Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie bring back the joy of ‘The Simple Life’
Christine Bartolucci/PEACOCK
“The world needs to ‘sanasa’ and we are bringing it to them.”
Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie are ready to bring a little “sanasa” to the world with Peacock‘s Paris & Nicole: The Encore, their first project together since their reality show The Simple Life ended in 2007. What’s “sanasa”? It’s a song and phrase the longtime friends created as kids and popularized on Simple Life. Now they’re bringing it back and turning it into an opera on Encore. “I know this is just going to make people laugh, have fun, be nostalgic, and then just celebrate our friendship and our amazing song,” Hilton says. While Richie acknowledges, “you can’t do Simple Life again,” she says now “felt like the right time…we really loved doing that show.” In addition to the opera, the famous pair also revisit some old jobs in Arkansas, like their time at Sonic. (And in a full-circle moment, the pair now have drinks named after them at the fast-food chain.) “I think that there is a part of our friendship that the show ended up showing that people connect to,” Richie says. As for this new special, Hilton is just glad to do something positive for their fans. “It’s been such a crazy past couple years, and I just feel like the world needs more joy.”
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Editor’s Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.
I guess the first natural question is, what made you want to come back to do this special?
Nicole Richie: We have been asked everything from “do The Simple Life over again,” or “will you do a 10-year reunion?” And the answer was always “no,” just because, first of all, you can’t do Simple Life again. That’s just not realistic for many reasons. And it just felt like, why we would just be doing something just to do it? And then Paris and I were on text, we were looking at a photo of this sweet boy named Braxton [who appeared on The Simple Life], who the last time I saw him, he was 3, who’s now 23. And Paris had told me that she spoke to him and just where he’s at in his life. So we were just talking over text, very casually, and she said, “You know, the 20-year anniversary is coming up.” And I wrote, “Should we do something?” And Paris wrote back, “Should we?” And we got together shortly after, and we just had a talk.
I’ve got teenagers, and they have been watching The Simple Life on TikTok. Simple Life‘s been having a moment on TikTok. Their friends have been watching it. And it just felt like the right time, I think for both Paris and I. I’ll let her speak on this more, but we really loved doing that show, and it’s a show that I’m really proud of. We were like, 20 years, that’s it, that’s a good time to go back and have a reunion, but more so [to] celebrate this very cool thing that we did together. And that conversation was just between the two of us. I mean, we told our husbands shortly after, but at the beginning, it was just us. And from that point, we already had this sense of ownership around it, and so we didn’t sign up to do someone else’s reunion. We created our own. So we flushed out the entire special, what it would look like, what it would feel like, episodic breakdowns. Then we took it to market, and we sold it. And the show is so great. But also just the experience of taking something that we did and capturing it, getting ownership of it, celebrating that was just something that was very cool and exciting to the both of us.
Christine Bartolucci/PEACOCK
Paris, what made you want to come back and do this? And what do you think made the original run so iconic and memorable?
Paris Hilton: Well, I wanted to do it because I just thought it would be so much fun. When I was texting with Nicole, and she said, “Should we do something?” I immediately had a flash of memories of just so many fun times and so many crazy moments. And then when we started talking more about the idea and just got very excited. To be able to spend so much time together again was so much fun, because now that we’re moms, married, running our businesses, we have all these responsibilities, so we couldn’t, obviously, spend as much time together as we did back in the day. So just to be able to hang out every day and shoot together was so much fun. Also the fans have been asking for this for so long, so this is also a love letter to all the fans. Just hearing from so many people [saying] how much the show meant to them and how it shaped their personality and shaped the person that they are today, it really made me really emotional. To hear from so many people about how much, when people were going through pain, when they would watch The Simple Life, it would take away that pain and bring so much joy and happiness to people. That’s just so powerful. I feel like one of my superpowers is I’m able to make people happy, and I love that we could do that together through the show. And I feel like it’s so iconic because it was the first of its kind. It was so just real. You can’t invent that type of chemistry of a lifelong friendship. And the outfits were so fun. [laughs]
What impact do you think Simple Life had, not just on reality TV, but on culture?
Richie: Well, I want to say first that it’s really important to note that when Paris and I signed up to do this show, it was not 2024, there were no smartphones, there’s no concept of doing a reality show to build your brand or build your other careers like that. That was not the reason that we did this show. Paris and I signed on to do this show because that sounded like a fun adventure. And we were 20, and we were excited about leaving town. We didn’t even have any information, really. They didn’t tell us what city we were going to. They didn’t say what we were going to do. We just knew that, just based off of our friendship leading up to that point, whatever we were going to do, if we did it together, we were just going to have fun. And so our entire reason for doing the show was just, let’s step into the unknown, and we’re going to do it together, and we’re going to laugh, and that’s just going to be that. And I think that people definitely picked up on that energy. I think they can see it in our eyes. Not knowing where we were going to wake up the next day, what jobs we were going to do, it’s something that you really can only do at a specific time in your life. I think that that’s what your 20s are for. They are for adventure and stepping into the unknown. And we were doing it with each other. And I think that there was a real lightheartedness to it that people really appreciated.
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What jobs were you excited to revisit in this special?
Hilton: I was excited to go back to Sonic because that was our very first job on Simple Life. So that just brought back so many memories to be back there. And it was hilarious being there. And then also, Nicole and I just came out with our drinks with Sonic—the Paris and the Nicole. So it’s been like a [full] circle moment in that way, and I was so excited to go back to Arkansas and visit the Ledings [the family they lived with in season 1 of The Simple Life].
Richie: We decided that last minute. We didn’t really plan that. We were gonna stay in L.A., and mid-shooting, we were like, “We need to go back to Arkansas. We need to go and say hi to everybody and get inspo for the opera, and maybe we’ll adopt a few people to come and do the opera with us.” So that was a real left turn.
What was that like? The Arkansas of it all.
Richie: So fun.
Hilton: It was so fun. It was emotional as well, just to see everyone, and just with Buffy [one of their bosses on The Simple Life], and then he started crying when we were talking to him. That made me tear up, just seeing how much we meant to them, because we didn’t know what to expect, especially with Danny, the cattle farm person [from The Simple Life]. I thought he hated us because he was screaming at us the whole day.
Richie: And then we never saw him again.
Hilton: So we literally thought these people were mad at us. But they were all so sweet, and they loved us. It was just cool to talk to them separately from all of that, because when we were shooting the show, the producers and everyone basically would not talk to us. They’re like, “We just want this to be as real as possible. So if you guys need help or anything, we’re not going to even answer you.” And all of the crew was instructed to not answer us if we would ask for things. So it was just interesting to hear from their perspective what was happening behind the scenes as well.
Could there be more pairings of Paris and Nicole in maybe another special like this, or other things in the future?
Richie: I could see us being cops and arresting people.
Hilton: We were cops.
Richie: I know, I want to do it longer. [laughs]
Hilton: I think the possibilities are endless.
Richie: We can do anything. I would also be a therapist with you.
What do you hope people take from this special?
Richie: A lot of people come up to me and they say, “Oh, my God, I have a language with my best friend. And we always call each other Paris and Nicole.” Or, they go, “I’m the Bill and she’s the Sill.” And I think that there is a part of our friendship, that the show ended up showing that people connect to and they can compare to their own lives and people can compare it to their best friend. And that to me, even as we get older and we have careers and families, I think going back and hanging with your friends is just so fun, and it puts you in a very relaxed, very happy, euphoric type of zone. And I think that is what people like about watching the show. I just want to bring that into people’s homes and make people smile and bring joy.
Hilton: I think it’s the perfect gift for the holidays to give everybody. I want people to feel happy. It’s been such a crazy past couple years, and I just feel like the world needs more joy. The world needs to “sanasa” [a term/song created by them on The Simple Life that went viral] and we are bringing it to them. And I know this is just going to make people laugh, have fun, be nostalgic for everything, and then just celebrate our friendship and our amazing song.
