Paris Hilton has added fuel to previous allegations she has made against "troubled teen" facilities.
The 40-year-old testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to bolster a proposed bill, which hopes to improve conditions at facilities used to discipline teenagers and children.
The bill — which was introduced by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna — seeks to ensure that the youth at these centers are able to get clean water and nutritional meals, call their parents, and can resist being physically restrained. There are currently no measures in place that guarantee this.
Hilton movingly backed the bill, known as the Accountability for Congregate Care Act, by sharing her own experiences. The socialite was sent to four different facilities between the ages of 16 and 18.
Per The Independent, she said that her parents, Kathy and Rick, were "promised that tough love would fix" her as a teenager. Instead, she claims she was "strangled, slapped across the face, watched in the shower by male staff, called vulgar names. Forced to take medication without a diagnosis, not given a proper education, thrown into solitary confinement in a room covered in scratch marks and smeared in blood, and so much more."
"Federal law and funding are desperately needed to bring real reform and true accountability," she added.
Hilton first opened up about her experiences at "troubled teen" facilities in her 2020 documentary, This is Paris. Here, we chart her allegations, and look at her difficult teenage years.
Paris' teenage years
Prior to becoming a reality television sensation, much of Hilton's teen years were spent living in New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel, with her parents, and younger siblings, Nicky, Barron, and Conrad.
Hilton quickly spiraled out of control, as she admitted to in This Is Paris: "I think I just got addicted to the nightlife. I felt accepted. I just felt like the queen of the night. That's where I really became Paris."
The Simple Life alum later told PEOPLE, "It was so easy to sneak out and go to clubs and parties. My parents were so strict that it made me want to rebel. They'd [punish me] by taking away my cell phone, taking away my credit card, but it didn’t work. I would still go out on my own."
Eventually, after their increasingly harsh disciplinary measures failed to yield results, Rick and Kathy decided to send a 17-year-old Hilton to a series of boarding schools, which purported to focus on behavioral and mental development.
Paris escapes from an outdoor wilderness program
The first institution that her parents sent Hilton to was an outdoor wilderness program. Speaking in her documentary, she said, "I feel like my parents were scared and they didn't want their reputations to be ruined. So I felt like I was just kind of sent away to be hidden. There's all these places called emotional growth schools. The first place was in the middle of nowhere. We were building other camps, basically doing manual labor all day long."
The House of Wax actress was able to escape, however, with a few other girls. "We ran through cornfields, through mountains. The guys that worked at the camp grabbed us and then we got back and they literally just beat the hell out of us in front of everyone," she recalls. "And then they sent me to this other place, which was hell, too. And I ran away from there."
This continued until Paris says her parents had had enough. One night, Paris claims, she was taken from her bed as if she was being kidnapped.
Her sister, Nicky, 38, recalls, "I remember it was a school night. It was the middle of the night, and I just heard screaming bloody murder. I knew there was a takedown in the works. I didn't know it was people coming in and capturing her."
"I thought I was being kidnapped. I started screaming for my mom and dad — no one came," Hilton corroborated. "As they were taking me, I saw my parents standing by their door crying. I was like, 'Please help me, what's happening?' And no one would tell me what was happening."
Provo Canyon School
The young socialite then ended at Provo Canyon School in Utah, which she deemed to be "the worst of the worst" in This Is Paris.
"You're sitting on a chair, staring at the wall all day long, getting yelled at or hit. I felt like a lot of the people who worked there got off on torturing children and seeing them naked," she alleged, detailing that she and other teens were given unknown pills. When she refused to take them, she says she was sent to solitary confinement for up to 20 hours.
She revealed that she is still traumatized by her experiences to this day, and suffers from insomnia and recurrent nightmares. "I wish I could bring a camera into my dreams and show you what it's like. It's terrifying, and I relive that every night. I experienced it, and to this day I'm still traumatized," she continued.
She stated that the only thing that got her through was "thinking about what I wanted to do and who I wanted to become when I got out of there. I was going to do everything in my power to be so successful that my parents could never control me again."
Prior to the making of the documentary, Hilton's parents did not know about the alleged abuse. However, towards the end of the feature, the 40-year-old sat down with her mother, Kathy, and broke the news to her. "They were constantly being abusive in every way. But I couldn't tell you guys because every time I tried, I would get punished by them," she told a clearly stunned Kathy, to which she replied: "Had I known this, you know that Dad and I would have been there in one second."
In a statement published on their website, Provo Canyon school stated that they had changed ownership in August of 2000, following Hilton's stint at the establishment. "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," they wrote.
Paris speaks out again
In January of 2021, the Stars are Blind singer took to Instagram to share pictures of herself, aged 18, during her time at Provo Canyon School.
"These photos were taken when I was 18 and had recently come home from the horrible experiences I went through at #ProvoCanyonSchool," she captioned the photos.
"I can see the pain in my eyes. I was so traumatized that I pretended everything was okay, trying to block out the painful memories. Looking at this now, I know that the teen me would be so incredibly proud of the woman I am today. Being brave and using my voice to make a difference and save children from having to endure the abuse myself and so many others have had to go through."
The following month, Hilton testified about the abuse she claimed to have suffered at the various boarding schools she attended. The businesswoman spoke to the Utah state senate as politicians were considering legislation to regulate what they dubbed the "troubled teen industry".
Speaking before a Senate committee at the Utah Capitol building, she said: "Children were restrained, hit, thrown into walls, strangled and sexually abused regularly at Provo. I could not report this because all communication with my family was monitored and censored. And what is disgusting is the program doesn't just censor communication with family, but also with the entire outside world, so there was no way we could call for help."
She went on to call on the government to make changes nationally, stating after her appearance, "This is just the first step. This bill is going to definitely help a lot of children but there's obviously more work to do, and I'm not going to stop until change happens.
"Talking about something so personal was and is still terrifying," she added. "But I cannot go to sleep at night knowing that there are children that are experiencing the same abuse that I and so many others went through, and neither should you."
Following the release of this is Paris, other public figures, including Paris Jackson and tattoo artist, Kat Von D, opened up about similar experiences at Provo Canyon School, and other boarding schools.
