Two decades after lifelong friends Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie starred in the genre-defining reality series The Simple Life, the pair have reunited onscreen in a miniseries anniversary special, Paris & Nicole: The Encore (now streaming on Peacock).
The three-part series showcases the besties taking a walk down memory lane: They travel back to Arkansas to visit their old Simple Life stomping grounds, reminisce about filming the show, and, in an effort to commemorate one of the quirkiest yet most beloved elements of their friendship, make an opera performance — you read that correctly — out of their popular, one-word song: “Sanasa.”
Hilton and Richie’s close-knit friendship is front and center throughout the special, much like it was in The Simple Life, which aired its first episode on Fox in December of 2023. The most heartfelt moment between them comes in the third episode, just before they take the stage at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills to perform “The Sanasapera” before a packed house. In an interaction that happens so quickly you could miss it, Richie and Hilton, strapped into harnesses as they prepare to be lifted into the air for their grand entrance, clasp hands. “I love you,” Richie tells Hilton with a look of sincerity on her face. “This is fun.” Hilton replies, “Celebrating 20 years boo.” They embrace and stare at each other in adoration.
“I’ll never forget that moment. That was really special,” Hilton tells Rolling Stone. “It was very emotional. We both looked at each other and knew how much we love each other and just how excited we were. We put so much work into putting together this whole opera, and then we were just floating in the air, looking down and being like, ‘Oh my god, look what we just created together.’”
In the show, the crowd cheers as Hilton and Richie are raised nearly 1,000 feet into the air. A live chorus below them sings their famous tune, “Sanasa,” as they slowly descend from the rafters.
“There were hundreds of fans in that room who had flown in from all over the world and they were all so excited to see us together for the first time. What an entrance, us just floating down. That was so epic,” Hilton says. “It was just a flow of emotions and happiness. We were feeling so proud of what we had put together.”
Before reality television grew into the entertainment juggernaut it is today — before the Kardashians, the first Real Housewives franchise, or the rise of The Bachelor and its ilk — Hilton and Richie played an integral role in shaping how viewers would come to think about unscripted TV. Without many other examples to look to, these young women depicted their real-life shenanigans (with a little help from producers, of course) for an audience that didn’t just laugh at them but with them.
“I’m really proud that we are the OGs, the blueprint, and the pioneers who helped create this whole new genre,” Hilton says today, speaking by Zoom from Los Angeles along with Richie. “It makes me proud that people see us as the mothers of this.”
The Simple Life has had a surprisingly lasting impact. Not only are millennials who grew up watching the series are fans all these years later, but Richie says younger people have discovered the fun and joy of The Simple Life on TikTok. She learned about its resurgence thanks to her own kids, who are teenagers.
“My kids were watching clips and their friends were watching clips. That was definitely a big part of the reason why I was excited to do this reunion,” Richie says. “Just as a way to celebrate this really great show that we did 20 years ago. It’s really nice to see a whole new generation laugh and giggle and have a good time.”
After years fielding offers to come back together onscreen, Richie says she and Hilton simply felt the timing was right for this project. “We’ve said no to all the offers that have come up to do any version of The Simple Life again or to do a 10-year reunion,” she says. “We didn’t necessarily talk about why but we both just decided that this was the moment where we felt like we wanted to do this.” She notes that 20 years ago, she and Hilton were not in control of the show’s creative direction, but The Encore allowed them to come back on their own terms.
“When we decided to come back we said to each other, ‘What would that look like? What would that feel like?’ We just really built it from the ground up,” Richie says. “On Season One of The Simple Life, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We didn’t know what city we were going to, we didn’t know what state, it was just surprise after surprise for 30 days. I think that’s the biggest difference.”
While Hilton and Richie are all smiles in their nostalgic Peacock special, their friendship has had its ups and downs since The Simple Life aired. Over the years, they’ve both addressed a rift in their relationship following the reality series, and during their Sanasa opera, the duo perform an interpretive dance that symbolizes the media tearing them apart. Like so many women who were in the spotlight in the 2000s, Hilton and Richie struggled with incessant negative attention in the media, which they say portrayed them unfairly and played a role in their personal conflict.
“The media back in the 2000s was just so toxic and so vicious. They always loved to create feuds between people and pit women against each other,” Hilton says. “That’s just how the media was back then, and we couldn’t use our own voices, because there was no social media. There was no way for us to ever really speak out. The media was basically controlling all the storylines that were happening back then. So we just wanted to do a nod to that in the opera.”
Paris & Nicole: The Encore isn’t Hilton’s first foray back into reality television since The Simple Life. Back in 2021, Hilton launched her own unscripted series on Peacock titled Paris in Love, in which she takes viewers inside the planning of her wedding to Carter Reum. The show’s second season, which started streaming in November 2023, highlights Hilton’s family dynamics as she navigates the birth of her first son, Phoenix. Richie on the other hand has mostly stayed out of the realm of reality TV until now. As far as whether or not the duo would follow The Encore with another joint project, Richie says anything is possible.
“I would give this experience a 20 out of 10. We had the best time and who knows what the future will bring,” she says. “We shall see.”
