Partying in the past for Paris as she builds brand

Paris Hilton

CANNES, France - Long derided as a celebrity air-head, hotel heiress Paris Hilton is starting to demand a little more respect with her rapidly expanding business empire.

In Cannes to promote her latest film, the former wild child is prepared to stop at nothing. She has her own canine clothing brand called Paris Tinkerbell, named after her Chihuahua, and even a "doggie jewellery line".

"I'm 24 years old now and the party girl days were when I was 16 years old and I'd just moved to New York City, and now I'm too busy," she told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

"I am a businesswoman, I work every single day and I don't go out any more, so I think people definitely realise that. I have lost that image to people who know me."

"That image" is one of a vacuous party animal, best known until recently for appearing in a homemade film having sex with her then boyfriend that spread via the internet.

But TV series The Simple Life, in which she lives with ordinary people and mucks in with the family chores, her businesses from fragrances to hotels to night clubs, and even a lengthy profile in the New York Times, are changing all of that.

Reclining on a chaise longue by the beach, Hilton's demeanour is demure. She wears a simple white patterned dress, and refers to herself as a "brand".

"I'm already building my own empire and I have so much going on that I wouldn't need to," she said, when asked whether she would one day take over the family Hilton hotel chain.

"I'm already doing my own Hotel Parises, so they're not going to be Hiltons. They're going to be my own boutique hotels ... I'll be their competition." When asked to estimate just how big her business was, she said: "A lot".

Hilton believes she has inherited an ambitious streak.

"I always think it's very important to make my own money," she told a packed press conference.

"I come from a very ambitious family. My grandfather started the Hilton hotel chain after being a bell-boy, and I wanted to do my own thing and make my own name for myself and not be just the Hilton hotel daughter."

Time will tell whether her business ventures turn out to be vanity projects or financially successful companies.

But Hilton has not forgotten that sex sells.

When asked about her new film Pledge This, in which she plays an American university student called Victoria who leads her colleagues astray, she answered:

"This is a very sexy movie. It's all about hot sorority girls in college, and everybody's beautiful. It's hot, and there are some sexy scenes with me."

The next instalment of reality TV show The Simple Life is also scheduled to be set in Hawaii, where the beaches should provide a more glamorous setting than previous series.

Barely ever out of the limelight, Hilton's reception in Cannes had A-list celebrity written all over it -- the arrival by boat, a media scrum and a long section of the exclusive Cannes beach devoted to her sizeable entourage.

"Obviously I sometimes think everybody is always watching me," she said. "It gets hard, but that's the business I chose to be in."

- REUTERS