Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Paris in Las Vegas and other musings of a former Hilton employee

Paris Hilton and her sister were running loose in the Las Vegas Hilton, and we were told not to scold the adolescents—no matter what they got into. The whole family was in town. The girls would have the run of the place.

It was the mid-’90s, and this was the first I’d heard of “the girls.” There was plenty of talk about the late Conrad and Barron and Marilyn—who looked and smelled like royalty—and, of course, Rick, who seemed friendly and always shook hands with the longtime help.

But I wasn’t familiar with the daughters. That would change, of course, years later, when a young blonde running loose in Las Vegas was making headlines. My ears perked at the news about the nightclub party girl. Could it be the same Hilton daughter I heard giggling behind a curtain with her cohort as she ran in and out of the showroom in the dark, oblivious to the spectacle onstage?

As instructed, we ignored them that night. But we smiled to ourselves, because it seemed cute—as if they were somebody’s children at a formal party, exploring the mansion, oblivious to “the help,” who had likely known them as toddlers. I knew none of the Hiltons, but I watched them chat with the older employees, whom they called by their first names. I wore the family name on my uniform. It was on my badge and on my paychecks and on the building I drove to at night. The name changed this month to Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, but I’ll always remember it as the Hilton.

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