it was her reality show with nicole richie, the simple life that shot paris to even greater fame, theuo instantly becoming television's newest it girls. but along the way, it wasn't all champagne and caviar. >> the sexually explicit videotape of paris and her former boyfriend rick salomon, the infamous sex tape was released with the entire world looking on, showing paris and her then boyfriend, who was 13 years her senior. >> it became fodder for tabloids and a punchline for comedians like joan rivers. >> the shame, the shame of the hilton family to have your daughter do a film in a marriott hotel. it is. >> paris tried to fight back on cnn. >> people assume, oh, she's a just because of one thing that happened to me. >> but she also leaned into the hypersexualized image of herself on full display in her hit song stars are blind. can you show me real love, baby? >> i'll show you mine. >> throughout the early 2000, it seemed like paris's every move was documented and some of the headlines were ruthless. like this new york post front page from 2006 featuring paris, britney spears and lin

from these very upsetting things that were going on and there you could watch paris hilton and nicole richieo focus. and suddenly it was like me, me, me, me, and i think we saw people getting rewarded for that endlessly in reality television. so if you were a millennial at that time, you were being weaned on this stuff. you were being groomed watching this stuff in your adolescence. - we watched a lot of reality shows and a lot of them, okay, maybe most of them were guilty pleasures at best. - not to check 'cause i'm a surfer, i say bummer, i don't care if my ride is kind of whack. - [kristen] but it wasn't all trash. - i kind of lost the shape. - does it need to be full length? - no, but i just, i've done all this work on it. - i know, but sometimes you have to let it go. i mean, i'll put project runway and top chef into the category of shows that have real integrity and seriousness of purpose. (upbeat music) - [kristen] the example that took off the most was american idol. - when you entered this competition, did you really believe that you could become your standing on now the american id