A Tale of Two Hiltons

Independent Sources links to a story that describes how Paris Hilton's grandfather has just cut Paris, and his other grandchildren, out of their inheritances.

So what will Conrad Barron Hilton do with the money?

Hilton senior, the only member of the family left with a sizeable stake in the huge hotel chain, has let it be known that he intends to donate to charity the £1 billion he will gain from this month's sale of the company to private equity firm Blackstone.

The money will go to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the charity set up in the name of the founder of the family business. The 79-year-old patriarch is said to have told his high-living family that he is cutting Paris loose - and for good measure his other 11 grandchildren, too, none of whom will now benefit from the windfall. Instead, he is determined to carry on the family tradition for philanthropy.

But Kathy Hilton has seen to it for years that Paris will be able to make money.

"Paris is a very sharp cookie and fast becoming one of America's most successful businesswomen," one of her entourage told the Mail. But guiding the financial success is Kathy Hilton, her pushy mother who is feared and loathed by Hilton staff.

She is the 48-year-old former bit-part actress and part-time model who transferred her own failed hopes of fame on to her eldest child. She is said by those close to the family to be the brains behind the industry surrounding her daughter which she ruthlessly oversees from the family's mansion in Bel Air....

Kathy married husband Rick Hilton - who also stands to lose from his father's philanthropy, but will not be short of money because of his property portfolio - in 1979....

Mrs Hilton...launched Paris on the road to stardom at the age of six when she entered herself and her daughter into a fashion show at the exclusive Beverly Hills Hotel. Both were plastered in makeup and the young Paris was dressed provocatively in a bikini.

Mrs Hilton, who gave her daughter the nickname Star, even moved the family to New York and a penthouse suite at the Waldorf Astoria, so Paris and younger sister Nicky, 23, could be introduced into Manhattan's society and party set. She is said to have similar plans for stardom for her two sons 17-year-old Barron Hilton II and 13-year-old Conrad Hilton III.

The go-getting Kathy helped Paris win a contract with Donald Trump's model agency when her daughter was 19.

But it was the release on the internet of those clips of Miss Hilton's sex games with her then boyfriend Rick Salomon four years ago that turned her from posh wannabe to darling of the tabloids.

The explicit footage just happened to materialize a week before Miss Hilton was due to launch her television career with the first series of The Simple Life....

The suspicious timing of the publicity made the show a hit. Later Miss Hilton sued 39-year-old Salomon, a self-confessed professional gambler, when he began selling the video, now titled One Night In Paris, on DVD.

The couple came to an out-of-court settlement which allowed the home movie to stay on the shelves in return for her taking a cut of the reported £2 million it has earned.

Indeed, following her imprisonment, a new edition of the tape is about to be released complete with brand new 'collectable prison packaging'. Miss Hilton, the distributors say, gets a 'directorial credit'.

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