Paris Hiltoncouldn’t believe when she saw herself on the cover ofPlayboyin 2005.

According to the heiress’s new bookParis: The Memoir, she had turned downHugh Hefner’s offer to appear in the magazine multiple times.

“Hef really wanted me to do aPlayboycover,” writes Hilton, 42. “He kept offering me more and more money, saying I wouldn’t have to be totally naked, just topless. And then saying, I didn’t have to be topless, just sheer. And then saying I could wear whatever lingerie I wanted. Even when he offered seven figures, I turned it down, because I knew my mom would lose her mind.”

And though Hilton thought posing forPlayboy"would be awesome," when she told her motherKathyabout the opportunity, the futureReal Housewives of Beverly Hillsstar called being a Playmate “so trashy.”

Playboyshared the following statement with PEOPLE regarding Hilton’s claims: “While the current management does not know what occurred surrounding that cover, the claim does not reflect our values nor how the company operates today.”

M. Caulfield/WireImage

Kathy Hilton and daughter Paris Hilton

The"Stars Are Blind"singer also declined because she didn’t want to further polarize her public perception in the wake of herleaked sex tapewith now-ex-boyfriendRick Salomon.

“I had already been branded as a slut after the sex tape,” Hilton writes. “I felt like aPlayboypictorial would just cement that in people’s minds.”

So when a friend called and told Hilton they liked her March 2005Playboycover, “I was like, “Whut?” she writes. “Hef had ‘honored’ me with the Sex Star of the Year Award, which means they can claim it’s ‘news’ and not a pictorial. He got a picture from an old test shoot with a woman photographer.”

The move didn’t sit well with Hilton or her family. “My parents were pissed, and I cried, but none of us confronted him, because you just didn’t do that,” themom of newborn son Phoenixwrites.

Hilton admits she never really saw herself as a sex symbol.

“The world thinks of me as a sex symbol, and I’m here for that, because symbol literally means icon,” she writes. “But when people saw that sex tape, they didn’t say icon, they said slut. They said whore. And they weren’t shy about it.”

Playboy

Paris Hilton Playboy Magazine March 2005

Hilton reveals she actually “feared sex” because of the"abuse and degradation” she says she enduredas a teenager intherapeutic behavior modification boarding schools.

“I hated the idea of sex,” she writes. “I avoided sex until it was absolutely unavoidable. Tabloids created this narrative about me sleeping around with a hundred gorgeous guys — not the truth at all!”

Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock

Paris Hilton and Carter Reum The wedding of Paris Hilton and Carter Reum, The Carnival, Santa Monica Pier, Los Angeles, California, USA - 12 Nov 2021

Hilton realized that for her, “Sex is a thought process,” meaning “it has to start in my brain, or it’s not going to work.”

Her husbandCarter Reumgets that and “lets me know I’m worth the effort,” Hilton writes.

Hilton opened up about her experience because she hopes it’ll help others: “I know there’s someone out there who needs to hear that they’re not weird or frigid or dead inside — they’re just who they are at this moment: anasexualperson in a hypersexualized world.”

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Paris: The Memoiris out now.

source: people.com