The early 2000s were all about the next it girls. Whether they were breakout actresses like Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff, the Princess of Pop Britney Spears, or the original nepo babies, socialites Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, everyone was paying attention to them.
Hilton and Richie capitalized on this the best, creating one of the most successful reality television shows, The Simple Life. The show followed the best friends as they said goodbye to their phones, luxury cars, and credit cards, and hello to middle America. They lived with everyday families, surviving off of low-wage jobs. The stark contrast made for some hilarious moments. However, their friendship soon soured, and their very public, dramatic falling-out lasted for decades.
Hilton and Richie had been best friends since childhood, but by the late 2000s, their friendship completely fell apart. According to PEOPLE, Richie was upset that she wasn’t invited to SNL, which Hilton was hosting in 2005. According to TMZ, the alleged falling out came from Richie showing SNL afterparty-goers Hilton’s leaked sex tape.
“It’s no big secret that Nicole and I are no longer friends,” Hilton told PEOPLE at the time. “Nicole knows what she did, and that’s all I’m ever going to say about it.”
The Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie Feud Perfectly Captured the 2000s
From Richie’s camp, sources claimed the two naturally grew apart because of Hilton’s excessive partying. As the final season of The Simple Life aired in 2007, they publicly cleared the air. The energy between them even seemed much lighter. However, they were far from being attached at the hip like they used to be, and that was noticeable.
In that decade that followed, Hilton and Richie would show support for one another through their biggest milestones in life. The birth of Richie’s first child in 2008, Hilton’s wedding in 2021, and Richie’s sister, Sofia Richie Grainge’s wedding in 2023. In 2024, they announced a reboot of The Simple Life. Paris and Nicole: The Encore reconnected the BFFs as they commemorate 20 years of the show. They created an opera based on their childhood song, Sanasa, heavily featured in The Simple Life.
“Back then, the media was just so toxic, and they loved starting feuds between people because, obviously, that sold tabloids,” Hilton said during their joint 2024 Call Her Daddy interview.
“So it was mostly the media just spinning things and creating drama that didn’t exist, which was normal in the 2000s. They did it with everyone.”
Richie insists neither of them caused the fallout. However, she admits they didn’t have the proper tools to communicate and squash the rumors/hearsay at the time. Now in their 40s, Hilton and Richie are both thriving outside of their friendship, mothers and entrepreneurs.
“I just feel so lucky just to have a lifelong friendship like we have — a friendship that’s longer than most marriages,” Hilton told PEOPLE in 2024.
“I’m just so proud of how much we’ve grown and just all the experiences that we’ve been through in life. It made us these really incredibly strong, resilient and amazing women, and I’m really proud of us.”
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