Giles Hattersley, who admits he was once Paris Hilton’s roommate when she was in London in 2002 to star in a horror film called Nine Lives, meets up again with the hotel heiress for an interview in the Sunday Times. Blah blah blah, and then this appalling remark from the lazy-eyed eyesore of the western world.

We meet again on a balcony at the Sanderson hotel, surrounded by fashion shrubbery, with Hilton, 25, in a floor-length ball gown and outsize white-rimmed sunglasses. My first question is, what happened? “I know, right?” she giggles. “Things got, huge.” And you let them? “Yes, I did.” But why? “Because there’s nobody in the world like me,” she says, smiling lazily. “I think every decade has an iconic blonde — like Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana — and right now, I’m that icon.”