'I Tricked You All': Paris Hilton Opens Up at the Upfront Summit
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
The Upfront Summit heads into its second day on Thursday. But, there's still a bit of buzz from an unlikely speaker who closed out last night's roster of keynotes -- a surprisingly shy Paris Hilton, who said she was intimidated speaking to a room of hundreds of investors.
"I'm very nervous up here," she said. "I'm used to being at Tomorrowland or Ibiza with a thousand people dancing. Everyone is so serious here."
Hilton emphasized her serious side, pointing out that she is very different in real life than the character she played on reality TV.
She says she exercises full control over her 19 product lines and spends 250 days a year flying around the world making appearances, which reportedly earn her up to a million dollars a piece (a figure she wouldn't confirm).
"I didn't get this far being a dumb blonde, just pretending to be," said Hilton. "I tricked you all." Speaking about how she approached her first reality show, The Simple Life, which debuted in 2003, Hilton put it this way: "I was trying to be entertaining on the show. I knew exactly what I was doing. It was all very planned and calculated."
Hilton said she is actually a tomboy who enjoys outdoor activities more than partying in clubs.
"The media mostly just sees the glitz and glam, but that's not really my thing," she said.
The Upfront Summit is expected to attract more than 1,200 attendees flocking to the Rose Bowl Jan. 29-30. The invite-only event brings together a diverse mix of entrepreneurs networking with venture players armed with billions of dollars in capital, and headlined by presentations from business leaders including Steve Ballmer, Quibi Chief Executive Meg Whitman, and Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson.
Links to the conference agenda and the livestream can be found here.
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Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
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