Paris Hilton testified on Monday to Utah lawmakers in favor of a bill that would regulate residential treatment centers for troubled teenagers and recalled her “traumatizing” experience at such a facility in the 1990s.
Hilton revealed his experience at Provo Canyon School in Utah in his 2020 documentary “This is Paris”. This week, the hotel’s heiress and reality show star testified before the Utah Senate Judiciary, the Police and Criminal Justice Committee about her experience, according to the local agency Deseret News.
The socialite said her parents, Ricky and Kathy Hilton, had sent her to several boarding schools claiming to focus on behavioral and mental development after a wave of rebellious behavior in her teens. Provo Canyon would have been his third school.
“I am proof that money does not protect against abuse,” Hilton told Utah lawmakers. “Utah must monitor companies that receive exorbitant amounts of money from desperate people and taxpayers. People are profiting from child abuse. This is not right. This is so wrong. “
Hilton remembers being woken up in the middle of the night, when she was 16, by two transporters who “asked me if I wanted to go the easy way or the hard way”.
“They carried me out of my house while I was screaming at the top of my lungs for help from my parents. I was taken to the airport and separated from everything and everyone I knew and loved ”, said the 39-year-old man.
Hilton continued to detail what she described as “unconstitutional, degrading and terrifying” abuse of the team. She told lawmakers that she was forced to take drugs that left her “numb and exhausted”, observed in the bathroom and thrown into “solitary confinement”.
“That little room covered in scratches and blood stains without a bathroom is one of the most vivid and traumatic memories I have ever experienced in my life,” said Hilton.
The children at Provo Canyon School were “contained, thrown on the walls, strangled and sexually abused on a regular basis,” she said, describing employees as “bad and sadistic”.
“I was no longer Paris. I was just number 127, ”she said.
Hilton said he could not report the abuse because “all communications with my family were being monitored and censored”.
“I don’t know if my nightmares are going to go away, but I know that there are hundreds of thousands of children going through this, and maybe if I stop their nightmares, it will help me stop mine.”
–@ParisHilton #utpol #utleg #utsen pic.twitter.com/C76gqxqYYI– Utah Senate (@utahsenate) February 8, 2021
Provo Canyon School is now under new management and its management told Deseret News in August that it cannot comment on anything that happened before the move in 2000, including Hilton’s 11-month stay.
The new administration said in a statement that Provo is “An intensive psychiatric residential treatment center for young people between the ages of 8 and 18 who have special and often complex emotional and mental health needs.”
However, Hilton told Utah lawmakers that, through “extensive research, we found that while this facility was actually sold after my time, the practices used and the staff employed have remained and remain the same today.”
An employee, who allegedly boasted to other students that she was “the one who broke Paris Hilton,” was not fired until October after her documentary was released, she said.
“I tell my story not to make anyone feel bad for me,” said Hilton. “But to illuminate the reality of what happened then and is still happening now.”
The legislation would require facilities to document physical restrictions and involuntary confinement and submit monthly reports to the Utah Licensing Office. It would also prohibit chemical sedation and unauthorized mechanical restrictions.
After Hilton and other victims testified emotionally about their alleged abuse and mistreatment, the committee members unanimously approved the measure. The bill now goes to the Utah Senate for a vote.
State Senator Mike McKell (R), who sponsored the project, said he hoped the bill would be approved by the Utah House before being sent to Governor Spencer Cox (R) ‘s desk.
I am grateful for survivors like @ParisHilton who are using their platform and voice to draw attention to an industry in desperate need of reform. As a state, we will take the necessary steps to increase transparency and security and prevent further abuse. pic.twitter.com/iaZjjKGhgd
– Mike McKell (@mikemckellutah) February 9, 2021
“There is a lot of money in this sector. It’s a big industry, ”McKell told The Salt Lake Tribune. “And I have become increasingly concerned that the appropriate amount of regulation has not been achieved.”
Utah is home to nearly 100 residential treatment centers for young people, a lucrative for-profit sector in a state known for desert therapy and the reputation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Public records obtained by the channel show that about 12,000 children have passed through Utah for youth treatment centers in the past five years, many jumping from one facility to another.