The Shady Side Of Kathy Hilton

We know Kathy Hilton more for her famous daughter, Paris Hilton, than the hotel chain, but Kathy has a really interesting story of her own. She hailed from the vivacious Kathleen Richards, mother also to Kyle Richards and Kim Richards, who had a remarkable reputation, and if we had any doubt that she was larger than life, just note that her nickname was "Big Kathy."

In the notable book "House of Hilton" by Jerry Oppenheimer, the author explains how Big Kathy urged her three daughters to marry for money and do whatever was needed to make this happen. Syliva Richards, who married Big Kathy's former husband, said that the matriarch had a man teach Kathy how to please men sexually, since this was forefront in Big Kathy's advice for landing a rich man. Big Kathy certainly achieved her goal, since all three of her daughters became famous in their own ways. Kathy, of course, married into the Hilton family, while Kyle and Kim were long-time familiar faces of "The Real Housewives" franchise. Kathy also graced the screens of Bravo. But this level of success came with a degree of cut-throat boldness.

Sylvia told Oppenheimer that Big Kathy didn't care. "She believed that rules didn't pertain to her," Syliva said of her husband's former wife. "And this is the way she brought up the girls. There were no rules for them, either. And that's the way Kathy brought up Paris." Well, clearly the drive for success worked, but not without developing a shady side.

Richard and Kathy Hilton had four children: Paris, Nicky, Barron, and Conrad, per The U.S. Sun. By all accounts, they looked like a happy family, but in-laws and relatives later spoke about the fact that Kathy used hired help and relatives too frequently, shuffling off child care on others.

Barron Hilton's brother, Eric Hilton, was first married to Patricia Skipworth Hilton and this woman had a lot to say about Kathy's mothering in the book "House of Hilton." Patricia said, "Here comes Kathy with Paris, who was nine months old and a great big, fat, pretty baby." Kathy asked Patricia if she wanted to hold Paris and the next thing she knew, Kathy was long gone. "She took off until that evening," Patricia said of Kathy. "I wanted to kill her! She didn't leave any instructions on what time Paris had to be fed. There weren't any diapers. She just left me in the lurch."

Richard's mother, Marilyn Hilton, ran into Patricia in the midst of this and said, "Well, I guess you're it for the day. Kathy does this all the time. She just wants to go out, and she knew you'd take care of the kid." Needless to say, some Hilton relatives weren't too impressed with Kathy's lackadaisical attitude towards babysitting.

Conrad Hilton was famous for his work ethic and his shrewd entrepreneurial spirit. In the first hotel he ever bought, he slept in the office along with his business partner so that every bed on the premises could be used for a profit, per the Archbridge Institute. He hated wasted space and chose smaller front desks so that he could put up shops in the front lobbies of his hotels. This spirit was carried down, even when the Hilton chain became an empire, and part of this austerity meant that Hilton family members were never given special treatment in the hotels. However, as Jerry Oppenheimer writes in "House of Hilton," there was one person who tried to override this tradition as often as possible: Kathy Hilton.

A manager at the time told Oppenheimer that Richard Hilton first demanded a special suite and then called for various comforts. "We like a nice California red wine and something white," Richard allegedly began, "and my wife likes seafood." Then, unsurprisingly, they asked for childcare. "And then he demanded a babysitter," the manager said. "I had to convince the hotel's elderly German seamstress to do the sitting."

At other hotels, the same thing happened. One hotel employee said that "the spotlight always had to be on Kathy." Allegedly, if she didn't get her way, she would say, "Do you know who we are? Do you know who I am?" Hotel staff had a habit of running the other way when they saw her coming.

The most widely known factoid about the Hilton family is Paris Hilton's time at the Provo Canyon boarding school in Utah, where she was sent in 1996, per Hello! The experience was traumatizing for Paris and it altered her relationship with her parents, especially her mother, Kathy Hilton. On an episode of "Paris in Love," the star said, "At Provo, I was stripped of all of my human rights, cut off from the outside world, so I wasn't able to speak to my parents for months."

The silence seemed to be an ongoing theme. Later, when Paris released her 2020 documentary "This is Paris," Kathy didn't know what was coming. When asked by Bustle if Kathy knew much about the project, she said, "No, but she's always doing something, so it's hard for me to keep up." The next question was the big one. Did Kathy know about Paris' experience at Provo? "No," Kathy answered. "I don't think at that point that she even knew the question [about her schooling] would be asked."

After Kathy found out, she said, "I kept thinking to myself, 'Why wouldn't she say something? Why would she not say something?' I also got into such a depression. I didn't want to talk to Paris about it too much until I had talked to a therapist." The mother and daughter continued to do therapy together, much of which Paris chronicled on her reality show.

Kathy Hilton graced the screens of the "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" in season 11, per ET, to the shock of her daughters, Paris and Nicky Hilton. To clarify, Paris and Nicky didn't know that Kathy was on the series until after she started filming, as the two sisters discussed on Paris' podcast, "This is Paris." "First of all, my mom was so shady about the whole thing," Nicky said. "Pretty much every year this rumors surfaces: 'Kathy Hilton is joining 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.' And we're like, 'No she's not.' This year was no different."

So Nicky spoke directly to Kathy. "I [asked] her, 'Mom, are you going to be on the show?' She's like, 'No,'" she said, adding that it wasn't until later that her mom confessed that she'd been asked to join the cast. Kathy admitted that she was thinking about joining but reassured her daughters that it looked like a long shot. "Cut to Paris and I in Soho walking down the street and our friend FaceTimes us being like, 'I see your mom is on the 'Real Housewives' ... PEOPLE magazine just confirmed it," Nicky said.

For Kathy's part, she told ET that she didn't know why her daughters were so worried. "I know that I'm not going to go and be cursing and starting fights with people," she said. "I don't know if Paris has seen the show, because she's been traveling, but she did send me some memes. They're very much proud," she added.

Money seems to be the ongoing motivation for Kathy Hilton, and by some accounts, she was pretty shrewd (even cutthroat) about how to get it — especially since the Hilton family is famous for withholding much of the inheritance for the heirs. A former friend of Kathy told Vanity Fair that this created a conundrum for Kathy. She had a sterling last name and cultural cache but she didn't have the money to back it up, so this was "why they cultivate friends that have jets and yachts," the friend explained, speaking also of Richard Hilton. "They like to hitch rides," the insider added. If any more proof was needed, when the friend divorced her wealthy husband, Kathy sided with the money, even if she had to befriend the new wife.

The desire for wealth also created some awkward social situations. Jerry Oppenheimer wrote in "House of Hilton" that the entire family was pleased with the intense attention that Paris Hilton was receiving, even if it included her sex tape. "They are proud of everything she has done – even the video."

When Kathy's mother "Big Kathy" died, they hosted a wake at their home and the same friend who spoke to Vanity Fair also recounted, "Paris had just turned 21, and the Hiltons had a running loop of footage from Paris's 21st-birthday party up on their big-screen TV. Rick was running around going, 'Look at Paris!' It was a promotion." Though, from what we know of Big Kathy, she probably wouldn't have minded.