Paris Hilton opens up about fame and sex tapes in new memoir: This week's must-read books

In search of something good to read? USA TODAY's Barbara VanDenburgh scopes out the shelves for this week’s hottest new book releases. All books are on sale Tuesday.

For more must-read book recommendations, check out our interview with José Olivarez about his new poetry collection, and the March USA TODAY Book Club pick, "Promises of Gold;" the 20 books we were most excited for this winter, including a collaboration between Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher, and Rebecca Makkai's "I Have Some Questions for You"; our favorite books of 2022 that received perfect four-star reviews; and the juiciest celebrity memoirs released last year from Matthew Perry, Tom Felton, William Shatner, Jennette McCurdy and more. 

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'I felt like my life was over': Paris Hilton felt pressured into making sex tape at 19

‘Paris: The Memoir’

By Paris Hilton (Dey Street, nonfiction), out March 14

Fresh off the birth of her son Phoenix and a few years after her revealing 2020 documentary “This Is Paris,” one of the most famous celebrity heiresses further separates the woman from the brand in this new memoir. The now-42-year-old opens up more about her traumatic time spent in facilities for “troubled teens” and her relationship to celebrity.

In an excerpt published by Time, Paris shares her story of choosing to get an abortion in 2003, when she was 22.

"It was like waking up on the ledge outside a 40th-floor window. I was terrified and heartsick. The hormones sent my ADHD symptoms spiraling," Hilton writes. "Everything I knew about myself was at war with everything I’d been raised to believe about abortion. No one can ever know how hard it is to face this impossible choice unless she’s faced it herself."

Hilton continues, "Choosing to have an abortion can be an intensely private agony that’s impossible to explain. The only reason I’m talking about it now is that so many women are facing it, and they feel so alone and judged and abandoned. I want them to know that they’re not alone, and they don’t owe anyone an explanation."

Hilton also sounds off on the infamous sex tape made with then-boyfriend Rick Salomon in 2000 in an excerpt published by the Sunday Times (Hilton doesn’t name Salomon in her account, only referring to him by his nickname "Scum").

"I don’t remember that much about the night he wanted to make a videotape while we made love," Hilton writes, according to the Sunday Times, revealing that she drank alcohol and took Quaaludes prior to the making of the tape. "He had often said it was something he did with other women, but I felt weird and uncomfortable about it. I always told him, ‘I can’t. It’s too embarrassing.’"

Despite not being "capable of the level of trust required to make a videotape like that," Hilton says she was pressured into making the tape and was assured that "no one else would ever see it."

But the tape would come back to haunt Hilton a few years later when a 37-second clip of the video began circulating online.

"I felt like my life was over, and in many ways it was. Certainly, the career I had envisioned was no longer possible," Hilton writes. "Everything I wanted my brand to be, the trust and respect I was trying to rebuild with my parents, the sliver of self-worth I’d been able to recover – all that was instantly in ruins."

Other new books:

"The Art of The Straight Line: My Tai Chi," by Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson (HarperOne, nonfiction): Reed, who died in 2013, wasn’t just a legendary musician, he was also an accomplished martial artist who studied with Chen Tai Chi pioneer Master Ren GuangYi. Finished in collaboration with Reed’s wife, this collection is made up of essays, conversations, photos and ephemera about Tai Chi, meditation and life.

"I Will Find You," by Harlan Coben (Grand Central, fiction): Five years after devoted father David Burroughs was wrongly incarcerated for murdering his son, he finds out his child is still alive. Can David escape from a high-security prison to save the son he thought he'd lost forever?

"Our Best Intentions," by Vibhuti Jain (William Morrow, fiction): An immigrant family gets caught in a criminal investigation when teenage daughter Angie finds a wealthy classmate stabbed and bleeding on the school football field and a runaway Black girl becomes the primary suspect, an event that will reveal much about the community.

"The Teachers," by Alexandra Robbins (Dutton, nonfiction): Subtitled "A Year Inside America's Most Vulnerable, Important Profession," journalist Robbins' book offers a behind-the-scenes, year-in-the-life account of three teachers and their joys and challenges.

Contributing: Edward Segarra

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Paris Hilton memoir: Heiress opens up on fame, sex tape in new book