'I cried while they held me down': Paris Hilton reveals sexual abuse at Utah's Provo Canyon School
Warning: This article contains recollections of sexual abuse that could be traumatic for some readers. Discretion is advised
MALIBU, CALIFORNIA: Paris Hilton has made a shocking claim that she suffered sexual assault as a child while studying at a Utah boarding school. The 41-year-old alleged that teachers at Provo Canyon School in Utah coerced her and other female students into undergoing "cervical examinations."
Hilton recounted her life-altering experiences in a video interview with New York Times where the socialite said, "Very late at night – this would be around 3 or 4 in the morning – they would take myself and other girls into this room, and they would perform medical exams. This wasn't even with a doctor. It was with a couple of different staff members, where they would have us lay on the table and put their fingers inside of us. And I don't know what they were doing, but it was definitely not a doctor."
READ MORE
"It was really scary, and it's something that I really had blocked out for many years," Hilton alleged while holding back the tears. "But it's coming back all the time now, and I think about it. And now, looking back as an adult, that was definitely sexual abuse."
The star of 'Simple Life' stated that she was "forced to lie on a padded table," spread her legs, and submit to a cervical exam. “I cried while they held me down & said, ‘No!’ They just said, ‘Shut up. Be quiet. Stop struggling or you’ll go to Obs,'” Hilton wrote, adding, “It’s important to open up about these painful moments so I can heal & help put an end to this abuse.”
I opened up in a @NYTimes video about something I’ve never discussed before. 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. https://t.co/mWxF8Pvmaw
— ParisHilton (@ParisHilton) October 11, 2022
Hilton has also expressed her thoughts that the Provo Canyon School should to be closed. She went as far as to join a petition on change.org requesting the school to be shut down. Interestingly, as of Tuesday, about 300,000 people had signed the petition calling for the boarding school in Utah to be shut down.
Hilton has been quite vocal about her experiences while she was a student at the controversial boarding school in the past, and she has been an outspoken supporter of efforts to improve the kinds of institutions that she herself attended. At the age of 16, Hilton's parents Rick and Kathy Hilton sent her to the boarding school in Utah due to her rebellious nature. She remained there for a total of eleven months before being brought home.
The documentary 'The Is Paris', published in the year 2020, painted a more complete picture of the singer's problematic childhood and the horrible experience she had at the boarding school. “I knew it was going to be worse than anywhere else,” Paris said of the Utah school, adding, “It was supposed to be a school, but [classes] were not the focus at all. From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, it was all day screaming in my face, yelling at me, continuous torture.”