Paris Hilton Thanks God for Her Prison Sentence ; HOME / NEWS

Jun 12, 02:06 AM

Current Headlines: By Andrew Gumbel

After an inglorious public career in which she has had her sex life paraded on the internet, appeared in a TV reality show, tried and failed to launch herself as a singer and gone to many, many paparazzi-filled Hollywood parties, Paris Hilton announced yesterday that she had found God and was now "a different person".

The 26-year-old heiress, who nearly wriggled out of a 45-day jail sentence last week but is now firmly back behind bars, struck a distinctly contrite note as she gave her first interview as an inmate of the Los Angeles county jail system to the veteran celebrity watcher Barbara Walters. "I'm not the same person I was," she said in a collect call she made initially to her mother, who happened to be talking to Walters on the other line. "I used to act dumb. It was an act ...

"I know now that I can make a difference, that I have the power to do that. I have been thinking that I want to do different things when I am out of here. I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance."

Hilton's conversion appears to have taken place with remarkable speed. Just on Friday she was crying in court and calling out for her mother as Judge Michael Sauer overturned the sheriff department's decision to transfer her to house arrest and ordered her back to her 8ft by 12ft cell. "It's not fair," she whimpered.

Now, she says, her spiritual adviser has made her see her ordeal in karmic terms. "My spirit or soul did not like the way I was being seen and that is why I was sent to jail. God has released me."

That is not the explanation that Judge Sauer and the LA city attorney's office would give: they would say she was sent to jail because she flouted the terms of a drink-driving conviction and was caught three times behind the wheel with a suspended licence.

After her conviction last month, Hilton enjoyed distinctly cushy treatment from the LA sheriff - who, it has since emerged, received a chunky reelection contribution from Hilton's grandfather last year. First she was told she would serve only 23 days of her 45-day sentence as long as she behaved herself.

Then, barely three days after she checked herself into the prison system on 3 June, she was sent home to serve out the remainder of her sentence under house arrest - for unspecified medical reasons.

A public outcry ensued, prompting Friday's emergency hearing and her return to jail.

Walters asked what the nature of her medical crisis was. Hilton responded: "I was not eating or sleeping. I was severely depressed and felt as if I was in a cage. I was not myself. It was a horrible experience."

Perhaps the reason Hilton felt like she was in a cage was because she was; confined to a solitary cell for 23 hours a day, with one hour set aside for exercise.

Now, though, Hilton appears to have the histrionics firmly under control. She has dropped plans to appeal against her sentence. And she says that when she gets out she would like to help women with breast cancer and multiple sclerosis. Her old party crowd might have a thing or two to say about that.

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