Did Paris Hilton and Britney Spears really invent the selfie?

Selfie celebrity fact check: No. Paris Hilton and Britney Spears did NOT invent the selfie, despite the socialite and reality TV show star claiming so back in 2017 by tweeting a selfie of the pair from 2006:

On November 20, 2020 Paris Hilton repeated the claim to selfie invention:

In reality, the first ever photographic portrait was also a self portrait, taken by 30 year old amateur chemist and photography enthusiast Robert Cornelius in 1839. He removed the lens cap, ran into the frame and sat still for a minute before running back and replacing the lens cap.On the back of the daguerreotype, he wrote “The first light Picture ever taken. 1839.”… beats Paris Hilton’s claim by almost 200 years! (source: Public Domain Review). It was one of the first Daguerreotypes to be produced in America, only a few months after Louis Daguerre announced his invention.

You’ve got to hand it to Paris Hilton , she’s a selfie queen with conviction. In 2017, the 39-year-old reality star and socialite tweeted a photo of herself hanging out with Britney Spears in 2006, writing, “11 years ago today, Me & Britney invented the selfie!” Naturally, Twitter users were quick to disprove her claims, offering up pictures of other people’s “selfies” throughout history. But this week, Hilton was returned to claim the title once more. She posted the same photo of herself with Spears, tweeting , “14 years ago, @britneyspears and I invented the selfie [red heart emoji] #LegendsOnly.” More than 106,000 people liked the picture. In response, many tweeted two simple words, echoing Hilton’s famous catchphrase: “That’s hot.” Hilton rose to fame as the star of the reality show The Simple Life in the early ’00s. The heiress to the Hilton hotel chain was often photographed out partying, including with her co-star Nicole Richie , now 39, and other celebs such as Spears, now 38, and Lindsey Lohan , now 34. These stars were popular targets of the paparazzi at a time when celebrity gossip websites started popping up and swiftly rising in popularity, and years before […]

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