Paris Hilton - The Simple Life

Also Known As:
The Simple Life (season 1 title)
The Simple Life 2: Road Trip (USA) (season 2 title)
The Simple Life: Interns (USA) (season 3 title)
The Simple Life: 'Til Death Do Us Part (season 4 title)
The Simple Life: Goes To Camp (season 5 title)
Runtime: 30 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color
Sound Mix: Stereo
Starring: Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie in The Simple Life

Plot Outline: The Simple Life is a totally unscripted series starring everyone's favorite spoiled socialites, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie! During the shows first season, Paris and Nicole got a reality check when they learned what it was really like to live among the middle-class as they moved from their posh Beverly Hills pads to the small town of Altus, Arkansas (population 817) for one-month...

The Beginning: The idea for The Simple Life was generated in Fox's comedy department. Brad Johnson, senior VP of comedy development, said The Simple Life was born out of a challenge from Fox Television Entertainment Group Chairman Sandy Grushow and News Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin to find another way to do comedies outside of the traditional sitcom format.

check out larger cover photos and photos taken from the series in the gallery!

In the first season, Paris and Nicole agreed to leave behind their cellphones, credit cards and celebrity status to move in with the Leding family in Altus, Arkansas for a month.

What was supposed to be an experiment in learning how to adapt to doing chores and getting their hands dirty turned out to be a failure. In the process they would ruin a dairy farmer's milk supply, wreak havoc at a local Sonic Drive-In and take advantage of an employer's credit card, ultimately getting fired from every job they took up. This was greatly upsetting to the Leding family. Despite all of this, the two would often get a reality check from the family themselves. Whether the girls took it to heart remains to be seen.

The show started airing on Fox December 2, 2003, to surprisingly well received ratings. The premiere episode drew 13 million viewers, increasing Fox's Adults 18-49 rating a phenomenal 79%. The second episode drew 13.3 million viewers, an increase of 200,000 viewers over its premiere. During the airing of the series, Fox added two extra episodes and a reunion special, which continued to draw ratings. With results like this, it was only natural that Fox would order a second season.

The DVD of this season was released in U.S.A on January 20, 2004. Some international releases included the bonus episode and the reunion episode.

 

A second season, subtitled Road Trip, began broadcasting in the summer of 2004. In this season, Paris and Nicole traveled across the United States in a pink pickup truck (driven by Paris), pulling an airstream trailer. They participated in such activities as catching crawfish, working as maids in a nudist resort, and sausage-making.

The premiere episode (drawing 9.8 million overall viewers) showcased Hilton's horseback-riding accident, which made headlines when they were still filming.

The ratings continued to climb during the season, and Fox was quick to announce heading into production on Season 3, not before airing a special episode titled The Simple Life - The Stuff We Weren't Allowed To Show You on November 17, 2004. The special showcased several cut scenes from the season (some of which appear on the Season 2 DVD) as well as preview clips for the third season.

The DVD of this season was released in U.S.A on November 2, 2004. A CD-soundtrack for this season was also released.

 

The third season, began shooting October 27, 2004. The first episode premiered January 26, 2005.

The third season, subtitled Interns, would see Paris and Nicole take various internships with companies along the East Coast of the United States. The girls traveled around the northeast United States via the Greyhound Bus company's publicly available bus routes. But unlike season 2, this time around the girls did not have a swanky home on wheels and instead were travelling around the northeast in a regular Greyhound bus that was also ferrying normal members of the public that are travelling to the same destination.

The season featured one memorable encounter with twin baby orangutans from Parrot Jungle Island in Miami, Florida. Nicole Richie's fiance DJ Adam Goldstein also appeared in this season when he surprised Nicole and took her on a date. In this season, there were episodes where they were given little or no money while interning, or their internships were shortened because instead of being professional, they would goof off or fail to do the work properly.

An episode set in a funeral home drew minor controversy among viewers. The girls struggled with unloading a casket from a hearse, then spilling cremated ashes on the floor and using a vacuum to clean it up. The show's producers claimed the casket was empty and the "human ashes" was just a stage prop.

In the last episode of the season, there was no party shown with friends or family. Instead, they were hounded by paparazzi, one of the final times the two were seen together on good terms for quite some time.

The DVD of this season was released in U.S.A on March 14, 2006.

The fourth season premiered on June 4, 2006, drawing 1.3 million viewers. While those ratings would have been dismal for Fox, it was actually more than four times E!’s prime-time average. And in key adult demographic groups, ratings more than tripled from the network’s average.

The season features Paris and Nicole playing "Wife" to a different family every episode, in a similar manner to Wife Swap. The girls alternate between the family each episode, with the family then deciding which of them was better in the role.

This season was also unique, as Paris and Nicole did not leave L.A. The families they stayed with are L.A residents, and the episodes often focused on Paris and Nicole's personal lives and careers as well as the challenge of being a wife and mother. This season also featured guest appearances from the girls' well-known friends, family and associates. Since the season was set in their hometowns, the girls had cell phone and credit card usage, previously denied to them in earlier seasons.

The season finale ended with Paris confronting Nicole, stating "We have to talk", followed by a screen that read "To be continued...next season!". Many viewers were shocked and angry over this cliffhanger ending.

On Thursday, July 27, 2006, several E! series were added to the iTunes Music Store. Among these series was The Simple Life Seasons 1 and 4.

The Simple Life DVD of this season was released on December 26, 2006.

It was announced on August 9, 2006 that Paris and Nicole had rekindled their friendship and had agreed to shoot the fifth season of The Simple Life together. It was also announced that they would be going to camp for the fifth season, to be camp counselors.

The fifth season was originally set to begin production in November 2006 and air in March 2007 , but has been put on temporary hold, as Nicole has had to enter a health care facility for her ongoing weight issues.

In a joint statement, 20th Century Fox and Bunim/Murray said: "Everyone supports Nicole and wishes her well. We consider her a part of our family and look forward to resuming production on The Simple Life when she is ready."

Meanwhile, E! added: "Nicole is an important member of the E! Networks family. We send her our very best wishes and look forward to working with her on the new season of The Simple Life."

In an interview with Australian Cosmopolitan magazine in January, 2007, Paris confirmed The Simple Life will resume shooting in March, 2007, in Malibu, California. The tentative title for the season being Malibu: Camp Simple Life, she explained how she and Nicole will be counsellors for multiple camps, including, but not restricted to, a beauty pageant camp, a fat camp and a couples camp.

AP: How did you prepare for camp?

Richie: We actually didn't prepare, which I guess was a problem because we were wearing heels and just not camp-appropriate things. But during the fitness camp we wore sweats a lot which was a nice break.

Hilton: We had fun with everyone who came in. All the camps were completely different. We would have to do all the challenges that they would have to do. We had to stay with them in the same rooms, so basically we were living the camp life. It was hard, you know, not having cell phone service, being away from our friends and our family, but we had each other, so that was a lot of fun.

AP: Neither of you had been to camp as kids. What did you think of the whole experience?

Richie: It was interesting. It's definitely not for me. I'm not a camper. But I'm glad that I did it once. I'm always up to try anything.

Hilton: I think just being the camp counselors is being a lot different from actually having to go to camp as a kid. But I don't know. I didn't really like the camp life either. I'd rather go to Europe for the summer.

AP: You two have had some ups and downs in your friendship. Where do you stand now?

P: We've been best friends since we were two years old. I've don't have any friend I've had as long as Nicole. She's my sister. Everyone has a fight, you know, it's just not going to be publicized, you know, and have things construed and changed around. You know, we're friends. We know the truth. The media made up a lot of silly stories and you just have to not pay attention to it.

AP: What was the worst media incident and how did you get through it?

Richie: I don't know if there's something that stood out as being the worst, but I mean, people really banked off of it. There were Team Paris and Team Nicole shirts. We didn't make them, you know? And it was really awkward when people would ask me to sign them because I'm not going to sign them. (Hilton giggles.) It's true! Like, I'm not going to sign a Team Nicole shirt that says, Yeah, I'm against Paris or anything like that, you know? Even though it's public, it's not my choice for it to be public, you know? We just had a falling out and it happened to be public. It wasn't my choice at all. And the fact that we're friends again, the fact that that's public isn't my choice at all. I mean, we're human beings and we get into fights, and, it happens. Well, we had one fight in 23 years, so I guess that's a good thing.

AP: What is it about "The Simple Life" that fans have connected to?

Hilton: Just that it's about two best friends who are together and I think people can relate to that, because everyone has a best friend. We have our secret languages and our secret looks to each other and we just have fun together. I don't know. It's hard to find a group who can be like that together.

Richie: I think that originally people thought "Oh, this is going to be about two spoiled blond girls that don't know how to do anything and make fun of people," and that's not what it's about. If anything, we're making fun of ourselves. We're very different. We're very opposite, so it's a good balance, you know, between the two... She has strengths where I have weaknesses and I have strengths where she has weaknesses and it really creates a good dynamic.

AP: What has doing the show taught you about life and about each other?

Hilton: I've just been doing the show now five seasons so I've definitely, you know, learned a lot. I've traveled the world and met all these different families and different people and, I don't know, just learning about other people. With Nicole, I've been best friends with her my whole life so I already knew everything about her. I don't know, just that we can survive any situation and we can have fun no matter where we are as long as we're together.

Richie: It's funny because a lot of people, as close as they are, when you spend so much time with someone, it's like you see habits that you know, you're just like ugh, I can't spend this much time with someone. But I love spending time with her and we have so much fun and, you know, I really just look at it as nothing but fun.

AP: How are your pending legal problems affecting your projects? (Hilton and Richie were each arrested for driving under the influence in the past year.)

Richie: We're not talking about that.