Phoenix, 3, and daughter London, 2; both were born via surrogate) - is a multihyphenate entrepreneur with ventures in music, fashion, skincare and more. So how could she be Just Like Us? Stay with me... In recent years, Hilton has evolved and opened up about what was truly happening behind the glitter and glamour. Through this journey, she's made valuable contributions to the world. In her 2020 documentary, This Is Paris, she shared her harrowing experience at Utah's Provo Canyon School and became an advocate for survivors of the "troubled teen" industry, leading to legislative reform. She also uses her platform to engage in philanthropic work, including advocating for the neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ communities. In her new documentary, Infinite Icon: A Visual Memoir (in theaters January 30), she takes this vulnerability even further, sharing how music saved her life during her darkest times. Through its powerful psychological and neurological effects, music improved her mental and emotional health and acted as a therapeutic tool for her anxiety and ADHD. She's a completely different person from the young woman I covered and knew in the 2000s: She's self-aware and eloquent, using and owning her own voice - with only a few slips into her baby one of old. With no questions off-limits, we sit in her craft room (designed to accommodate her ADHD) and catch up on old times, fame, money, music and how she's raising her kids in a world that hasn't always been kind to her. Nino Munoz What do you hope people take away from your new documentary? This is, like, a third part of a trilogy - I showed people who I [am] in my first documentary, This Is Paris, and then [I went] even deeper in my memoir. Infinite Icon is, like, my whole life through the lens of music. Within these past five years, I've been on a journey of self-discovery and just learning and healing so much. You look very happy when you're performing on stage. It's the most incredible, magical feeling in the world seeing everyone in the audience so happy and screaming and crying and singing along. The energy and love in the room is another level. When I'm up there, I feel like this was what I was born to do. A big theme of Infinite Icon is how music saved you. [I had] so many traumatic experiences as a teenager. When I got out of those boarding schools, I'd go out [to clubs] at night [and it was] the one thing that [would help me] forget about all the pain. I just felt so accepted. It was all about having an incredible time. I love music, I love to dance, I love the lights, I love the people. You returned to music in 2024, releasing your second album in 18 years. Do you feel early fame hampered your ability to become a full-on pop star? I do. Anyone who does reality, and then if they go into music, you're not going to be taken seriously, especially during the early 2000s, when the media was extremely cruel to young women in the industry. So it was always really hurtful to me. Since I was literally three years old, I've always wanted to be a pop star, but I felt my music didn't get the chance it deserved because the media controlled everything back then. Now, with social media, I'm actually able to hear what the fans and people really think. You've been through a lot in your life. What was the hardest thing you've had to deal with? All of it. These are things that will definitely affect me for the rest of my life, but especially being in these schools. My parents were told [they were] emotional growth boarding schools, and they were sold a lie. It was terrifying t