Paris Hilton Reveals Horrific Details Of Being Sexually Abused At A "Troubled Teen" Facility When She Was 17 Years Old
Socialite Paris Hilton has been known for a lot of things over the years, but she has only recently opened up about the abuse she experienced as a teenager when she was sent away to a facility that was meant to rehabilitate troubled teens. She told the New York Times about a particularly horrific experience in which she was sexually abused.
41-year-old Paris Hilton is the granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, the founder of Hilton hotels, and she recently married Carter Reum. She spends her free time deejaying events and modeling. While people may see Paris as a vapid, shallow pillar of Hollywood and reality TV, she has shown her vulnerable side lately in an attempt to raise awareness about the kind of abuse that goes on in youth facilities that claim to rehabilitate troubled teens. A couple of years ago, she made a documentary that showed the abuse she faced when she was sent to a boarding school in Utah.
Paris Hilton Reveals She Was Sexually Abused at a "Troubled Teen" Facility When She Was 17 Years Old
Like many other teens, Paris got in trouble as a teenager for sneaking out and partying. Her parents sent her off to various boarding schools and treatment centers. Provo Canyon School in Springville, Utah left the biggest mark on her life. She was there for 11 months when she was 17 years old. She shared in the documentary that she was constantly abused from morning until night.
“From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, it was all day screaming in my face, yelling at me, continuous torture. The staff would say terrible things. They were constantly making me feel bad about myself and bully me [sic]. I think it was their goal to break us down. And they were physically abusive, hitting and strangling us. They wanted to instill fear in the kids so we’d be too scared to disobey them," she said.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Paris shared that she was "sleep-deprived and heavily medicated," so she just didn't understand what was happening around her.
"At Provo Canyon School, I was woken up in the middle of the night by male staff who ushered me into a private room and performed cervical exams on me in the middle of the night," she tweeted in reference to her NYT interview. "I was forced to lie on a padded table, spread my legs & submit to cervical exams. I cried while they held me down & said, 'No!' They just said, 'Shut up. Be quiet. Stop struggling or you’ll go to Obs.'"
"It was with a couple different staff members where they would lay us on the table and put their fingers inside of us," Paris said in the NYT interview. "I don't even know what they were doing, but it was definitely not a doctor and it was really scary."
Paris says this was a "recurring experience" not only for her but for many other survivors of abuse as well. "My childhood was stolen from me & it kills me this is still happening to other innocent children," she continued. She opened up about her experiences in order to raise awareness about these "troubled teen" facilities and how often they abuse vulnerable children.
She's working to fund the Accountability for Congregate Care Act in order to create something similar to a bill of rights for children at these kinds of facilities. She shares her harrowing past in order to encourage others to come forward and also to encourage policymakers to help reform the kind of horrors that are taking place in these behavioral reform centers.