LOS ANGELES - Being locked in a cell was a "traumatic experience" and something she never expected after driving with a suspended licence, a subdued Paris Hilton told CNN's Larry King on Wednesday.
Letters from fans and supporters from around the world, including U.S. soldiers in Iraq and people as far away as India, helped her make it through the 23 days in lockup, Hilton told King in her first broadcast interview since leaving jail Tuesday.
All of the letters were positive, she said, adding reading them in her cell sometimes reduced her to tears.
"I've been through a lot," said Hilton, her blond hair cascading across her forehead.
"And it was a pretty traumatic experience, something that I really have grown from."
Asked why she was going public about her experience, she told King: "I just want to let people know what I went through."
She added going to jail was the last thing she expected when Superior Court Judge Michael Sauer ordered her to his court in May for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless-driving case.
"I was walking in there assuming I was just going to get community service," Hilton said.
"That's what my lawyer said at the time. So when he sentenced me to that much time in jail it was shocking because that doesn't happen, ever."
"It wasn't for DUI, it was for suspended licence," she said of her case.
Asked whether she thought she got a "raw deal," she said yes. Still, she promised never to drink and drive again.
"I'll never make that mistake again," she said.
Hilton also told King she thought the experience had changed her for the better.
"I feel like God does make everything happen for a reason," she said.
"And it gave me, you know, a time-out in life just to really find out what is important and what I want to do, figure out who I am. And even though it was really hard, I took that time just to get to know myself."
As she did in interviews from jail, Hilton also complained about the food.
"The food was horrible. It was jail food; it's not supposed to be good," she said.
"Lunch was basically a bologna sandwich. They call it mystery meat."
"It's pretty scary. Two pieces of bread and some mayonnaise."
Although her fellow prisoners were nice to her, Hilton said, she sometimes had nightmares in which she feared someone would break into her cell and hurt her.
She called her release from jail "one of the happiest days of my life."
"It's hard to even describe. It was so exciting," she said of walking past a gauntlet of reporters and photographers to an SUV where her mother and father were waiting for her.
"It was just pandemonium and then as soon as I saw my mom I just ran to her to go give her a hug."
The messy ponytail and makeup-free face Hilton displayed when she left the Century Regional Detention Facility were replaced Wednesday with loose, re-blonded locks and camera-ready blue eye-shadow and pink lipstick.
She faced another gauntlet when she arrived at CNN's Los Angeles studios, with paparazzi shouting: "Paris, we love you" and asking her what she had learned in jail.
Hilton, wearing oversized, white-framed sunglasses, didn't reply but waved demurely to the crowd before turning and walking into the studio.
After leaving jail Hilton went to her grandparents' Holmby Hills mansion, where she stayed holed up Tuesday preparing for Wednesday's appearance.
Her path to jail began Sept. 7, when she failed a sobriety test after police saw her weaving down a street in her Mercedes-Benz. Hilton, who said she was hungry and on the way to get a hamburger, pleaded no-contest to alcohol-related reckless driving and was sentenced to probation for three years.
In the months that followed, she was stopped twice by officers who discovered her driving with a suspended licence. The second stop landed her in court and then in jail.
