Entertainment

Nicole Richie's Back On Reality TV

by Alanna Bennett

A decade ago Nicole Richie was a very different public figure than she is today. It was the heyday of Paris Hilton, and — to put it reductively — Richie was the Khloe Kardashian to Hilton's Kim. Now she's more a figure in fashion than she is in tabloid gossip and reality TV, but she's returning to at least one of those folds soon enough: Richie's Candidly Nicole is heading to VH1, marking her return to reality television. Gird yourselves. Richie's most well-known output in the television world is still The Simple Life, in which she and Hilton at once molded and typified early-2000s popular culture by traveling the country and interacting with non-wealthy people as outlandishly as their bleach blonde extensions would allow.

In the seven years since Simple Life left this world Richie's classed it up a bit — "style icon" isn't a word that would have been used to describe her in the Simple Life days unless it was being used derisively — but as the trailer for Candidly Nicole proves, Richie's still got her trademark rude in a specifically delightful way. As she says in the trailer, "if you're not gonna pay attention to me, then what's the point of you being here?" We feel that sums up modern reality television personalities pretty well.

Oh, and you get to see her ask famous father Lionel Richie if he takes Viagra.