Woman's Hour - Paris Hilton, Anneka Rice, Gas & Air, Budget 2023

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Paris Hilton, reality TV star, so-called 'inventor of the selfie,' and business woman, joins Anita to talk about her new book 'Paris: The Memoir.' The former socialite first appeared on-screen in the early noughties with her hit reality TV show, The Simple Life.  Now she’s opening up about her life in the spotlight.Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has unveiled the contents of the Spring Budget in the House of Commons. What has changed for women? Anita is joined by Sarah Pennells, Consumer Finance Specialist at Royal London and Claer Barrett, Consumer Editor at the FT to discuss the Chancellor’s plans to tackle the cost of living crisis, reform childcare, pensions and benefits. Some NHS maternity units in England have suspended the use of gas and air, also known as Entonox, in labour wards, after air quality tests showed unsafe levels of nitrous oxide on some maternity wards. Gas and air has been used for decades to help women in labour reduce their pain. But air quality tests have raised the risk of long-term effects for the midwives, nurses and doctors who are exposed to it for a long period of time in often-unventilated labour wards. Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian columnist has been looking into this developing story.Nearly 30 years after she last donned her legendary jumpsuit, TV presenter Anneka Rice is back on TV screens with a new series of Challenge Anneka. The original programmes aired in the late 1980s and early 1990s and saw her working on more than sixty huge scale projects, including renovating an orphanage in Romania and building a suspension bridge in Cornwall. She joins Woman's Hour to explain how this work changed the image of women on TV, and to discuss some of her fresh, epic challenges.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to the programme. The original influencer, reality TV star and inventor of the selfie and said to be at one point the highest paid female DJ in the world, heiress Paris Hilton is joining me on the programme. Her memoir came out this week and you can forget any preconceived ideas

you may have held about the young woman who made her name with a dumb blonde persona. She's opened up about her life in the spotlight, being groomed by a teacher and the horrific abuse she suffered as a teenager in a special school for troubled teens. She has blown all assumptions about her out of the water with this book. So this morning, I want to hear what assumptions people have made about you

based on the way you look, the way you sound, the way you dress, or indeed what judgments you may have made about other people. I feel I'm constantly smashing people's binary ideas of what Asian women can and can't do. It's one of my favourite things to do and I've been doing it my entire life. But what about you? Let's hear when you have crushed a judgment someone has made about you. How satisfying. The text number is 84844.

You can contact us via social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. You can email us through the website or you can contact me via whatsapp or send me a voice note it's 03700 100 444 also this morning the budget how does it impact women if you have any questions get them to me and i will put them to our experts who will be on the program very soon that text number once again 84844 but now on to my first guest. I am thrilled to be interviewing this woman. Annika Rice became known as a sky runner on Treasure Hunt, as if we'd forgotten, flying around the country looking for clues,

wearing an iconic jumpsuit, earning her the title Rear of the Year. She then created Challenge Annika, working on more than 60 huge-scale projects around the world, from Romanian orphanages to building a suspension bridge in Cornwall. She had her own waxwork in Madame Tussauds and was even invited to be a Bond girl. But she stepped away from it all to raise her sons and study for a degree in fine arts. She's since had a regular show on Radio 2 and comedy shows on Radio 4. But now, nearly 30 years on, she is back on our screens.

Hallelujah. With a brand new series of Challenge Annika. It's going to start on Channel 5 this Saturday. Annika and her team and volunteers are back tackling some epic new challenges. Welcome to Woman's Hour, Annika. Oh, Anita. It's lovely to see you. It's so good to be here. But before you say anything, I think we, I feel we need some music. Here we go. Let's go good to be here but before you say anything I feel we need some music here we go. Dance everyone come on and off you go again The funny thing about the start of

that, that was actually Treasure Hunt music No, no, no, it does start off Challenge Annika. Because the thing is, no one has a clue what programme I'm presenting. If I say I'm bringing back Challenge, they look at me and go, why are you still that fit? They still think I'm going to be in a helicopter. So for the series of Challenge, we've just amalgamated every programme I've ever done. There's a bit of a helicopter, there's a bit of a whiff of a jumpsuit. A whiff of a jumpsuit doesn't sound quite right.

There is a jumpsuit. Well, there is. But the thing is, we filmed it in the winter. So I have so many layers on. You never see it. I look more, you know, it's not glamorous. Shoot this. So it is it has been sort of joyful just throwing the kitchen sink at the rebirth of challenge because there's hints that there'll be something for everyone there, hopefully.

Why is it back now? What happened? Tell us the story. What happened? Well, I have to say, though it's been off the screens, it's never been away from my heart because I'm still so involved with so many of these projects. And you mentioned the Romania orphanage in your introduction and that's one project that's never gone away after we finished that particular challenge the the school teacher Monica McDade who was just a primary school teacher from Solihull wrote to our program little did she know that her life was going to be changed forever because we did this challenge. And as you know, the story of the Romanian orphanages in the 80s and 90s was just terrible. They'd come to the end of Ceausescu's communist regime, where families weren't allowed to have more than a certain number of children.

There were so many abandoned children, thousands and thousands and thousands all over Romania. And the orphanage that Monica directed us to was actually on the border with Ukraine, funnily enough. And it was home to 600 children of indeterminate age. They were so malnourished. And the little babies were kept in a dark basement, tethered to cots. There was no electricity, no running water, sewage in the corridors.

It was just so awful. Grown men were crying. We took out a plane load with supplies and doctors. But we realised after our 10-day challenge we couldn't just leave this project. I had two tiny children at home and I I felt guilt for about seven months that I went back afterwards you know I was going back to your life I was going back to my life but Monica made a decision to stay on with a lot of the core team and they stayed on for 30 years and they have transformed the life of dozens and dozens and dozens of those now young adults. Now they're in their 30s and

a lot of the volunteers funded themselves year after year to go out and carry on repairs and they've built these halfway houses. So a lot of the young adults now, you know, lead quite normal lives. They're still hugely scarred by, you know, what happened to them. So they'll never be able to lead a normal life. But they're living in these halfway houses, and I was talking to Monica, because I'm in touch the whole time, just as war with Ukraine broke out. And funnily enough, I'd been talking to Ben Frow at Channel 5...

The big boss. ..about maybe bringing Challenge back. He was really keen. And the clincher was i spoke to monica and we were just talking about the her the the gang out um in these you know as part of her her her gang of orphan she's helping and she was saying that war had broken out and refugees were coming over the border from ukraine and our original orphans were giving up their beds to these Ukrainian refugees. And that just seems such a humanitarian arc that it blew me away. And I just

rang up. Come full circle. Come full circle, different needs. And that's the amazing thing about challenge. It sort of tells such a story because the needs are different. You know, those desperate orphans were now able to give up their beds to another desperate, dispossessed, disenfranchised group of people. And as I say, I rang up Dave the Salmon and Martin, the original cameraman, and we were just sort of sobbing on the phone. And that's when I thought actually this program because of the legacy it leads you know they're proper big projects let's do it and ben frow at channel five is just so brilliant because he just wanted it back as it was he didn't want any gimmicks

he didn't you know the just you the age discussion was never there you know he just wanted it as it was not to me i'd never even thought about it but it could have been in this in this current climate we live in especially in broadcasting not a not a hint of that and uh so the all all the stars aligned really and we just thought well let's do it because the great thing about doing challenges obviously we're making something that will be on television but but the projects are done. And it's been so interesting doing it this time round, Anita, because it really has been the story of now.

And how has it been different? It's been so different because we've been filming in a recession. So companies have gone into administration in the middle of filming. You know, people can't come on board in the same way and other people have more time on their hands because they're unemployed so it's been a different mix of people but what has been extraordinary in this program really is an homage to all the volunteers everywhere because people are so hard hardwired in my experience to be altruistic and they just came out to help and

it was just a very sort of raw experience, as it always is. And it was your idea, the programme? Yes, it really was. Excuse me. It was. Sorry, I get actually quite emotional talking about Chanukah. I'm not surprised. It's been so much part of my life.

I got emotional thinking I was going to talk to you about it because it's a huge part of my life. You on TV has been a huge part of my life. Challenge Annika. So I'm thrilled that it's back. That's so well, funnily enough, that nostalgia is the thing that has been extraordinary. So I'm going to give you some water because people would just come up and stroke Dave the Sandman. How did Dave feel about that?

Well, he's just adorable. The nostalgia factor was extraordinary and the sort of serendipitous stories of people who'd been children on the original series. There was one young lad on the original series when we built a playground in Balmahinch in Northern Ireland. he ended up being the architect this time round on this food hub project we did in Stockton. So you were asking about the difference. I think the difference in the projects has been different

because who knew 30 years ago that the word food hub would be in our vocabulary? Who knew that we built a whole dementia village, which is one of my favourite projects ever, who knew that, you know, one in three of us would now be able to understand dementia because everyone we know, there's a link, our grannies or our aunties or, you know, mums and dads.

And it was your idea to come up with the programme originally. Sorry, that was... No, it's fine. Yeah, no, no, I'll bring you back, don't worry. Go anywhere you want. I'm off,'m off do it do it we can go off on as many tangents as you like i will bring us back it was and it funnily enough it started as a seed you know when i was about 20 and i was working in hong kong as a journalist and a newsreader on television there and it was just when all the boat people came over from Vietnam, refugees in small boats. And I used to have to read this story every night. And in the end, I ended up volunteering at one of the refugee camps. And I

remember just thinking, wow, this is a desperate situation. But what I'm seeing with volunteers who are coming to help, this is the power of the collective, you know, it just sowed a seed. And then when I did Treasure Hunt, when I was back in the UK, and I got diverted from news and current affairs to camp entertainment. How did that happen? And I thought, gosh, all this money is going into making this incredibly complex TV show, which is great and very popular. But there's nothing at the end of it. So my idea was to make an entertaining show, but with a legacy. And I went to see a charity performance from a charity called Chicken Shed, which is an inclusive theatre company. And on that stage in front of me, I saw Down Syndrome's children, I saw blind children, children in wheelchairs being helped

and supported by able-bodied kids, adults. I saw a community on that stage. And I just ran into Michael Grade at the BBC the next day with a format I'd written on an envelope because I suddenly saw how it could work. And that's the power of being able to just walk in and say, let's do this. And they said yes. And what it did, as well as, you know, bring a brand new type of TV show to our screens

where you were being altruistic and helping people in these great projects. We had a woman on TV. I mean, you were already doing it on Treasure Hunt. And this is why you know it's so important for me to be able to interview you today it just it was no one else like you it it was a when i started doing treasure hunt i mean it must have it that was really quite mind-altering for a lot of people because people had never seen women in control center stage

calling the shots and it was a big, powerful movement that. And so when I devised the format for Challenge and we were putting the team together, it was really important to me. We had an all women team on the production team, all under 30, because we were all so young. None of us had even built a wall, built a bridge, you know. So we became experts very quickly. And what did that do, having an all-women team? Well, it's just it brought such empathy and a sense of altruism. And I don't know, it just worked for me at that time because I just felt very comfortable with that gang.

And we're all great friends. We had supper on Monday night. They call themselves the Concrete Girls because we lived through this extraordinary thing. And now, of course, 30 years later, we have a brilliant team. But the same worries about male, female don't matter now because television largely caters for that now. So women are there.

We had women cameramen, women, camera women rather, women sound operators. You were also jumping in and out of helicopters yeah i'm being action annika um are you still just as fit you look just as fit i am actually good i feel fit i i yes i the thing is as you get older you feel no different it is weird um i do feel exactly the same yeah how have you done that have you just maintained your fitness level i have got a very high energy level so if i have an hour off i would go out for a walk always or to clear my head rather than sit at home and clear my head and i do lots of pilates and swimming i swim in the sea a lot very good yeah got to stay active you actually took

some time out from your presenting career though didn't you, in 97, to look after your boys? Yeah. I'd done, I always think series are good in groups of sort of six or seven. So I'd done about six of Treasure Hunt or perhaps seven and then six of Challenge. And my kids were little. And though I have to say the Challenge team was so brilliant and accommodated my children with me. So, you know, that truck we used to have. Were the boys with you?

That was set up as a creche for them. And all the team just took it in turns to help me bring them up. So they were brought up with the challenge community. It's very touching. And they came back to see it as adult children and there was one son who who was born after challenge so i've no idea what it was really and he just was bowled over at just these just the sheer scale of it all and people pouring in wanting to help and i said you know i literally said hi darling it's great to see you here here's a list could you get some more

joiners for us? You know, because there's no time to actually chat and do small talk on Challenge at all. What's it like, Annika, being back doing a programme that you did 30 years ago? Well, it is sort of just the same. Different challenges, as I say. But how does it feel for you personally? Feeling for me personally? I remember hearing the Rolling Stones

talking about their 60 tour, you know, 60 years in the business. And I have to say I'm thrilled because it is sort of 40 years since Treasure Hunt, 30 years since Challenge. You know, I've been in the BBC and around this industry for a long time. It's great to be able to feel as a person,

you know, 30 years on that I'm still relevant. I haven't been asked to change. I haven't had my identity is intact. Do you know what I mean? I'm still doing what I do in the same way that David Attenborough is doing what he's doing. No one goes, oh, you know, he's a bit old. And also by doing that in the same way that you challenged assumptions that people made of women and you know you broke down so many boundaries and barriers you're doing the same right now by being back on our screens well that's lovely to hear it from that point of view just it does just feel great and i just there's a maya angelou who always manages to say the most pithy, extraordinary things.

She always said, if you're going to live, leave a legacy, make a mark on the world that can't be erased. And all of us want to make a mark. And I think what Challenge does and charities all over the UK, it gives people a chance to just be part of something bigger than themselves. And it is a wonderful feeling, to be honest. I cannot wait to watch the new series. It starts Saturday, 8.50pm. Anna Karais, thank you so much. Thank you, Anita.

She's back on our screens. Thank you. Now, on to my next guest, who is just joining me in the studio. She's been called the first ever influencer, the inventor of the selfie. But however you may describe her, there is no doubt she is iconic. I am, of course, talking about Paris Hilton. Welcome, Paris. Paris exploded onto our screens in the early noughties with her hit reality TV show, The Simple Life.

It was hot. In the two decades since, she's built a multi-billion dollar business empire. She's worked as a model a singer an actor tv chef a fashion designer and the highest paid female dj in the world her new book paris the memoir describes an enviable glamorous life born the great granddaughter of the legendary hotel magnate comrade hilton her earliest memory is sitting on andy warhol's lap and michael jackson and paula abdul were some some of the faces she'd see in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria where she lived as a teenager. But behind the celebrity glitter, there is a much darker side to her past.

She describes the abuse she suffered at the hands of America's so-called troubled teen industry, multiple experiences of sexual violence and the unconsensual selling of a sex tape made when she was only 19 years old. Paris, welcome to Woman's Hour. It's such a pleasure to have you here in the studio. This memoir destroys any assumptions people may have had of you. There are so many shocking revelations about your life. Why did you want to tell the story now? I just feel that the media has told my story for the past two decades and they had no idea who I truly was. And I just felt that it was such an important story to tell because I know there's so many people out there who experienced certain things that I have. And I just want people to know that they are not alone. What's it like to

talk about? It's one thing writing a memoir and putting it all out there, but once it's out there and now you have to talk about it, what's that experience been like? It's been emotional for sure because some of the subjects in this book are really hard to talk about. But it's also just this whole experience of writing the book has been extremely therapeutic and I've just learned so much about my life

through writing it all down right I learned some I did learned a lot about yourself yes definitely just so many memories I tried to not remember just because they were so painful but then also I've lived such an exciting full life as well so So in the book, I really get into it all. You really do. And it's a difficult read at times. I mean, you start the book with the story of your epic 21st birthday party. You know, we'd expect nothing less. And it ends with you doing a skydive horribly hungover.

But it's actually the story of what led up to that point that no one knows about. So I'm going to go back to the first revelation that comes out of the book, which is you were groomed by a teacher at school. But of course the word grooming didn't even exist then, did it? No, it did not. This was when I was in eighth grade and this teacher completely took advantage of his power

and yeah, there was no word for it back then. And you say in the book that you've, I think you describe it as going red writing about it probably presumably shame and I felt red with rage reading about it and it was because of that incident that you were sent to live with uh graham cracker your grandmother my parents didn't even know who it was they just thought it was some boy I actually asked my mom a week ago I was like do you remember that night when you were chasing me in the car with that and did you know who that was and she was like no who was that so

she didn't even know at that point so you never talked about it never why not because when I that night I pretended that I was never out so my mom came to my bed I was like oh it wasn't. And then we just never talked about it again. So how difficult was it writing about it? Very difficult. I wrote about things in this book that I've never told my closest friends, my family, no one. This was like writing a diary, just all of the things that are really difficult to talk about and really difficult to even write about. And then you were sent to live with your grandmother, who sounds amazing, by the way,

graham cracker. Yes. Who lived in Palm Springs. But you were sent on your own. Your parents were living in New York in the hotel, the Waldorf Astoria. And you were sent, was it as a punishment? I think that they were just worried because I was a teenager. I was starting to rebel and sneak out and they were just nervous to bring me into New York City. There's just so much that's happening there. And they just thought that I would be safer at home with my grandmother in the desert because it's obviously a different lifestyle than New York City. But quite the opposite happened because you talk about another incident, a date rape incident that happened whilst you were staying with your grandmother yeah I went to Los Angeles during the weekends and I experienced that yes hard to talk about it is hard to talk about because that was something that I after it happened I just didn't want to think about it and I was holding on to this shame which I realize now as an adult that so many people hold on to shame when the shame shouldn't be on them it should be on the person that hurt them and I know that there's so many other girls that have

been through the same experience and they don't talk about it either because it's difficult and people will judge them but now I think it's important for people to know that they're not alone and to hold people accountable for what they did to them. And you talking about it is very powerful. I think it's important for people especially with a platform to talk about because life isn't perfect and people go through so many things and I just want people to know that they're not alone and I see them one of the hardest bits to read in the book was you talking about the behavioral modification program that you were sent on between the age of 16 to 18

can you explain for the listeners who might not be familiar with what this so-called troubled teen industry is? It's basically this string of schools. There's now thousands of them around the world. And it's a multi-billion dollar industry where hundreds of thousands of children are sent every year. And they're called emotional growth schools. But when I was there, I was mentally, physically, emotionally, psychologically and sexually abused. And my parents had no idea. They thought that I was just going to this normal boarding school. My family had no idea what happened until 20 years later. Why did this end you? Because I was sneaking out at night. I was getting really bad grades. I have ADHD. So I

just, which I didn't even know till I was 20. So I just couldn't concentrate in school and was getting kicked out of school. And they asked a therapist what they should do, and he recommended the school. We actually reached out to the school, Provo Canyon School, and they said in a statement to us that Provo Canyon School was sold by its previous ownership in August 2000. We therefore cannot comment on the operations or student experience prior to that time. We do not condone or promote any form of abuse. So that's what they've told us now when we reached out to them. Where on earth did you get the mental strength to see you through that time? I just thought about who I wanted to be and what I wanted to become when I got out of there. That was the only thing that kept me going. Which was what?

I just wanted to become so successful that nobody could ever control me or tell me what to do ever again. And I didn't want to depend on anyone but myself. And then you get a call at the age of 21 to say that a sex tape had been leaked by a boyfriend you were with when you were at the age of 19 and then later that year the same ex-boyfriend sells a longer version of the tape what did that feel like when you got that call I was in shock I didn't believe it at first because I didn't even remember it at this point. I was mortified, heartbroken, humiliated, and I didn't want to leave my house. It was a really painful time for my family and I. It makes you wonder.

It still is to this day. It probably will be for the rest of my life. Yeah. It will be for the rest of my life, for sure. How much did it hurt when you would read people suggesting that you had put this out there yourself to further your career?

That was the most hurtful part about it. The people would think that I would do something like that. And to be judged and treated so cruelly and viciously for one night was someone that I really trusted and cared about

when I thought that no one would ever see that. I was reading about this and I wondered what the reaction would be if something similar happened now because when you look at the details you were 19 you were drunk and he was 31 and you just wonder whether the same reaction would happen today that happened at that time. Definitely not. This would not happen today. The way that I was treated and villainised when I... It wasn't my fault. Why do you think people love to hate you so much? I don't know. It's just something that I've experienced, I think,

because people didn't know the real me. Because there were so many portrayals of you in the media that were just cruel. There was a famous headline that was in the front cover of the New York Post that was a picture of you, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears that just said, Bimbo Summit. What do you think of when you think of back to that time? We were just young girls living our life and we had a magnifying

glass on us and it was I don't know how they made us out to be like we were bad people just because we were doing what every other girl was doing just going out at night being young being free having fun and they again villainized us for it. But I just wonder what the satisfaction is. I just think the early 2000s, especially, were all about tearing women down. Just that's how it was. And pitting women against each other. And they would pit you against Lindsay Lohan. And these were your friends, but you were pitted against each other all the time. The media would always do that because that's what sells. So they would invent stories,

they'd have people coming in, say sources said this, they would try to cause drama all the time and just exaggerate so many different moments. It's interesting because all three of you now are in very different places in your life. And I wonder how much of this is now three powerful young women who are now reclaiming their narratives it's I'm just so happy for all of us hearing Lindsay is pregnant it was such great news and Brittany being married and just I know they're all grown up now and I just feel that people are finally seeing just how unfairly it was the way that we were treated. Yeah, and it wasn't that long ago. And yet it feels like a lifetime ago, the way you were treated. As I have to say, the book has got some shocking revelations. And it really is heartstop reading,

but it's also very funny. And there's one story where you're with Britney at a party, and you both want to leave. And they don't want you to leave. And I love how you say, but to be fair, if you had Paris Hilton and Britney Spears at your leave and they don't want you to leave. And I love how you say, but to be fair, if you had Paris Hilton and Britney Spears at your party, you wouldn't want them to leave either. And I thought, yeah, I wouldn't want you to leave. And you snuck out the window. You got Britney out the window, who was in a tiny mini dress.

You saw the paparazzi, you paused, you put lip gloss on and then you walked out in style. And then Lindsay Lohan walked across the street. It's just, and it's a brilliant story. I'm just paraphrasing it. And then all three of you got into your two-seater. Mercedes, was it? Mercedes, yeah, SLR.

And again, iconic photographs. I want a T-shirt with that photo on it. I've seen that T-shirt so many different times. How much of what was happening at the time, though, I guess this is what people want to know was it a give and take relationship yes the media were portraying you in these in this way and there were some horrible headlines written about you and lots of misogyny around three young women who are just living their lives but at the same time you were getting quite a bit out of the attention as well so I just wonder what the what the balance was was there a we do this for you and you do that for us relationship it was just you

had no other choice I lived right on Kings Road above Sunset Boulevard so they were always there every time I left my house it was 50 cars waiting outside helicopters people jumping over fences from the moment I left my house until I went to bed at night, there were people trailing me, chasing me, paparazzi getting in fights with each other to try to get the shot. It was just constant every single second. So, you know, you might as well play into it and smile and look good in the photos rather than fighting it. And I think if anyone does that, or you give a middle finger, or you throw something like some people have done,

it just makes you look bad. So just smile and smile through it. Yeah. That's what we did. Yeah, and having read your book, I was sitting there thinking, is it because she has this inner core of steel that she was able to just deal with it in that way?

I was talking with my friend about that the other day, and they said, those places really prepared you for Hollywood because we've just seen so many girls who go into that and it's such a tough town and you have to be so strong and going through hell and back and what saying what there was another quote that stood out for me you said your parents kept you in a wanted to keep you in a tupperware box of love and privilege you did have love and privilege as well how much of that do you think has helped you get through it I feel so lucky in that way especially in LA just so many parents are divorced my parents have been together since they're teenagers we have such a family. We're so close and really instilled those family values into you. And that's something important because a lot of people in Hollywood don't have that

or they have a mother or father that's a stage parent. So it's just a kind of different relationship for sure. In January, you and your husband became parents for the first time. Congratulations. Thank you. Baby Phoenix. Yes. you and your husband became parents for the first time congratulations thank you um baby phoenix yes surrogate because you thought you've talked openly about your fear fear of of giving birth that as well as what i experienced at provo canyon school it just i'm so terrified of anything to do with that. Needles and it all. I'm just so scared.

How is motherhood? I love it. I feel that this is what I was born to be. I'm so obsessed with him. He just melts my heart and I just love him so much. I miss him. How is life different?

My priorities have completely shifted. I just feel that I'm so protective of my little baby boy and I'm saying no to basically as many things as possible so I can be with him and he's just my world I started this program saying that you know people made so many preconceived had preconceived ideas about you assumptions made about you uh based on headlines based on the persona that you put out there um is this you saying this is the real me like why have you written this now who's it for what's the purpose of it i feel that it's just time for people to know the real me i've just been underestimated for so long misunderstood and i can understand i was

putting on a character for so many years. And I didn't even realize till recently that that was a trauma response to what I went through. And then getting magnified by the media. And I just felt like the media has controlled my narrative for so long. And they had no idea exactly who I was at all. It'll be interesting to see what you do next. What are you going to do next? I'm just so excited with everything I'm doing. I have my media company, 1111.

So I have my podcasting company, television production, movies. I'm about to release my 30th fragrance, writing and reproducing my second album, and doing my art and just so many different fun projects well i think this book's going to help a lot of people definitely going to help a lot of young people who have who feel great shame yes around and not being like like you who have carried things for 20 30 years because they just felt crippling shame not being able to talk about it so i think you're

going to help a lot of people and what about phoenix how are you going to keep him out of the glare of you know the hilton spotlight or maybe you're not maybe you're not concerned i don't know how do you feel about that i'm so protective of him and i just even i'm getting nervous raising him in hollywood when he's a teenager just because so what you're gonna do you're gonna be a strict mom is it gonna be the opposite I know I was always upset my mom was so strict but now that I'm a mom I can totally understand because you just don't want anything to happen to them so I'm gonna be strict but I'm also gonna be I'm gonna listen and I want him to feel so comfortable to be able to tell me anything where he won't have to lie to me and won't have to hide anything.

And I know it all. I know all the tricks, what's sneaking out, everything. So I will definitely be checking on him. I want to wish you all the best with the memoir, Paris. Thank you so much for coming in to speak to me on Woman's Hour this morning. Thank you so much. It is a fascinating and powerful read. It's Paris the Memoir and it is out now. And you can text me on 84844.

Lots of you have been doing to talk to me about assumptions that people have made about you. Someone's written in about Paris saying such a different side to hear. Complete revelation about Paris Hilton talking about the darker side of her life away from the glamorous facade people saw a heart-wrenching listen destroyed so many assumptions many of us had about her um Jo has emailed in saying my lack of confidence and soft soft personality have led to an assumption that I also lack intelligence and capability I think this is why I push myself to work full-time and obtain my master's degree whilst being a single mum to my lovely son assumptions can have a long-lasting effect at 51 i'm still working on this and mary says i've been riding motorcycles since i was 17 i'm 70 this year and still riding

for so many years i was the receiver of many comments about women don't ride motorbikes however i became a motorcycle instructor rising to to the belief, to the chief instructor and riding in vintage motorcycle events on a level footing of my male counterparts. Keep your thoughts coming in. Thank you, Paris. Thank you. 84844 is the number to text.

On to our next topic. Now, you may have seen that some NHS maternity units in England have suspended the use of gas and air, also known as Entonox, in labour wards after air quality tests showed unsafe levels of nitrous oxide on some maternity wards. Gas and air has been used for decades to help women in labour reduce their pain.

It's not harmful to mother or baby and the effects wear off as soon as you're not inhaling the gas. A recent NHS survey shows that 76% of women who gave birth used it. But air quality tests have raised the risk of long-term effects for the midwives, nurses and doctors who are exposed to it for a long period of time in often unventilated labour wards. For women giving birth, the absence of gas and air can mean a very different experience to the one they were expecting. Well, joining me now is Gabby Hinsliff, the Guardian columnist and writer who's been looking into this developing story. Morning, Gabby. Welcome to the programme. Do we know how many hospitals have now suspended gas

and air? So far, it's five or six who have announced that they have problems with gas and air. Most of those have since sort of reinstated some kind of service, maybe not the service they had to start with, sort of partial. So you don't quite know whether it would be available or not when you go in. And we've kind of yet to see whether other hospitals will follow suit because you suspect quite a lot of trusts are now looking back at their air quality monitoring and thinking, you know, do we have a problem? What's led to this situation? Why is it happening? I think the risks of Entonox have been known for decades and it was assumed that that was taken care of by ventilation. It's hard to know why what's gone wrong in the system, because, you know, you would expect this to have been picked up as, you know, in routine testing as you were going along. The Health and Safety Executive is investigating, particularly at Basildon University Hospital in

Essex, which was one of the first to admit to problems. So that may shed some light on why we're seeing, and also why we're seeing a kind of cluster of hospitals that are near each other. Most of the hospitals affected are in the South East. in sort of Suffolk, Kent, Essex, you know, Cambridgeshire. So they're quite close to each other. And it's not immediately obvious why just these hospitals are not the rest. The problem seems to be in older hospitals with kind of slightly,

you know, crumbling buildings, not such great ventilation. And what are women saying about the effect it's had on their births? I think there are two, well, three groups of women affected really, because you've got women who've given birth in this situation. And for some of them, that's been very difficult, especially if they didn't know till the last minute that there wasn't going to be any gas in the air, it's thrown all their birth plans up in the air. You've got pregnant women who are, you know, about to go into hospital for whom it's all very worrying because they don't quite know what to expect. And obviously, the third group of affected women are midwives who are now thinking, well, have I been working in an unsafe environment?

You know, so there's lots of the hospitals are trying to juggle all those all those sort of three competing interests, really. Well, let's hear from one woman who gave birth without gas and air. Lee Milner is a BBC Look East TV presenter and she had her baby six weeks ago. We were told in the run-up that it was looking likely that we weren't going to get it because there'd been a leak on the ward and the levels were too high for staff members. So they had to take gas and air off the ward. Now, we were told, though, that we would have other drugs available. But in my case, because things happen so quickly, they literally didn't have time to give me anything else but paracetamol. So in the end, I gave birth within a space of about an hour and 10 minutes just on paracetamol.

So I was induced. So it all happened very, very quickly. I was told by my midwife that I would have an epidural, but the baby's heart rate was dropping, you see. So they didn't really have time. So in the space of about half an hour, I'd gone from about two centimetres to seven centimetres. And I was just in so, so much pain um I was begging for an epidural I remember just saying to my husband I need some pain relief I need some pain relief I can't do this I just give me the epidural just anything but the only thing they gave me instead was paracetamol I just said just give me anything surely you have gas and air that is is the one thing that I thought I'd have. And they didn't have it. I remember actually, at one point, we were wheeled into theatre because I was very close to having a C-section actually. At this point, again, I'd only had paracetamol. I said

to the nurse, can I just not have any gas and air? The nurse asked the consultant and he said, no, she can't have any gas and air. I i'm really sorry paracetamol is the only thing we can give her well we asked the princess alexandra hospital in harlow for a response to lee's story and they said we're unable to comment on individual cases following tests on the use of gas and air in our maternity unit we made the decision to suspend its use on a temporary basis to protect our midwifery and medical team we've since put in place three temporary gas and air units we also have permanent gas and air units being fitted soon and have a designated helpline in place for women who are due to give birth to call with any queries they have. So, Gabby, let's talk about midwives.

What have they told you? I think the midwives are concerned, particularly coming out of a pandemic, actually, where they were expected to put their health at risk to work on the front line when everyone else was at home. There's a feeling of, you know, have our employers let us down? Have we been working in unsafe workplaces? And kind of why do we always seem to come last? You know, Entonox is used in dental surgeries as well and operating theatres. They have good ventilation. You know, Earth Maternity Hospital's been a bit of an afterthought. Well, we've got a statement from the Royal College of Midwives and they say, we've been approached by midwife members who have suffered a variety of symptoms they attribute to exposure to Entonox.

Basildon Hospital investigations have revealed the exposure levels in the maternity departments were over the legal limit. We're investigating these issues with our lawyers to support our members in potential claims and have reported the issues to the SHE who are also carrying out their own investigation. Are there any legal consequences for the hospitals as employers, Gabby? There potentially are, and I think we'll have to wait for the HSE

to see what those are. I think those would be for hospitals as employers, I think, rather than for women coming in to give birth, although there's obviously issues being raised for them, as Lee was describing. Gabby, thank you very much for talking to me about that. I'm sure we will come back to it at a later date. As we know more, Gabby Hinsliff, the Guardian columnist there.

Your thoughts on anything you're hearing? 84844. I also have a statement from Basildon, a spokesperson for Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Basildon Hospital, said, we made the difficult decision to suspend the use of gas and air in the maternity suite at Basildon Hospital to protect our staff who are working on the labour ward for extended periods of time. We hope to have a resolution to the issue as soon as possible. Now on to my next item.

Yesterday, the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, unveiled his spring budget with changes to pensions, childcare and energy bills. But how much will these benefit women? I'm joined by Sarah Pennells, Consumer Finance Specialist at Royal London, and Claire Barrett, who writes for the FT and is the author of What They Don't Teach You About Money to Tell Us All We Need to Know. Welcome, both of you. Claire, I'm going to come to you first. Before we get into the detail, what was the overall impression? How does this budget look for women? Well, fantastic that childcare was front

and centre because we've been arguing for so long that it really should be. But it looks like the Chancellor is solving the problem with his reforms. But has he actually solved the problem? This is the big question. Women who are contacting me today on social media are angry. They're angry that there's going to be a big delay before this help comes in. They're angry with the government for running down childcare services during the panic by not addressing the funding issue. And they want help now. The 30 hours a week that you can get for three and four year olds is not enough for many families. The cost of childcare, the highest among the highest in the OECD nations, is really crippling parents. But it's also often women and women's finances that are

bearing the brunt. And it's not just while children are young, it's for the rest of their lives, through the gender pay gap, the gender pensions gap. At least the Chancellor recognised this yesterday and the impact on the wider economy. But will he come through and deliver on his promises I really hope so. Sarah you're nodding. Absolutely I mean this this reform has been such a long time coming but if you have a you know if you have a baby today if you've got a baby now they're not going to qualify because it's not until September 25 that actually parents are going to be able to get the 30 hours for babies aged nine months and older. And as we say, you know, as Claire rightly says,

I mean, the 30 hours isn't enough. What's happening at the moment is because women are not able to get the childcare they need, and it is still mainly women who are doing the caring, there's some research by the Centre for Progressive Policy showing that women do more than double the unpaid caring that men do. There are two effects. One is that women are not earning as much because either their money is going to pay for childcare. And even where couples mix their money up, somehow it often ends up being the kind of the women's money that goes toward childcare and child related things and the man's money that goes to other things.

But also it has a longer lasting effect so there's there's less money to go around anyway because women are either not working or they're having to pay so much on child care and that means less money both in income today and and that affects women's chances later on but it also does play into retirement and the gender pension gap which Claire mentioned because if you can't put money into your pension now or you can't put as much in, then you face that retirement, which we know now women retire on far less than men. But that gender pension gap is still going to exist when women who are working today retire. And I think it's really tough that this financial impact carries on not only throughout your working life but indeed beyond. Nicely brought me on to pensions there Sarah thank you for that. So Claire what about pensions? The cap on the amount workers can accumulate over their lifetime has been abolished

how might this benefit women? Well it's mostly going to benefit men because as Sarah says they are the ones who tend to have the biggest pensions. On average, when we retire at 65, average woman has one fifth of the amount of the average man. So this is a measure that's been brought in to fix an acute problem, which is doctors taking early retirement because their pensions have breached tax limits. But it is going to benefit very, very wealthy people. There is a growing backlash to the measure.

Labour this morning on the BBC, saying that they would reverse the measure. But also, the fact that this is being done at a time when we're in a cost of living crisis, where millions of ordinary workers are having to cut pension savings, because they need that money in their budgets to just afford the cost of everyday life. When women in particular, faced with the burden of childcare costs, either alone or as part of a family, are having to cut their pension contributions or stay out of the workforce, so they're not benefiting from the free money of workplace pensions. There's a little lesson on that in my book, because these are things that we all need to know early and as young as possible so that we can try and get money into our retirement funds to build up money and compound

away but to give the very richest in society a tax break when these um this tax tax rises by stealth are being talked about the freezes to tax thresholds as our wages rise with inflation more is being taken in tax millions of families are being squeezed out of child benefit entitlement as well because that's a threshold that hasn't risen for more than a decade so overall i think there's going to be a big kickback against pensions because the optics are just all wrong we all need to be saving more for a time and not just the rich because yeah what they're saying is the tax-free yearly allowance for pension pots can rise from 40 to,000 to £60,000,

but that's only going to benefit a small proportion of people. Well, the two other changes that weren't the rubbish out of the hat and haven't been so headline-grabbing are potentially going to benefit many more people. So you mentioned rightly that one. And although it sounds like, you know, who can pay in £40,000 in their pension every year or £60,000, but there are some people who will be affected and indeed some women.

So, for example, if you're running your business and I used to run my own business for many years and you have years where you can't pay much into your pension, but then one year you can. Well, actually, having those more generous limits for some people may be useful. Another example is if somebody inherits some money. Now, as long as their earnings are such that they can abide by the rules by which the amount you can pay in, well, it may be money that was unexpected and actually they want to make up for that lost time and pay more into their pension. And the other change, and forgive me because the jargon is terrible, money purchase annual allowance. What it means is if, say, you retire and you start taking money out of your pension, apart from the tax-free bit,

but you start taking income or chunks of money, and then you go back to work, and our own cost of living research shows that people are doing that, then you can only pay up to £4,000 a year into your pension. Now, this from April is going up to £10,000. Now, I think that's actually quite meaningful. And our research is showing that women who've stopped work, we know women tend to retire early, often for caring reasons, ill health, so on. Some of those women have been

coming back during the cost of living crisis. They may want to make up for that lost time so that they are less, you know, far behind men when it comes to retirement. I'm going to move on to energy now. There's going to be further support towards energy bills. The energy price guarantee will remain at two and a half thousand pounds for the next three months. How might that benefit women? Well, it's interesting because, you know, obviously it's not just women who pay fuel bills. But two things to unpick, because although the energy price guarantee is staying the same at two thousand five hundred,

it is actually a slight increase because this winter we've all had a £400 discount, which we're not getting. That runs out on the 31st of March. But there are two things. Firstly, some women end up spending more time in the home precisely because of the caring responsibilities we've been discussing. The other thing is that there's research by a charity called Surviving Economic Abuse looking at how economic abuse increased during the cost of living crisis and there's a real message around that abusers use around fuel energy costing a lot meaning justifying them saying you cannot have the heating on. So in an indirect way the fact that energy bills are not going to rise to three thousand pounds

it may actually benefit women who are in that position now we know that's not most women but sadly economic abuse is it's it's a it's an issue and it has been rising recently i think also the action on pre-payment meters which we saw in the budget yesterday long overdue people on the pre-payment meter the lowest income families in britain often single parents have been paying more per unit for their power the government is going to neutralize that that will save those families around 45 pounds a year but they still have to pay up front um for their energy use so all in all although some welcome um news on on energy bills

it's they're still going to stay high for years. They're still much, much higher than they were several years ago. Very quickly, because I want to get it in, asking for a friend, alcohol. Any news for women there? Well, women are more likely to drink wine, I am told. So we had, you know, a few pennies off a pint, you know, a pint in London, instead of costing seven quid, now going to cost £6.81. Bargain. But yes, up to 45 pence

is going to go on a bottle of wine, but not until August. So as a personal finance measure, in my own life, I may do a bit of a pre-order the next time I see, you know, 25% off six bottles, but often things like that in my household can prove to be a false economy. Brilliant. Fantastic. Thank you so much. You're both pros, Sarah Pennells and Claire Barrett. Thank you for speaking to me about that. And thanks to all of you who joined me for the show today. Join me tomorrow morning, again, same time, just after 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story, settle in. Available now.