Who Abused Paris Hilton? Everything To Know About What She Shared In 'This Is Paris' Documentary
It's heartbreaking to hear her story in her own words.
Andrea Raffin/Shutterstock From the years that Paris Hilton has spent in the spotlight, the version of her we've gotten to know has been fun and carefree — especially during her younger years, when she was still hanging out with Kim Kardashian and Nicole Richie and starring on The Simple Life. But in her new YouTube Originals documentary, This Is Paris, which debuted on the platform on September 14, we got to meet a different side of Hilton, as she let fans in on some of her darkest life experiences, including abuse and trauma that she faced in her childhood.
A huge part of her documentary is all about what happened to her while she was attending boarding school at Provo Canyon School in Utah, and the abuse she faced while she was there.
But what happened at the school, and who abused Paris Hilton?
Here's what we know about what she revealed in her new This Is Paris documentary.
Paris Hilton attended school at Provo Canyon School.
In the documentary, Hilton explained that her parents, Kathy and Rick Hilton, were upset by her party girl nature and were worried she'd ruin their reputation, so they decided to send her away. At first, they tried a wilderness camp, which forced her to do manual labor and when she tried to escape, the workers there "beat the hell" out of her and the others who attempted to make a break for it. Then, one night, she said she was taken from her bed in the middle of the night and ended up at Provo Canyon School in Utah. She compared the experience to being kidnapped, and Hilton called the school "the worst of the worst."
Employees at the school allegedly abused Hilton.
Hilton went on to say that she spent 11 months at the school, where she was frequently given unidentified pills and abused.
"You're sitting on a chair, staring at the wall all day long, getting yelled at or hit," she said in the documentary. "I felt like a lot of the people who worked there got off on torturing children and seeing them naked."
Paris Hilton was kept in solitary confinement at the school.
Hilton also shared that she was often sent to solitary confinement, without clothes, for up to 20 hours at a time, though her parents didn't know that this was happening at the time. While talking to Rick and Kathy in the movie, she shared that her punishments would have been worse if she had been caught telling them what had really happened while she was at the school.
She has called the experience "continuous torture."
In an interview Hilton did in August before the documentary premiered, she compared her experience at Provo Canyon School to torture, adding that she was screamed at all day and that her experiences there caused her daily panic attacks.
“The staff would say terrible things. They were constantly making me feel bad about myself and bully me," she said at the time. "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.”
Other students from the school have substantiated Paris Hilton's claims.
In other interviews, students from the same school have shared experiences similar to Hilton's, backing up her claims. Former staffers and students have said that they've seen employees gang up on and tackle students, with some claiming that they've witnessed students have their teeth knocked out or even been denied medical care while at the facility.
"I did experience some of the same abuse," Lee Goldman, a student who is now 33 years old, has said. "I didn't experience strangling but I did experience manhandling. The school recorded that they had five or six staff members restrain me at once. I'm all of 100 pounds."
The school has released a statement on Paris Hilton's documentary.
Provo Canyon School's website features a statement claiming that they're aware of the documentary but as the school has changed ownership since Hilton attended, they won't be commenting on what may have happened back then.
"We are aware of a new documentary referencing Provo Canyon School (PCS)," the statement says. "Please note that PCS was sold by its previous ownership in August 2000. We therefore cannot comment on the operations or patient experience prior to that time. We are committed to providing high-quality care to youth with special, and often complex, emotional, behavioral and psychiatric needs."
Being a child doesn’t have to hurt.
Every year more than 3 million reports of child abuse are made in the United States. According to the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline, 28.3 percent of adults report being physically abused as a child, and 10.6 percent of adults report being emotionally abused as a child. Physical abuse of a child is when a parent or caregiver causes any non-accidental physical injury to a child, including striking, kicking, burning, biting, hair pulling, choking, throwing, shoving, whipping, or any other action that injures a child. Even if the caregiver didn’t mean to cause injury, when the child is injured it is abuse. When a parent or caregiver harms a child’s mental and social development, or causes severe emotional harm, it is considered emotional abuse. While a single incident may be abuse, most often emotional abuse is a pattern of behavior that causes damage over time. There are many physical and behavioral signs of child abuse in both the child and the parent or caretaker. To learn more about these signs, visit the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline’s website (https://www.childhelp.org/child-abuse/). If you suspect a child you know is being abused physically or emotionally, contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline for more resources at 1-800-4-A-CHILD.
Nicole Pomarico is an entertainment and lifestyle writer whose work has appeared in Cosmo, Us Weekly, Refinery29, and more.