The Real Reason Paris Hilton Chose A Surrogate To Have Her Kids

Motherhood? That's hot! Giving birth? Not so much! At least that's the perspective of famous socialite Paris Hilton, who welcomed her two children, Phoenix and London, via surrogacy. But it's so much more complicated than that, of course.

Motherhood was a later-in-life decision for the heiress, having already turned 40 when she publicly revealed that she was ready to have a family with her then-boyfriend Carter Reum. Speaking with People, "The Simple Life" star shared that she had initiated the IVF process during the COVID-19 lockdown. "We started going and doing it like a few months in because the world was shut down," she explained. "We knew we wanted to start a family, and I was like, 'This is perfect timing. Usually I'm on a plane 250 days out of the year, and let's just get all of the eggs stocked and ready,' and we have tons of them just waiting." As it turns out it was Kim Kardashian, one of her besties and former assistant, who introduced Hilton to IVF. "Kim had told me about it," she shared with Glamour UK. "So I had eggs frozen."

But by the time Hilton was ready to welcomechildren into her life, she had decided not to go through pregnancies herself. She opted for the surrogacy route, again thanks to the advice of Kardashian. But she had an underlying reason, as well: the abuse she endured during her time at a boarding school in Utah made her fear childbirth.

Paris Hilton's life extends beyond the perceived glitz and glamour. Between the ages of 16 and 18, she was shipped off to different boarding schools and "treatment centers" for breaking many of her parents' rules. "[I lost] the most important, most fun years of being a teenage girl," she told Harper's Bazaar.

Hilton detailed that she suffered physical and verbal abuse during her time in said institutions. At Provo, a school based in Utah, she underwent shady medical exams and procedures that made her swear off childbirth entirely. She told Glamour UK, "I'm just so scared, I think, again, leading back to Provo of even being in a doctor's office, just all of that. The shots, the IVs that they put in." She also shared her experience on Twitter, saying: "I was forced to lie on a padded table, spread my legs & submit to cervical exams. I cried while they held me down & said, 'No!' They just said, "Shut up. Be quiet. Stop struggling or you'll go to Obs.'"

Her unpleasant experience witnessing childbirth in real-time when she was filming "The Simple Life" contributed to her fear, too. She recalled, "I had to be in a room when a woman was giving birth and that traumatized me as well. But I want a family so bad, it's just the physical part of doing it. I'm just so scared... childbirth and death are the two things that scare me more than anything in the world."

These days, Paris Hilton is living her best life. She said that tending to Phoenix and London brings her insurmountable joy, and she can't wait to share her experiences with motherhood with her fans. "I'm excited for people to really get an inside look into everything happening in my life right now," she shared with People. "I'm looking forward to just being in my mom era. I feel like it's my best era yet, and I'm just excited to show the world." She even admitted that she has learned how to turn down projects so she can put her kids above everything else. "I'm constantly saying no to things, because I just want to spend as much time with him as possible, and I just don't want to miss any of these special moments in his life and all these milestones," she said in October 2022, when she first welcomed Phoenix.

Most importantly, motherhood allowed her to move past the emotional burdens she still carried from her past. "Creating my own family and a real life — because I've been kind of having to play this character and living this life for so long," she told People of what contributed to her healing. "And I feel like having a family, having children, is what I've always been meant to do."