The 26-year-old heiress appeared shocked as she was sentenced to a 45-day stint behind bars Friday for driving with a suspended license and other probation violations.
The hotel-chain namesake will call the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, California, her temporary home, starting June 5. There will be no house-arrest options, no monitoring-bracelet breaks—she will do 45 days straight, per the judge.
Following the sentence, according to reports, the blindsided Hilton could be heard telling supporters, "I don't know what happened. I did what they said."
Addressing the court, Hilton apologized, and said she never would have gotten behind the wheel if she had known she wasn't supposed to, per E! News, which was inside the Los Angeles courtroom.
"I'm very sorry, and from now on I'm going to pay complete attention to everything. I'm sorry, and I did not do it on purpose at all."
Hilton also told Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer she was trying to take more responsibility for her life. This, after Hilton essentially laid the blame for her troubles on longtime publicist Elliot Mintz, whom she said told her the license was only suspended for 30 days, through last December, while it had actually been suspended into March.
Mintz himself took the stand during the hearing—his testimony largely consisting of variations of "I don't know" and "I don't remember." Afterward, he declined to comment.
Clad in somber black and gray, her long blond locks prim and proper under the steadying influence of a hairband, Hilton showed up about 15 minutes late to her 1:30 p.m. court hearing in Los Angeles.
The red carpet fixture made the no-carpet scene via a black Cadillac Escalade, which, notably, considering her legal situation, she did not drive. She was accompanied by a posse befitting a judgment day: her parents, Rick and Kathy Hilton.
Inside the courtroom, Kathy Hilton, once a reality star like her daughter, couldn't help but show her displeasure. She derisively laughed when a prosecutor called for jail time for her eldest child, according to E! News, and she appeared to mouth "This is a joke" when the sentence was handed down.
After the hearing, Paris Hilton departed without speaking to reporters. Hilton attorney Howard Weitzman vowed an appeal. And Kathy Hilton popped off.
"What do you think?" Kathy Hilton asked an inquiring reporter. "This is pathetic and disgusting, a waste of taxpayer money with all this nonsense. This is a joke."
Weitzman didn't disagree. "To sentence Paris Hilton to 45 days in jail to me was uncalled for, inappropriate, and bordered on the ludicrous," the attorney said. "It was clear that she's been selectively targeted in my opinion to be prosecuted because of who she is."
But a spokesperson for the city attorney quickly shot down that allegation, saying the sentence "sends a clear message that in the city of Los Angeles, no one is above the law."
If Hilton was in no apparent hurry to get to court, she had good reason: L.A. city prosecutors were waiting for her. In court papers filed earlier this week, they cited repeated missteps on Hilton's part, dating back to a driving-under-the-influence arrest last September, and called for jail time. (Hilton shrugged off that original DUI arrest, telling E! News' Ryan Seacrest the whole thing amounted to "nothing." "I was just really hungry, and I wanted to have an In-N-Out burger," she said at the time.)
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