Famous besties Richie and Paris Hilton reminisced about the decade that made them famous on the latest episode of ‘Call Her Daddy’

Paris Hilton (left) and Nicole Richie in 2004. Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage

Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie were some of the defining starlets of the 2000s, and now they’re talking about something truly of the time: their AIM screen names.

On the Dec. 11 episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, Hilton and Richie, both 43, opened up to host Alex Cooper about their shared childhood and teenage years. When discussing how Richie met her husband Joel Madden, she mentioned that they would chat on AIM — AOL’s instant messaging service, which became popular in the late ‘90s and maintained its user base throughout the 2000s.

Cooper, 30, asked what Richie’s AIM screen name was. “My first name was PrincessNR because I had a dog named princess,” she shared. But then she had a second, BallerinaGirlNR.

Nicole Richie (left) and Paris Hilton in 2002.Jeff Vespa/WireImage

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“ ‘Ballerina Girl’ is a song that my dad wrote, and the song is after me,” she explained. Her dad, Lionel Richie, included the song on 1986’s Dancing on the Ceiling. But the screen name did lead to a funny misunderstanding.

“One day, we were exchanging, screen names or whatever, like a group of friends, when it was new,” she remembered. “So we were calling each other by their names.” After an hour of chatting, everyone got up to leave. “And then they looked at me, and they go, ‘See you later, ‘Baller in a Girl.’ And I said whoa, whoa, whoa.”

“I said, ‘I cannot believe for a straight hour, you thought that my name was “Baller in a girl,” ‘ ” she recalled. “So now some of my friends still call me that.”

Meanwhile, Hilton’s main AIM name, she said, was BeautifulBlondeBabyGirl. She said she also used PrincessPH and Barbie420.

Paris Hilton (left) and Nicole Richie in 2003.Ray Mickshaw/WireImage

Hilton and Richie found widespread fame when they began starring in the reality show The Simple Life in 2003, but they were friends from childhood, thanks to their famous parents. Hilton shared on the podcast, “Nicole and I were only allowed to sleep at each other’s houses.” Richie added, “We also used to get treated as one. So like if the leader of our [friend] group got mad at one of us, both of us were out.”

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The Simple Life aired until 2007. Now, Richie and Hilton are reuniting in the three-part Peacock series Paris & Nicole: The Encore. In it, they try to turn their iconic ‘Sanasa’ song into an opera.

Back in 2020, Hilton told PEOPLE that filming The Simple Life was a little frustrating because viewers didn’t realize she was playing a character. “I knew what I was doing but the whole world didn’t, so it was kind of frustrating to me to be perceived in that way because it’s not who I am at all,” she explained. “But it was such an amazing and entertaining show that I would just think of it as entertainment.”

Paris Hilton (left) and Nicole Richie in 2001.Jeff Vespa/WireImage

“Obviously, I’ve grown as a person,” she said. “I’m an adult now, but just to be judged and have so many misconceptions based on a character that I had invented myself was frustrating.”

Paris & Nicole: The Encore premieres Dec. 12.