Paris Hilton: I'm Still in Love with Benji Madden

By Marla Lehner and Sara Hammel

11/21/2008 at 12:45 PM EST

Paris Hilton and Benji Madden may have broken up, but they're still close friends, she said Friday.

"You know, I love him. He's such an amazing man and he's my best friend and he's been so great to me and so loyal," Hilton said Friday on Ryan Seacrest's KIIS F.M. radio show. "He's an incredible person. We'll always be very close. We'll see what happens in the future. I'm still in love with him."

Asked what happened, Hilton cited busy work schedules and lots of travel as the reason behind their split.

"We're both working so much," she told Seacrest. "There are all these reports saying that I dumped Benji. That's not true. This was a decision we made together as two adults."

Still, Hilton emphasizes that the door hasn't completely shut on their romantic relationship. "Right now we are just taking a break," she says. "We are really good friends. We're really close."

Shooting down questions of infidelity, she says neither of them cheated, and her recent meeting with ex-boyfriend Stavros Niarchos was nothing more than a chance encounter and a "quick conversation" between friends.

As for Madden, she says, "He's doing great. We talk every day. We see each other."

Hilton, who sounded in low spirits while talking to Seacrest, added that dating other people "is the last thing on my mind."

The former Simple Life star certainly hasn't been partying up a storm.

On Wednesday – the day her break-up was confirmed – she had a low-key dinner before making an appearance at Hollywood's Crown Bar.

"Hilton looked distraught and completely lonesome," said an eyewitness, adding that the heiress spent most of the night talking and texting on her phone. "She wasn't her usual prim and proper self."

Hilton, 27, and Madden, 29, had been dating for more than nine months.

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• 2007: Pre-Benji, Paris' hard-partying ways landed her behind bars
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