Paris Hilton to go on Larry King show — unpaid

The heiress, nearing the end of a 23-day jail term, agreed to a one-hour live interview on CNN after the three broadcast networks spurned her request for a lucrative deal.

By Matea Gold
Times Staff Writer

June 24, 2007

NEW YORK — After being spurned by the three broadcast networks, Paris Hilton is turning to CNN's Larry King to spill the details of her 23-day incarceration in Los Angeles County jails.

The celebutante has agreed to do a one-hour live interview with the cable news host after she is released from a Lynwood facility next week, CNN announced today. The sit-down is set for 6 p.m. June 27.

Both CNN and a spokesman for Hilton said she was not being compensated for the interview.

King landed the exclusive after Hilton's efforts to extract a lucrative deal from the broadcast networks through compensation for the use of personal videos and photos backfired.

In a chaotic series of negotiations this week, ABC executives said they were told by Hilton's family that "Today's" Meredith Vieira had won the interview because NBC had offered to pay close to $1 million to license the footage, a story that NBC rejected as untrue.

The heiress and her parents — now insisting that she was not seeking to be paid — then renewed discussions Friday with ABC's Barbara Walters, who ultimately turned down the interview. Hours later, NBC officials informed the Hiltons they were no longer interested, either. CBS officials also said they did not want the story.

In turning to King, whose nightly interview program is a staple of the publicity circuit, Hilton will get a conversational forum in which to recount her jail-time experience, one she has said has dramatically changed her.

In a statement released through a spokesman this afternoon, Hilton said: "I am thrilled that Larry King has asked me to appear on his program to discuss my experience in jail, what I have learned, how I have grown and anything else he wants to talk about.

"Larry King is not only a world-renowned journalist, but a true American icon. It will be an honor to do his show."