Paris Hilton hasn’t given up on her advocacy for kids and teens living in allegedly abusive youth treatment facilities. On Wednesday, the reality star testified before Congress at a hearing for strengthening child welfare, telling lawmakers about the “inhumane treatment” she experienced at youth facilities as a teen, including being “force-fed medication” and being “sexually abused by the staff.”
Hilton has long been an advocate for an overhaul of for-profit youth centers; in 2020, she shared her own horrific experiences as a teen at four such centers. The worst of them, Hilton has said, was The Provo Canyon School, which has come under fire in recent years for rampant alleged abuse. Hilton wrote in her 2023 memoir Paris that being sent to Provo was seen as a threat because of the center’s reputation. Since the Provo school is now operated under different management than when Hilton attended, it has not commented on her experiences, according to Axios.
Hilton said on Wednesday that although she didn’t enter the facility via the foster care system, she was still subject to abuse, as her parents were “completely deceived, lied to, and manipulated” about what was really happening to her there.
ADVERTISEMENT
“When I was 16 years old, I was ripped from my bed in the middle of the night and transported across state lines to the first of four youth residential treatment facilities,” she said at the hearing. “These programs promised healing, growth, and support, but instead did not allow me to speak, move freely, or even look out a window for two years. I was force-fed medications and sexually abused by the staff.”
“I was violently restrained and dragged down hallways, stripped naked, and thrown into solitary confinement,” she continued. “Can you only imagine the experience for youth who are placed by the state and don’t have people regularly checking in on them?”
Hilton went on to say that she attended facilities with foster and adopted youth and was moved by the stories of “innocent kids who have not committed crimes, kids whose parents didn’t have resources to support them, kids whose parents passed away—kids who have already experienced trauma.”
“This $23 billion-a-year industry sees this population as dollar signs,” Hilton added, saying that reforming these centers is a “life or death responsibility.”
