40 Hilarious Things You Probably Forgot Happened on 'The Simple Life'

Hi, we need to talk about The Simple Life, because after revisiting the series it's clearly a work of art that deserves to be studied in college classes. In case you didn't spend the early '00s watching reality TV while your parents prayed for your soul, The Simple Life starred Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie as they tried out the jobs/activities of us "regular people." Think: Getting gas (shocking!), working on a farm, air traffic control, a shift at Sonic, and making literal sausage—a task that was truly explosive in more ways than one. While Paris and Nicole definitely hammed it up for the camera, they were genuinely hilarious and clearly had so much fun filming this whacky reality show. But just FYI, they were 100 percent playing characters!

As Paris put it, "I think the biggest misconception is that people still think I'm the ditsy blonde from The Simple Life. What most people don't know is that it was a character that I came up with for the show and created for several reasons." And when it comes to the absolute chaos of their "jobs," Paris and Nicole were fully trying to get into trouble. "We'd do whatever job or task we could do; so if the job would entail, you know, working with the cows, that was just part of the job. We'd always make it funny somehow and do something to get in trouble," Paris told Flare. "We were doing our jobs like they told us to but, you know, kind of not doing the job as well. We knew what we were doing, we wanted to make people laugh, we wanted to entertain people."

On that note, we're rounding up 40 deranged and unforgettable (and sometimes blurry because ~the olden days~) moments from The simple Life to look back on. Yes, including the time Paris tried to cook bacon on an iron.