Paris Hilton's new beginning

Jun 28, 2007, 11:00 GMT

REUTERS/Los Angeles County Sheriff\'s Department/Handout

Paris Hilton has called her jail sentence a new beginning.

The hotel heiress - who spent 23 days in a California county jail for driving with a suspended licence - wants to turn her back on her wild partying ways.

Paris told US chat show host Larry King: "They say when you reach a crossroad or a turning point in life, it really doesn't matter how we got there, but it's what we do next after we got there.

"Usually you arrive there by adversity, and it is then, and only then, that we find out who we truly are and what we're truly made of. It's a process, a gift and a journey, and if we can travel it alone, although the road may be rough at the beginning, you find an ability to walk it. A way to start fresh again.

"It's neither a downfall nor a failure, but a new beginning. And I felt like this is a new beginning for me, to see jail - and I just used it as a journey to figure out myself and who I am and what I want to do. There's just so much more to me than what people think."

The 26-year-old blonde was confined to her cell for 23 hours a day, only leaving to shower and call her family, but she spoke to other inmates through air vents.

The socialite described prison food as awful and revealed the other inmates called it "mystery slop".

She said: "Lunch is basically a bologna sandwich - they call it mystery meat. It's really scary. And two pieces of bread and some mayonnaise, with orange juice. There was a little hole they would put it through. Dinner was usually the same. It was hot at least. They call it jail slop, so it wasn't that tasty."

(C) BANG Media International