How could Walters read Hilton's statement without laughing?
Read by Barbara Walters:
"I'm not the same person I was," she said. "I used to act dumb. It was an act. I am 26 years old, and that act is no longer cute. It is not who I am, nor do I want to be that person for the young girls who looked up to me. I know now that I can make a difference, that I have the power to do that. I have been thinking that I want to do different things when I am out of here. I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance."
I asked what kinds of things she might want to do.
She said she would like to help in the fields of breast cancer — her grandmother had breast cancer — or multiple sclerosis. Her father's mother suffers from that disease.
She thought she might get toy companies to build a kind of Paris Hilton playhouse, where sick children might come, and the toy companies could donate toys.
She has had a person whom she described as a spiritual adviser who said, "My spirit or soul did not like the way I was being seen and that is why I was sent to jail."
"God," she said, "has released me."