Chap­ter 24 cap­tures a moment in my life when I was strug­gling emo­tion­al­ly and social­ly, and some­one unex­pect­ed showed up with gen­uine kindness—Paris Hilton. While many peo­ple dis­missed her as just anoth­er rich socialite, I saw some­thing entire­ly dif­fer­ent. There was a grace to the way she car­ried her­self, even when peo­ple were being unkind. Her abil­i­ty to main­tain poise under judg­ment was some­thing I admired. At a time when my life felt like it was unrav­el­ing, she showed com­pas­sion. Paris rec­og­nized the sad­ness I was car­ry­ing from my breakup and my efforts to keep things togeth­er for my chil­dren. When she came over to vis­it, it was more than a social call—it was a moment of sup­port I hadn’t received in far too long. We began spend­ing time togeth­er, and for the first time in what felt like for­ev­er, I was remind­ed of what fun could feel like when it was­n’t shad­owed by pres­sure or per­for­mance.

Spend­ing time with Paris brought me into what some would call my “par­ty phase,” but it wasn’t what peo­ple made it out to be. The media exag­ger­at­ed everything—I wasn’t out every night, and I cer­tain­ly wasn’t reck­less. After being cooped up and judged for even the small­est deci­sion, final­ly going out to unwind felt lib­er­at­ing. I made sure my chil­dren were safe­ly cared for at home before step­ping out. Still, the tabloids wast­ed no time por­tray­ing me as an irre­spon­si­ble moth­er. The back­lash was brutal—words like “unfit,” “wild,” and “unhinged” dom­i­nat­ed head­lines. Yet what I was doing was­n’t any dif­fer­ent than what oth­er young women in their twen­ties did: enjoy­ing a night out, danc­ing, maybe hav­ing a few drinks. It wasn’t fair. My rep­u­ta­tion was being tar­nished by dou­ble stan­dards. Mean­while, oth­er pub­lic fig­ures could behave far worse and face far less crit­i­cism. The scruti­ny was relent­less and exhaust­ing.

There’s always been spec­u­la­tion about my rela­tion­ship with sub­stances. The truth is, I didn’t have a drink­ing prob­lem. I enjoyed social drink­ing, yes—but it nev­er con­trolled me. My real con­nec­tion, if you could even call it that, was with Adder­all. It wasn’t some­thing I abused to party—it was some­thing I used to feel less numb. Adder­all gave me clar­i­ty, focus, and tem­po­rary relief from the sad­ness that weighed heav­i­ly on me. Unlike alco­hol or oth­er drugs that dull, Adder­all sharp­ened me when my emo­tions felt blurred. For me, it act­ed like an anti­de­pres­sant, some­thing I des­per­ate­ly need­ed but was nev­er for­mal­ly giv­en. In the enter­tain­ment indus­try, it was com­mon to see peo­ple use all sorts of hard sub­stances, but I nev­er found that appeal­ing. I didn’t want to feel out of con­trol. I just want­ed to feel a lit­tle bet­ter.

Grow­ing up in a small town, drugs weren’t glamorized—they were cau­tion­ary tales. The peo­ple I knew who got into hard drugs didn’t have hap­py end­ings, and I nev­er want­ed that path. I may have par­tied, but I wasn’t reck­less with my life. In fact, I was try­ing to nav­i­gate an impos­si­bly high-stakes world with very few peo­ple I could trust. My men­tal health was strained, and instead of sup­port, I was met with judg­ment and exploita­tion. The dou­ble stan­dards I faced com­pared to the men in my life were glar­ing. They could drink, par­ty, even neglect responsibilities—and some­how still be seen as fun, rebel­lious, or cool. But for me, moth­er­hood was held against me like a weapon. If I enjoyed a night out, I was sud­den­ly labeled unfit. If I expressed frus­tra­tion, I was unsta­ble. And if I tried to reclaim my iden­ti­ty, I was “act­ing out.” It wasn’t just unfair—it was dehu­man­iz­ing. And through it all, I just kept going, doing my best to stay afloat in a world that rarely showed me grace.

What the world didn’t see was that I was still griev­ing, still adjust­ing to a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent life, and still try­ing to find bal­ance in moth­er­hood, fame, and per­son­al hap­pi­ness. I was bat­tling post­par­tum depres­sion while try­ing to be present for my chil­dren and still remain com­posed for the world. Even dur­ing my “par­ty­ing phase,” I always came home to respon­si­bil­i­ties. There was nev­er a time I didn’t want to be a good mother—I just didn’t have the emo­tion­al resources or free­dom to be one in the way I hoped. That’s what so many peo­ple missed. It wasn’t about want­i­ng to escape—it was about need­ing to feel like myself again, even if just for a few hours. Paris gave me a small glimpse of that, and for that, I will always be grate­ful.