Jail Has Made Paris Hilton Grateful for All She Has, Except the “Bad People” She Used to Hang Out With

E! posted details of Ryan Seacrest’s phone call yesterday with Paris Hilton in which she said she’s "really proud" of herself for serving out her sentence.

Note to Paris: serving your sentence wasn’t a choice.

Paris says that this experience has completely changed her and that she used to hang around with "a lot of bad people" and doesn’t want to do that any longer. (Shades of the very wise Nicole Richie’s recent realization, natch.)

Grab a box of tissues, or a barf bag, for the rest of this, depending on whether you think her incarceration was an injustice.

I saw a report about all of the fan mail.
Oh, it’s really incredible. I had no idea how many supporters I have. (I’ve gotten letters) from kids who are four years old saying this is the first letter they’ve ever written. Letters saying, "I respect you so much, I think you’re a brave woman…"

There are obviously some messages about the judge, saying that he abused his power and completely took advantage of the situation. Which I think is…I think everyone knows that.

There’s just so much support. I really don’t know what I would’ve done…

What sort of interaction do you have with the other inmates?
There are girls in all the cells. The walls are pretty thin and there are vents, so the girls next door to me talk to me through the vents and say, "Oh, my God, my kid loves you," "My dad, all he wants for Father’s Day is your autograph…"

I just want to be normal when I walk down the halls. There are classrooms here because a lot of the inmates didn’t have the opportunity to go to school, so they’ll all be in there and all wave and blow kisses.

Everyone is really supportive and sweet. If I’m crying and upset, they’ll say, "Don’t cry" and "God bless you."…

How are you feeling? There are reports you’ve lost weight.
There are a lot of rumors going around that aren’t true. And I feel like people don’t have enough to talk about, but I’m the exact same way. The food is awful, but I’m eating. Someone told me about that (rumor), and it’s a lie. It’s not true at all. When I come out, people will see I’m exactly the same.

I’m just excited to start this new life. I appreciate everything now and I don’t want to…I think there’re a lot of bad people that I was around and I don’t want to surround myself with those types of people anymore.

The letters have really gotten me through this and it really warms my heart. They’ve made me cry with joy. I haven’t received one negative letter.

It really, really makes me happy that people care.

There is a lot more at E! online, if you don’t want to miss a single word uttered by Paris in anticipation of her imminent release.