Paris Hilton has opened up about the abuse she allegedly endured while attending boarding school as a teen.
The 39-year-old hotel heiress spoke with People ahead of the release of her new YouTube documentary This is Paris, in which she will expose never-before-heard details about some of the pain she suffered at the Provo Canyon School in Utah.
Reflecting on the 11 months she was enrolled at the institution at age 17, Paris shared: “The staff would say terrible things. They were constantly making me feel bad about myself and bully me.
“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 insisted the school did not focus on education “at all,” detailing: “From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, it was all day screaming in my face, yelling at me, continuous torture.”
Paris explained that her parents, Rick and Kathy Hilton, made the decision to send her to boarding school after she pulled a series of stunts including “sneaking out and going to clubs and parties” while living at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.
The alleged abuse led to Paris suffering from panic attacks “every single day,” as she explained: “They would grab the phone or rip up the letters I wrote telling me, ‘No one is going to believe you.'”
The social media star left the school in 1999 when she was 18. She wouldn’t speak about the abuse because she said she felt “ashamed.”
This Is Paris, which also sees three of her classmates make similar allegations, debuts on September 14, 2020.
According to the publication, the school responded to its request for comment with the following statement:
“Originally opened in 1971, Provo Canyon School was sold by its previous ownership in August 2000. We therefore cannot comment on the operations or patient experience prior to this time.”
