The Simple Life with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie set to return 20 years on - will time have changed them?

It’s been 20 years since nepo-babies Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie shot to stardom in reality television series The Simple Life - and despite our very different backgrounds I’m as surprised as the next person to discover over the last two decades we have, in part, spent the time in similar ways.

Born in 1981, we are the OG Millennials. Now in our forties, the three of us were in our early twenties when the show first aired. Admittedly, while those formative years were viewed through quite different lenses, we were all essentially finding ourselves, doing stupid things and occasionally having cross words with our mates.

Socialite Paris is the great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, the founder of Hilton Hotels, while Nicole is the adopted daughter of Dancing on the Ceiling singer, Lionel Richie. If you’re unfamiliar with the pair’s escapades on The Simple Life, in a nutshell it featured the stinkingly rich duo struggling to carry out low-paying jobs such as cleaning, farm work, serving in fast-food restaurants, and working as camp counsellors. The ladies famously had a falling out but they eventually patched it up enough to carry on with the show until 2007.

Back in 1981, the soap opera Dynasty premiered, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States of America and Prince Charles announced his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer. Hop forward 20-odd years to 2003 and Where is the Love? by the Black Eyed Peas is in the charts, Jonny Wilkinson was a pin-up after England won the Rugby World Cup, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hit shelves selling 5 million copies overnight.

Now, another 20-odd years on, the ladies are returning for a brand new series of The Simple Life, and it begs the question how the last couple of decades will have changed them. Like me, they are both now married with two children so it’s perhaps unlikely they’ll be the same naïve, spoiled little rich girls we saw at the beginning of the millennium.

From a personal perspective, I know life experiences alone have an effect on a person as the years roll on, not to mention becoming a mother, which changes you in myriad ways. In fairness, as well as two beautiful children, motherhood has also generously provided me with three extra dress sizes, which it doesn’t seem to have gifted to the other two.

And so the differences start to emerge. I’m fairly certain they didn’t spend the last decade scrimping and saving to get a deposit together for a house, for instance. Nonetheless, watching two women who have at least walked the same timeline, if not the same path as me, re-emerge in their forties will, I’m sure, provide fascinating television.

While I have lived what they might describe as ‘the simple life’ they will be returning to it. Will all their experiences make them any more capable? We’ll just have to wait and see…