Paris Hilton explains why she waited a week before telling her mother her baby was born

Hilton and husband Carter Reun announced the arrival of their son Phoenix on 24 January

Paris Hilton has opened up about her and husband Carter Reum’s decision to keep the arrival of their newborn son a secret, revealing that her own mother didn’t know about the baby’s birth until he was a week old.

The Paris: The Memoir author, 42, revealed on 24 January that she and Reum had expanded their family with the birth of their son, Phoenix.

“You are already loved beyond words,” Hilton captioned an Instagram photo of herself holding the newborn’s hand.

In addition to surprising her fans and followers with the announcement, the baby’s arrival also came as a surprise to the DJ’s mother, Kathy Hilton.

Paris Hilton revealed during her latest episode of her podcast This Is Paris that she and Reum waited a week before they told anyone their surrogate had given birth.

“We’re just so excited to start our family and can’t wait for you to see him. But for now, we’ve just been keeping everything really private,” Hilton explained during the podcast, during which she also shared the newborn’s name for the first time. “Not even my mom or my sister or my best friends, no one knew, literally, until he was over a week old.”

Hilton said it was “really nice” for her and Reum to have the first week with their son “be [their] own journey together”.

Hilton also revealed that she wanted to keep the baby’s birth private because so much of her life has been public.

“I just feel that my life has been so public, and I’ve never really had anything just be mine,” she said. “I feel like just my life in so many ways has been invaded. I just really felt that I wanted to have this journey be us only.”

Although Hilton admitted that it was “hard” keeping the secret from their families, she said that it meant the news wasn’t leaked before the couple had had a chance to share it themselves.

“It was hard to keep that in because we were so excited and wanted to tell our families, but you’re just nervous because if you tell one person then you know they tell someone and then all of a sudden it’s in TMZ or Page Six,” she explained. “And I’ve had enough of my life like that.”

Hilton said she and Reum even decided to make a “pact” that they would not tell anyone.

During the podcast, the heiress then reminisced on the moment she introduced her mother to her grandson, recalling the “look on her [mother’s] face”.

“She was so surprised, the look on her face was just priceless,” she said.

Although the couple chose to keep the baby’s arrival a secret, Hilton has since shared the newborn’s name and the meaning behind it, as well as the first photos of her son.