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Kathy Hilton is the first recipient of Vulture\u2019s Forever Icon award, presented as part of our annual \u201cMasterminds\u201d celebration. The award honors an onscreen star whose singular achievements extend far beyond the past year. To explain what makes Hilton so essential to the reality-television world, we tapped her Real Housewives of Beverly Hills colleague, Oscar-nominated actress and professional poker player Jennifer Tilly.<\/p>\n
The thing about Kathy Hilton is that there are two Kathys. Well, there are probably a lot of Kathys. There are seven Kathys like the Seven Faces of Sybil.<\/p>\n
The first has a wicked sense of humor. Dark, gallows humor. Chris Rock\u2013caliber comedy. When she\u2019s on and when she\u2019s sharp, she\u2019s ferocious Kathy and there\u2019s nobody funnier. But a lot of people don\u2019t see that because the fa\u00e7ade she puts on for the show is someone who\u2019s not quite sure what\u2019s going on. I think a lot of women, myself included, who are very smart and intelligent, keep it hidden. Because floaty comedy is easier for people to take. Audiences like that better. If you\u2019re a sharp comedian, if you let your feet touch the ground, you have a lot of enemies. So I think that she saves that part, that character \u2014 which is maybe the real Kathy; who knows? \u2014 for her friends.<\/p>\n
Kathy will often ask, \u201cWho is \u2018hunky-dory\u2019?\u201d Why? \u201cWell, everybody was yelling and I thought it would break the tension.\u201d She does that a lot. Like when Dorit says, \u201cWe need to address the elephant in the room.\u201d When I see that there\u2019s some drama going on, it\u2019s like I have a front-row seat to the Super Bowl. I know I\u2019m not going to get a word in edgewise, but I want to be right next to it and maybe they will cut to my worried expression. But when Kathy sees storm clouds gathering, she will just vanish. Like I Dream of Jeannie going back into the bottle. Except she cannot leave our dinners. So she\u2019ll say things like, \u201cOh, is there an elephant?\u201d<\/p>\n
So the second Kathy really does want everybody to get along. She wants everybody to be happy. She\u2019s a friend to everybody, even people who rub her the wrong way. She\u2019s one of the few who reached out to Amanda after filming. When the fans started really going after Amanda, Kathy reached out to see if Amanda was okay. Natalie really never found her place in the group, and Kathy made a point of being friends with Natalie and making Natalie feel like she is \u2026 not viable, not valuable, but you know what I\u2019m saying. She really wanted to make Natalie not feel like a horrible outsider.<\/p>\n
The thing that Kathy also does \u2014 I swear to God \u2014 is she has a party every two weeks. The third Kathy has really big parties that are like the Golden Globes gifting suite. Like Oprah\u2019s favorite things. It\u2019s like, I\u2019m Kathy Hilton and I know about all these fabulous things and I want to share the knowledge with my friends. She has many Christmas parties, but the biggest one happens shortly after Halloween, and everybody gets a pair of pajamas. You take off your clothes and you put on the pajamas. Then you get this giant bag, like those bags you take to the flea market that have wheels on them. You walk around in your pajamas and you go to all these stations. There\u2019s a Christmas wreath station. A flower station. A cosmetic station. There\u2019s also caviar and cookies and Christmas trees and Housewives and Bravolebrities, all surrounded by twink elves in Christmas G-strings.<\/p>\n
She has a lot of parties to promote products, but she\u2019s always opening her house for LGBTQ+ causes, too. She opened up her house to the GLAAD Awards. The fourth Kathy is a philanthropist. I\u2019ve been working with Project Angel Food for 30 years, and they wanted to give me an award. I never invite my friends to those things because the ceremonies can be boring. But Project Angel Food is a great charity, and they wanted a Housewife to give me my award. Sutton was out of town, so I asked Kathy, and she wasn\u2019t like \u201cI\u2019ll think about it\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m really busy.\u201d She goes, \u201cI work with Project Angel Food. I will do that.\u201d And she showed up with bells on.<\/p>\n
The thing that cracked me up so much is that Lisa Rinna is also a friend of Project Angel Food. And during the ceremony, they auctioned off a lunch with Lisa at the Polo Lounge. It went for a huge amount of money. (The gays love Lisa, as they should.) So onstage Lisa says something like, \u201cOh, for a certain amount, I\u2019ll do two lunches.\u201d I think that the two lunches with Lisa came to $45,000. Kathy got up, marched up to the front of the auction, had a little talk with the auctioneer, and they go, \u201cWe have a new item. Kathy Hilton is going to host 12 to 24 people at her house for a dinner. And she\u2019s going to be there.\u201d Of course the bidding went crazy.<\/p>\n
The fifth Kathy is like a dog that locks his jaw to your leg and will not let go. You have to have five strong men peel the dog off the leg. She might not know how to use her cell phone or other very rudimentary things, but if she is being threatened or her children are being threatened, she goes in. Like at the season-12 reunion. She\u2019s in a really sparkly pink dress with a matching purse sitting on her lap, and she is like Attila the Hun. Everybody\u2019s mouth drops because nobody expects that out of Kathy.<\/p>\n
The sixth Kathy is an anxious traveler. She brings all the little pots and the potions with her. She has all these pillows. But they\u2019re not that little half doughnut you see people slumping around their neck. She\u2019s a Hilton. She carries these pillows, six or seven of them, that look like what you\u2019d see on a fancy lady\u2019s bed. Once, we were going through Customs, she has her pillows, and I noticed she was sort of lurching, like Igor. I caught up to her and saw she had one high-heel espadrille on and then one hotel slipper. I go, \u201cCould you not find your other shoe?\u201d And she goes, \u201cNo, this is actually a very good exercise for your feet.\u201d Later on, it transpired that she couldn\u2019t find her shoe or the strap broke. Most people would put on two slippers in that case. But Kathy is special. She has the ability to charm everybody into seeing things her way.<\/p>\n
And everyone should want to be on vacation with Kathy. When you see her out and about in her normal life, she is impossibly glamorous, the Hilton lady of the manor that she was born to be. But when she goes on trips with us, she will show up in these overwashed cotton dresses, the kind of thing you\u2019d wear if you were a high-school student on a school trip to Hawaii. Everybody else? We\u2019re wearing all these fantastical outfits. We know there\u2019s going to be a big showdown and people are going to be tuning in. We are all dressed like we\u2019re in Elizabethan court. Maybe Kathy does it to annoy Kyle. But I think in her mind, she\u2019s like, I\u2019m on vacation. I want to be comfortable. And she is. The seventh Kathy sleeps until one in the afternoon. In St. Lucia, she wanders the beaches at night, howling at the sea.<\/p>\n
Sometimes on the show, there\u2019s a thin layer of artifice. Sometimes when you\u2019re watching, you\u2019re like, Oh, this seems like a badly written, badly acted soap opera. And that might be because producers are\u00a0 trying to get us from one point to another. \u201cCan you guys have a discussion about what happened the day before yesterday?\u201d But I always say the show is the most fascinating when all the women are together. Some of these women genuinely hate each other, so it\u2019s like improv when the air is electric but nobody knows it\u2019s dangerous. Nobody knows who is going to say what or when it\u2019s going to explode. Then all of a sudden you are sitting there holding up your arms while everybody is pelting bread at you. When Kathy\u2019s not there for that, it\u2019s like there\u2019s something missing. It\u2019s like you made a cake and you forgot to put the vanilla in it. When Kathy is not there looking around for the elephant, it\u2019s more aggressive.<\/p>\n
Everybody prefers to have Kathy around. There is nobody I would rather be sitting with in the bar at the Bel Air Hotel after filming than Kathy Hilton. She brings so much to the show just by existing. I personally try to do as much stuff as I possibly can during Housewives shoots because they cut so much out. But Kathy doesn\u2019t seem to care. She doesn\u2019t seem to be concerned with getting camera time or being involved in interesting scenes. She\u2019s just there because she likes to be there. When I tried to decide if I wanted to be a \u201cfriend of\u201d or a Housewife, she said, \u201cBeing a \u2018friend of\u2019 is the best. You don\u2019t have to get into any of the arguments.\u201d And now I really understand. She doesn\u2019t want to be committing hari-kiri on-camera for the edification of the masses. She wants to have fun. She wants to make jokes. She wants to hang out with her sister. It\u2019s not that complicated.<\/p>\n