Paris Hilton is opening up about a traumatic experience she went through when she was 17.
In case you missed it, earlier this month, the DJ and heiress dropped the trailer for her docuseries, This Is Paris, where she opened up about her childhood struggles.
“Something happened in my childhood that I’ve never talked about with anyone,” Paris says in the trailed.
“I just heard screaming bloody murder,” Nicky says.
A snippet also showed her talking to her mom, Kathy Hilton, who had her face buried in her hands as she cried.
“But I couldn’t tell you guys because every time I tried, I’d get punished by them,” a visibly emotional Paris says. “I still have nightmares about it. And the only thing that saved my sanity was thinking about who I wanted to become when I got out of there.”
However, the trailer doesn’t elaborate on what it was that Paris went through.
In a recent interview with People, Paris claims she went through “continuous torture” while attending Provo Canyon School in the late ’90s
“I buried my truth for so long,” she told the outlet. “But I’m proud of the strong woman I’ve become. People might assume everything in my life came easy to me, but I want to show the world who I truly am.”
Her parents had sent her to boarding school following her frequent partying and rebellious behavior as a teen.
“I knew it was going to be worse than anywhere else,” says Paris of the school she attended for 11 months when she was 17, alleging, “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.”
“The staff would say terrible things. They were constantly making me feel bad about myself and bully me,” she continued. “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 also says she “couldn’t trust anyone there” – a classmate ratted out her plans to escape to a staff and she says was placed in solitary confinement.
“They would use that as punishment, sometimes 20 hours a day,” she claims.
“I was having panic attacks and crying every single day,” Paris shared. “I was just so miserable. I felt like a prisoner and I hated life.”
Some of Paris’ old classmates also appear in the documentary seconding her allegations as well as talk about other abuse that kids suffered at the school.
After she turned 18, Paris went back home to New York. As for why she kept it under wraps for more than two decades, “I was so grateful to be out of there, I didn’t even want to bring it up again,” she says. “It was just something I was ashamed of and I didn’t want to speak of it.”
Paris hopes finally opening up about her experience would finally help her move on.
“It feels like my nightmare is over,” she says.
Although she’s not planning to take legal action against the school, she hopes to be able to raise awareness on other so-called behavior improvement schools that employ similar practices.
“I want these places shut down,” Paris said. “I want them to be held accountable. And I want to be a voice for children and now adults everywhere who have had similar experiences. I want it to stop for good and I will do whatever I can to make it happen.”
The school has since issued a statement in response to the allegations. “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,” the statement said, per People.
