Paris Hilton says fans worship her as the "mother" of 21st Century fashion

She told Flaunt magazine: "When I moved to New York, I didn't have a stylist. I was just very original and ahead of my time with fashion and the way I thought.

"I've always been a risk taker and went by what I felt. Now people come up to me and say, 'You invented Y2K fashion, you are the blueprint, you are mother!'"

Paris said she recalled seeing tabloid headlines at the time she was stepping out in outrageous looks including: "Look at the way Paris, socialite, is dressing, this is so out there!"

She went on about how she now sees top fashion designers apparently using her looks as inspiration: "Now I see all the things I'd get in trouble for wearing then as huge pieces on runways by the biggest designers.

"Now everyone's rocking it. I love that people are finally giving me the credit that I deserve."

Paris - who now has 15-month old son Phoenix and five-month-old daughter London, both born via surrogacy, with her 43-year-old entrepreneur husband Carter Reum - also said she loves being hailed as the "inventor" of selfies.

She said: "Being called the inventor and queen of selfies, I love them. I love that I've been doing it my whole life, before social media and all that started.

"I think it's an intimate look into someone's life - just taking a selfie with my friends, my pets, or just me.

"Now it's turned into something fun you can do with your fans, or people showing their real lives.

"It's also something you control yourself. It's not paparazzi or someone sneaking a photo of you.

"For so much of my life, my career was told by other people, who wanted to portray me in the way that they wanted - and no one knew who I truly was or what I'd been through, or that I had this armour that I built around myself, which is this character of myself."