Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie may no longer be driving cross-country in a pink pickup truck or pouring bleach on pool tables in Arkansas, but they still greet each other with the nicknames they imparted on one another when they starred in “The Simple Life.”
“Hi, Sill,” Richie says casually over the phone from Los Angeles, to which Hilton replies sweetly, “Hi, Bill.” It’s almost as if more than two decades haven’t passed. Except now, Richie can’t imagine herself in any of the quintessentially Y2K outfits she wore on the show. “But they really are having a comeback for people, so that’s … nice for them,” she quips.
With the premiere of “The Simple Life” in 2003 on Fox, Hilton — the heiress to the eponymous hotel chain — and Richie — the adoptive daughter of Lionel Richie, became proto-reality stars. The initial concept? Two 20-year-old socialites and besties abandon their lives in Los Angeles to live in rural, blue-collar America. Over the course of five seasons, the show evolved, and Richie and Hilton endured a series of wild misadventures: picking up odd jobs at a dairy farm (“one of the hardest,” according to Richie) and the fast-food chain Sonic, traveling by Greyhound bus along the East Coast to various internships, “doing a wife swap” with various families, and working as camp counselors.
But in the years since “The Simple Life” was canceled after its final two seasons aired on E!, it has gained a new set of adoring fans. Like pleated minis, low-rise jeans and crop tops, “The Simple Life” has made a comeback in the culture. Through clever Halloween costumes, scene reenactments and snippets of the series on TikTok, a new generation is experiencing the joys and horrors of “The Simple Life.” Even Richie’s kids and her kids’ friends have been watching it. And it makes sense that the show is having a resurgence: It’s filled with moments that have become crystallized in the annals of reality TV history, like when Hilton asked if they sell “wall stuff” at Walmart or when she fried bacon with an iron. There’s also memorable scenes of Richie shoving her hand in a cow’s rectum (and chasing Hilton with the feces-covered glove) and the moment she dropped and vacuumed ashes at a funeral home (they weren’t real but reported to be cat litter and cement).
“It feels amazing to be the pioneers and OGs who have really inspired so many others to try and do similar shows,” says Hilton, 43. “I’m really proud of what Nicole and I did, just being trailblazers in that area.”
For Hilton and Richie, “The Simple Life” was a lightning-in-a-bottle experience: They don’t believe the show could exist today, when people are so dependent on digital devices. “Season 1 through 3, we really did not have phones. We had no idea where we were going. We just completely left our lives for a month straight,” recalls Richie, 43. She couldn’t imagine 20-year-olds now being willing to give up their phones for a month. “We were truly cut off from the world.”
For years, Hilton and Richie had fielded reunion requests for “The Simple Life,” but it wasn’t until last year that they truly considered it. Over Christmas break, the pair exchanged a series of “giggly” and “friendly” texts about paying tribute to the hit show.
“We agreed to meet about it in the new year, and it all just kind of took off from there,” Richie says.
Richie invited Hilton over to watch parts of the show since she hadn’t seen a full episode since it debuted. “It was very funny,” Richie says; however, she admits she found one aspect of it the most “cringe.” “I have a hard time listening to my own voice,” she sighs. “It was so constant throughout the episode.”
But they weren’t ready to take on a full season of a series. Instead, the pair opted for a three-part special that premieres Thursday on Peacock, titled “Paris & Nicole: The Encore,” to coincide with the show’s 20th anniversary. “We just thought a three-part special would be the perfect amount for this type of show,” Hilton says.
While the special features Richie and Hilton visiting their old “Simple Life” haunts in Arkansas, like the bar Alligator Rays and, of course, Walmart, it also checks in on the people they met during their hijinks more than 20 years ago. And instead of taking on different jobs, this time they have one overarching project: to create “a next-level opera” out of their inside joke-meets-vibe check song “Sanasa,” made famous on “The Simple Life.”
According to Hilton and Richie, they came up with the concept themselves and fleshed it out before sharing it with anyone. Really, it began as a joke. “We were laughing about how absurd it would be if we turned ‘Sanasa’ into an opera, and once it came out of one of our mouths, we were like, ‘That is psychotic, and therefore we should do it,’” Richie says.
The women aimed to re-create the fish-out-of-water concept that made “The Simple Life” such compelling television in the first place. Tackling an opera — an area that neither had expertise in — seemed like the perfect opportunity. “We really wanted to just throw ourselves into this world,” Richie says. That meant meeting with top-tier artists and experts in the field such as Thomas Adès and opera producer Beth Morrison.
For the opera, Hilton and Richie opted to chronicle their relationship throughout the years, from their childhood friendship to their prolific careers, which includes memorable vignettes of “The Simple Life.” (Beyond the show, Hilton is a businesswoman, musician and DJ, and Richie is an actor, designer and founder of the lifestyle brand House of Harlow.)
The duo even cast younger versions of themselves to kick off the production. The little girl who plays a younger Richie was the daughter of an acquaintance, and Hilton’s younger alter ego was cast from a TikTok video that her husband, Carter Reum, sent her, where the girl and her sister were asking to nanny their children, London and Phoenix. “They were singing ‘Sanasa,’” Hilton says of the video. “So when we were putting together the opera, this little girl was the first person I thought of to play me.”
In the opera, Hilton and Richie also nod to the rift the pair famously endured in 2005. According to Hilton, their public falling-out was less about any personal issues between them and more about the pervasive nature of early 2000s tabloid culture.
“During the 2000s, especially, the media was targeting a certain group of girls that Nicole and I were part of,” Hilton says. “So just a lot of the time [they were] inventing stories, trying to pit women against each other, trying to create feuds when there was none.”
It was frustrating, she says, because “if you were in [Hollywood], you knew what they were doing, but the outside world had no idea.”
When Hilton and Richie were ready to debut their opera, they invited fans, friends and family — even their old orchestra from middle school. But no one knew what to expect. “They were just told to show up,” Richie says. “So they were definitely surprised when they found out that it was an opera.”
After the thrill of making an opera, Hilton and Richie are now focused on what’s next for each of them. Hilton is expanding her brand with her media company, 11:11 Media, and is focused on writing her third album. She’s also anticipating the release of her 30th fragrance, “Iconic,” in 2025.
Meanwhile, Richie is focused on her passion for acting. Writing and creating shows, she says, has brought her endless amounts of joy. So, does that leave room for the possibility of them teaming up for an extended version of “The Encore”? It’s a strong maybe.
“We haven’t discussed anything official yet,” Richie says, before Hilton adds: “We’ll see how we feel about everything after and see if we want to do more seasons of it.”
