Hilton sets up interview with Larry King

After being spurned by the three broadcast networks, Paris Hilton is turning to CNN’s Larry King to spill the details of her 23-day incarceration in Los Angeles County jails.

The celebutante has agreed to do a one-hour live interview with King after she is released from a Lynwood facility this week, CNN said Saturday. The sit-down is set for Wednesday at 6 p.m. PDT.

Both CNN and Michael Sitrick, a spokesman for Hilton, said she was not being compensated in any way for the interview.

“I am thrilled that Larry King has asked me to appear on his program to discuss my experience in jail, what I have learned, how I have grown and anything else he wants to talk about,” Hilton said in a statement.

“Larry King is not only a world-renowned journalist, but a true American icon,” the statement added. “It will be an honor to do his show.”

King landed the exclusive after the socialite’s efforts to extract a lucrative deal from the broadcast networks backfired.

In a chaotic series of negotiations late last week, ABC executives said they were told by Hilton’s family that “Today” show co-host Meredith Vieira won the interview because NBC had offered to pay close to $1 million to license Hilton’s personal videos and photos, a story that NBC rejected as untrue.

Subsequently, the heiress and her parents -- now insisting that she was not seeking to be paid -- sought to renew discussions with ABC’s Barbara Walters, who ultimately turned down the interview. Hours later, NBC officials informed the Hiltons they were no longer interested. CBS officials also said they did not want the interview.

The rejections left the oft-photographed Hilton without a major network platform for her post-jail interview.

By turning to King, whose nightly interview program is a staple of the publicity circuit, Hilton is guaranteed a conversational forum in which to recount her experience of being incarcerated, one she said has dramatically changed her.

“I’ve had a lot of alone time to think and read and write,” she told E! News’ Ryan Seacrest in a telephone interview last week. “Even though it’s been horrible and really hard, I think that God makes everything happen for a reason, and this is my time to figure out what my purpose is in life. I’ve really grown from it.”

“I just want to start using what I’ve been given by God to bring light to causes that I believe in,” she added.

Hilton is serving 23 days for violating terms of her probation for alcohol-related reckless driving charges. Her stint in jail was punctuated with controversy when Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca released her to home arrest three days into her sentence, citing an undisclosed medical condition. A Superior Court judge promptly sent her back to jail.

King’s interview with the 26-year-old celebrity will be the third show within a week that he plans to devote to her story. Tonight, Judge Judy Sheindlin is scheduled to appear on the program, “Larry King Live,” to discuss Hilton, among other subjects. On Monday, a panel is to discuss what Hilton’s life will be like after she gets out of jail.

Hilton’s appearance on the Wednesday program will bump filmmaker Michael Moore, who was originally scheduled to appear. CNN producers are working to move his interview to a different time slot.

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matea.gold@latimes.com