Still the Same Face, Still That Tape

Ten years is a long time to look exactly the same. Paris Hilton does not appear to have aged a single day since 1 Night in Paris came out—that green-tinted, night-vision catastrophe of a sex tape that somehow everyone had a copy of without quite admitting how they got it. I remember it being passed around like contraband, nobody willing to claim direct ownership. The footage itself wasn’t particularly erotic—grainy haze, a few dumb one-liners, a lot of dead air—but that wasn’t really the point. The point was Paris Hilton, the idea of her, the way she moved through the world like she’d been specifically designed to make men feel stupid for caring.

She and her quieter sister Nicky recently stopped by Terry Richardson’s studio, because that’s what a certain tier of celebrity did in 2013. The results are exactly what you’d expect from that combination: Paris in a skintight black swimsuit, shot from the side, wearing the same practiced expression she’s worn in every photograph since 2003. Richardson’s signature flat light, her signature pout. Two brands consuming each other.

To mark the occasion, or maybe just coincidentally, she released a new single called Good Time with Lil Wayne. It is exactly as disappointing as the photoshoot. Which is exactly as disappointing as the sex tape was, once you got past the novelty. Paris Hilton has always been most interesting as a concept—and the concept, it turns out, holds up better than the execution ever did.