Paris Hilton Defends Family’s Beauty and the Beast Halloween Costumes

Paris Hilton has heard just about everything the internet has to say about her over the past two decades, so a few grumbles about a Halloween costume were never going to rattle her. Still, when the comments started piling up under her family’s latest dress-up photos, she decided to set the record straight — and, as usual, she did it with a shrug, a smile, and a very mom-coded explanation.

The whole thing started the way most celebrity Halloween moments do these days: with an Instagram post. Paris shared photos of her family dressed as characters from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, and at first glance, it looked like the kind of picture-perfect group costume most families only dream of pulling off. Paris was Belle in full princess mode, her husband Carter Reum suited up as the Beast, and their two little ones completed the enchanted-castle lineup. It was sweet. It was on theme. It was, by Halloween standards, a triumph.

And then, because this is the internet, somebody found something to pick at.

A handful of commenters took issue with the casting, essentially asking why Paris got to be the princess while her daughter played a supporting role. Why wasn’t two-year-old London the Belle of the ball, they wanted to know, with mom stepping aside? It’s the kind of criticism that sounds reasonable for about half a second — right up until you remember that toddlers have very strong opinions, and parents mostly just go along with them.

Paris, to her credit, didn’t ignore it. She popped into the comments herself and answered directly, explaining that the costume choices were not some mom-steals-the-spotlight situation at all. Quite the opposite, actually.

The family costume, character by character

Let’s start with the lineup itself, because it really is a good one. Paris took on Belle, the bookish heroine in the yellow ballgown, while Carter committed to the Beast — no small feat for a grown man in what was presumably a very warm costume. Their son Phoenix, 3, dressed as Lumière, the charming candelabra with the French accent and the show-stopping musical number. And their daughter London, 2, went as Chip, the little teacup with the chip in his rim and an outsized personality.

If you know the movie, you know this is a smart spread of characters. You’ve got the leads, you’ve got the comic relief, and you’ve got the adorable small person playing the adorable small character. Nobody is left standing around in a generic witch hat while everyone else gets the good stuff. Everybody has a role, everybody is recognizably part of the same story, and the family photo reads instantly, which is half the battle with group costumes.

It also happens to be a film the Hilton-Reum household clearly loves. Beauty and the Beast has been a family favorite since long before this Halloween, and the kids apparently know it well enough to have favorites. That matters more than any comment-section casting director realizes, because when you’re dressing up a two-year-old and a three-year-old, you are not really in charge. You are negotiating with tiny humans who have already made up their minds.

What Paris actually said in the comments

Paris replied to one critic in the comments of the post, keeping it short and refreshingly free of drama. She explained that Beauty and the Beast is one of her children’s favorite movies, and that London herself asked to dress up as Chip. The little one, Paris said, had declared Chip her favorite character in the whole film.

Read that again: the two-year-old picked Chip. Not because she was assigned the leftover role, not because mom wanted the princess dress for herself, but because a toddler fell in love with a talking teacup and refused to be anything else. Any parent reading that will recognize the situation immediately. You can lay out three beautiful costume options, you can suggest the princess dress with all the sparkle in the world, and your child will still point at the teacup and say, “That one.” And then that’s the costume. End of discussion.

Paris’s response landed because it flipped the whole complaint on its head. The criticism assumed she had hogged the spotlight. The reality, by her account, was that she had simply listened to her daughter. There’s something quietly funny about that — the internet accusing a mom of being selfish for letting her kid choose her own costume. If anything, Paris did the least selfish thing a Halloween parent can do: she let the two-year-old be the boss.

It’s also worth noting how she handled it. No lengthy statement, no clapback video, no subtweeting. Just a calm reply in the comments, right where the criticism lived, explaining the situation in plain language. That’s a very different Paris Hilton from the one tabloids used to chase around Los Angeles in the 2000s, and it’s a big part of why this little story resonated. She didn’t escalate. She just corrected the record and moved on.

Why Chip is actually a perfect pick for a two-year-old

Let’s give London some credit here, because Chip is a genuinely great choice. For one thing, he’s small, he’s cute, and he’s funny — three qualities that map pretty neatly onto being two years old. Chip is the character kids notice because he’s their size in a castle full of grown-ups and giant furniture. He’s brave in a small-person way, popping up with a joke when things get tense, and he gets some of the film’s warmest moments with his mother, Mrs. Potts.

There’s also a practical side that every parent will appreciate. A Chip costume for a toddler is comfortable, it’s easy to move around in, and it doesn’t involve a giant skirt that gets stepped on every three minutes or a wig that slides off by the second photo. A two-year-old in a teacup costume can run, dance, eat candy, and collapse in a heap at the end of the night without a wardrobe malfunction. Belle’s ballgown, gorgeous as it is, is a lot of dress for a little person. Chip, on the other hand, is built for trick-or-treating.

And honestly, the family photo is better for it. A Belle, a Beast, a Lumière, and a Chip tell the whole story at a glance. Swap London into the Belle dress and you lose the joke, the scale, and the charm of the thing. The current lineup has range: romance, comedy, and one very small teacup stealing the scene. That’s not a casting mistake. That’s a casting win.

Halloween has always been Paris’s season

Part of why this story took off is that Paris Hilton and Halloween go together like, well, Belle and the Beast. She has been a Halloween mainstay for years, and her costumes have become a whole genre of celebrity content in their own right. Fans expect something elaborate from her every October, and she usually delivers — the kind of full-commitment looks that take planning, a glam team, and a genuine love of dressing up.

That history is part of what makes the backlash so odd. Nobody who has followed Paris for any length of time would seriously argue that she needed to steal a princess costume from her toddler to feel special on Halloween. She has played dress-up on a scale most of us can only dream of, from red carpets to music videos to her DJ sets. A yellow ballgown is not exactly uncharted territory for her. The idea that she elbowed her two-year-old out of the way for it just doesn’t track.

What has changed is the context. Halloween used to be about Paris’s own looks. Now it’s a family production, with a husband and two small kids in the frame, and the costumes are chosen around what the kids love. That’s a shift a lot of fans have enjoyed watching, because it’s the same Paris — still glamorous, still playful, still fully committed to the bit — just with a couple of tiny co-stars who now get a say in the script.

Mom-era Paris is a different kind of icon

It’s hard to overstate how much Paris’s public image has evolved. She first became famous as a reality TV star on The Simple Life alongside Nicole Richie, back when the whole point was watching two socialites fumble through farm chores and fast-food jobs. From there she built a sprawling business empire — fragrances, fashion, licensing deals, and a DJ career that took her to clubs and festivals all over the world — and became one of the original influencers before that word even existed.

Marriage and motherhood added a new chapter. Paris married businessman Carter Reum in 2021, and the couple welcomed son Phoenix in early 2023, followed by daughter London later that same year. Since then, her social media has mixed the glamour fans expect — the sparkle, the travel, the “that’s hot” energy — with a much more domestic side: birthday parties, bedtime routines, and now, apparently, spirited debates about which enchanted object each child gets to be.

That blend is exactly why a story like this one lands. It’s not a scandal, it’s not a feud, it’s just a mom explaining, in the comments, that her daughter wanted to be a teacup. It’s relatable in a way that most celebrity news isn’t, because almost every parent has had the experience of their carefully planned family moment being gently hijacked by a toddler with a strong preference. Paris just had hers play out in front of millions of people.

There’s also a small lesson tucked inside the whole episode, and it’s one worth keeping in mind as Halloween photos flood everyone’s feed this week. The comments section loves to assign motives — she wanted attention, she stole the spotlight, she should have stepped aside. But families don’t work like casting calls. Kids pick what they love, parents roll with it, and the best family costumes are usually the ones where everybody, including the two-year-old, actually wanted to be there.

So here’s to London, the self-appointed Chip of the family, who knew exactly what she wanted and got it. And here’s to Paris, who took a needless bit of criticism, answered it with a smile, and reminded everyone that sometimes the princess dress isn’t the prize. Sometimes the prize is a chipped little teacup with a big personality — and the confidence to choose it yourself, even when you’re only two.

Source: Just Jared