Paris Hilton kept the birth of her first child, son Phoenix, a secret from everyone — including her mom and sister.
Despite being left out of the big reveal, Hilton said her mom, Kathy Hilton, was more emotional than upset to find out about her new grandson.
The reality star told Rolling Stone in an interview that she invited her mother over one day like nothing out of the ordinary and gifted her a Chanel bag to potentially soften the blow.
“I was like, if I give her Chanel first, maybe she won’t be so upset that I didn’t tell her about this,” Hilton said.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox.> Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
The 42-year-old explained that she was holding the baby in a blanket when she sat down with Kathy Hilton, who asked, "What is that?"
"And I was like, ‘A baby … meet your grandson.’ She’s like, ‘Is this yours?’ And she starts crying. She’s like, ‘Let me hold him. He’s the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen in my life. Oh, he’s so beautiful.’ She was just in tears," Hilton told the publication.
After welcoming the baby boy via surrogate, Hilton announced the birth on Instagram on Jan. 24 with a picture of her newborn with his hand wrapped around her thumb. Without revealing her baby's face or name, Hilton wrote, “You are already loved beyond words.”
U.S. & World
In her “This is Paris” podcast, she explained her choice to not initially reveal the birth of her son to her mom and sister Nicky Hilton Rothschild. Rothschild has three children.
“I just really felt that I wanted to have this journey with us only,” she said, adding, “It was hard to keep that in because we were so excited and wanted to tell our families, but you’re just nervous because if you tell one person then you know they tell someone and then all of a sudden it’s like in TMZ or Page Six.”
Instead, Hilton and her husband, Carter Reum, decided to keep the pregnancy and birth to themselves amid life in the public eye, as she said on TODAY with Hoda and Jenna.
“I just feel like my life has been so public and I just wanted something for me,” she said. “I didn’t want the media and people online just speaking about my son even before he was here on this earth.”
On the podcast episode, Hilton similarly spoke of her and her husband's joint decision to keep the experience to themselves, prior to revealing Phoenix to the world.
“We’re just so excited to start our family and can’t wait for you to see him. But for now, you’ve just been keeping everything really private,” she explained in her podcast. “No one knew, literally, until he was, like, over a week old. So it was really nice just to have that with Carter, (have) our own journey together.”
Hilton said on TODAY that she had always wanted to be a mom, but she hadn't found the right person to take that step with until she met Reum.
“I needed to find someone I could trust and open my heart to and this little baby is just my everything,” she said.
Hilton's memoir, "Paris: A Memoir," came out on March 14.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY
