SOLVED!
[People] “I feel like the whole world thinks they know me,” she says. “No one really knows who I am. … I don’t even know who I am sometimes. I didn’t used to be that way.”
“I’m so used to like, playing a character, that it’s hard for me be normal,” she adds.
In the trailer for her upcoming YouTube Originals documentary, This Is Paris, the star pulls back the curtain on her glamorous life as she hints at painful childhood trauma.
“Something happened in my childhood that I’ve never talked about with anyone,” Paris admits.
“I just heard screaming bloody murder,” Nicky recalls.
“But I couldn’t tell you guys, because every time I tried, I would get punished by them,” Paris says. “I still have nightmares about it. The only thing that saved my sanity was thinking about who I wanted to become when I got out of there. I just created this brand and this persona and this character, and I’ve been stuck with her ever since.”
“They say [with] trauma, the mind may forget, but the body never forgets,” Nicky explains. “It’s trapped in you, and it can come out whenever.”
The project, helmed by Emmy-winning director Alexandra Dean, promises to “uncover the hidden past of the international icon,” with Paris confronting “the heartbreaking trauma that forged who she is today,” according to the official description.
The star, whose great-grandfather Conrad Hilton founded Hilton Hotels, said filming the documentary was “almost therapeutic.”
“I’m excited, but I’m also very nervous given the topics discussed in this film,” she said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last month. “It’s things I’ve never talked about before, really personal and traumatic experiences, so to talk about that publicly is obviously very hard.”
“Obviously I’m used to be on camera from being on camera for so long. But I’ve always been a very naturally shy person, so I loved just inventing this character and playing that character,” she explained. “To actually be myself was a completely different experience, but also almost therapeutic in some way, where I learned so much about myself. I had no idea why I am the way I am, and now I understand myself so much more.”
This Is Paris premieres Sep. 14 on Hilton’s YouTube Channel.
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Trauma:
[Optional] Do you think Paris Hilton is likable?
SOLVED!
Trauma: Mistreatment at boarding school
Paris Hilton says that she was horribly mistreated while attending a “boarding school” as a teenager.
From People:
Paris Hilton Opens Up About the Secret Terrifying Abuse She Suffered as a Teen
Paris Hilton is opening up about a painful secret she’s kept private for over two decades.
In her new documentary, This Is Paris, premiering Sept. 14 on Hilton’s YouTube channel, the entrepreneur and reality star reveals for the first time the horrific abuse she says she endured as a teen while at a boarding school in Utah.
“I buried my truth for so long,” Hilton, 39, tells PEOPLE exclusively of the mental, emotional and physical pain she says she underwent while at Provo Canyon School in the late ’90s. “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.”
Years before she became a household name on The Simple Life in 2003, Hilton was a teen living in New York City’s famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel with her parents, Rick and Kathy Hilton, and younger siblings: Nicky, 36, Barron, 30, and Conrad, 26.
Paris’ father, Rick Hilton, is a descendant of the family that founded Hilton Hotels. Here is Paris Hilton with her family:
Rick Hilton’s net worth is estimated to be approximately $350 million. Paris Hilton’s net worth is estimated to be approximately $300 million.
And along with the privileges of her big city life came big temptations.
“It was so easy to sneak out and go to clubs and parties,” recalls Hilton. “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.”
Here is Paris Hilton as a teenager:
Yes, Paris Hilton is actually a brunette. It’s amazing how different she looks at a blonde!
And here is Paris Hilton partying years later with Lady Gaga as a blonde:
While Paris Hilton may have grown up privileged, it sounds like her parents were trying to act responsibly and do everything possible to keep their underaged daughter from getting into trouble.
Eventually, says Hilton, Rick and Kathy were fed up and made the decision to send their then 17-year-old daughter to a series of boarding schools that claimed to focus on behavioral and mental development, the last of which was Provo Canyon School, where Hilton would stay for 11 months.
Almost immediately after she arrived, “I knew it was going to be worse than anywhere else,” says Hilton. The abuse she faced, she says, took place on a daily basis.
“It was supposed to be a school, but [classes] were not the focus at all,” says Hilton. “From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, it was all day screaming in my face, yelling at me, continuous torture.”
That doesn’t sound like any kind of boarding school we’ve ever heard of.
The Provo Canyon School is currently described as a “a residential treatment center for teenagers.”
Here’s a photo of a current dorm room at the school. Four to a room. Bunk beds and cubbies.
Continues Hilton: “The staff would say terrible things. They were constantly making me feel bad about myself and bully me. 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.”
OK, that’s definitely not what happens at a regular boarding school.
The phrasing is a bit odd, though. Paris switches from “me” to “us” when describing certain behaviors, so it is a little unclear as to what happened to her versus how others were treated.
Perhaps it’s her way of disassociating herself from the worst events?
Three of Hilton’s former teen classmates also appear in the documentary, making similar allegations about Provo Canyon School, including that they were often force-fed medication and held down by restraints as punishment.
Paris does not mention if she personally was force-fed medication or put in restraints.
When one of her classmates told staff that Hilton had plans to run away (“you couldn’t trust anyone there,” she says), she says she was placed in solitary confinement. “They would use that as punishment, sometimes 20 hours a day.”
The fear of continued abuse began to take its toll on the once vibrant teen.
“I was having panic attacks and crying every single day,” says Hilton. “I was just so miserable. I felt like a prisoner and I hated life.”
Attempts to tell her parents about the conditions at school were fruitless. “I didn’t really get to speak to my family,” says Hilton, “maybe once every two or three months.
That sounds extremely controlling. Even at most reform schools, students have daily or weekly contact with their parents. It’s crazy that the parents would agree to be cut off from their minor child like that.
We were cut off from the outside world. And when I tried to tell them once, I got in so much trouble I was scared to say it again. They would grab the phone or rip up letters I wrote telling me, ‘No one is going to believe you.’ And the staff would tell the parents that the kids were lying. So my parents had no idea what was going on.”
Finally, when she turned 18 in 1999, Hilton left the school and headed back to New York, but was terrified to speak a word of her experience — to anyone.
“I was so grateful to be out of there, I didn’t even want to bring it up again,” says Hilton. “It was just something I was ashamed of and I didn’t want to speak of it.”
But more than 20 years later, in filming the documentary and reflecting on her life thus far, Hilton says she was finally able to open up about the trauma of her past — in the hopes that she can finally move on.
While not part of this particular interview, we will assume that Paris will say in the documentary that, as a result of these events, she invented the “character” of Paris Hilton – a silly, spoiled, vain narcissistic – to deal with the trauma.
While nobody got this exactly right, several of you correctly pinpointed that some sort of trauma occurred while Paris was at boarding school.
The documentary This Is Paris will air on YouTube beginning September 14, 2020.
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aaaPanda says
It seems possible that she was abused as a child – this would explain her at times bizarre behaviour. Other than that she looks way, way better as a brunette. Still likable in a feel sorry for poor rich girl way.z
Marybel says
Wah for Paris, one of the snottiest, most entitled brats ever.
spoofbyrd says
Uh I can’t separate her sociopathic brother from her . I think her brother got a little if that “ peasant bashing “ stuff from that family dynamic . Some poor little rich kids like Patty Hearst were legitimately victims but others ? I just don’t trust their victim stories . I wouldn’t trust Paris either. Her vibe on her show wasn’t bad but you had more than your 15 minutes girl & just please stay away . Learn to paint or something .
fanofgossip says
Currently, the facility is a private facility for mental and behaviorally challenged students. And not a boarding school. Its a lockdown treatment program. Now, what it was back then, no idea. But it was not effective whatsoever;)
TipToe74 says
Getting bullied in boarding school.
I don’t know her so no opinion.
wfreshie says
squirrelmistress the blind mentions paris sister nikki because it sounds like she was there when it happened like in the next room because she (nikki ) heard the screaming
mastik8 says
Paris Hilton Has Been Hiding A Big Secret? That she is as dull and useless as we always thought she was? Sorry, but this re-branding and re-framing of her just isn’t working. There’s no There There.
Amityvillain says
Trauma: Eye trauma- I bet she has a glass eye or something; sounds like an accident happened, caused by someone else.
SweetMel says
After such ‘trauma’, no matter how long ago, counseling is best. Therapy & psychoanalysis to drop the built up masks shes calling a ‘brand’. The sharing at this point via YouTube & press is another low point for her… poor form & not likable. Going ‘victim’ in these times is preposterous.
harperleigh says
Bullied at boarding school
Elodia says
I think the drama is made up. And she’s not likeable at all
CanaryCry says
She’ll do anything to be loved again … including hopping on a bandwagon under false pretenses.
johnchas1 says
If by “secret” she is referring to her wonk-eye, herpes or support of Trump, she’s mistaken…. We already know these things, just as we know she’s a vapid fame * looking to extend her 15 minutes further.
Vampira says
She’s trying to be relevant again. Your ship sailed, honey, you’re pushing 40, time to move on.
CanaryCry says
She’s just fabricating this to make people adore her again.
She’s a “shy” person? Are you kidding us?
Cyclist712 says
Paris: I hope people close to you care about you. Because the public sure doesn’t.
Kellikopter says
*I meant my guess was that she was being bullied or assaulted by some of her peers from her school, not her current peers.
Kellikopter says
I watched the trailer and it looked like she went to a boarding school when she was young, so my guess is she was being bullied or assaulted by some of her peers.
Caz1310 says
I’m old enough to know about her career and busy personal life and strangely, I find her likeable and can’t articulate why. I find Nicole Richie cold as a fish. I’ll be interested to watch this.
Piwakawaka says
Molested by a family member or friend? I hate to think.
To me, Paris Hilton has never been unlikeable, but it that way.
trainerguy46 says
Not especially, even this blind seems to betray some vapid discovery she has made which somehow seems to coincide with just missing the thrust of a cultural movement. Bless her heart.
modelle18 says
Nothing is more distasteful then teasing something traumatic (likely sexual assault) just to promote a cheap YouTube series.
Poor little rich girl, was perfectly happy to play the party of dumb little rich girl as long as it brought her what she wanted and then does an about face when everyone is over it.
Hard Pass Hilton youre an awful person
Alllie says
Trauma:boarding school sexual assault
[Optional] Do you think Paris Hilton is likable? No, she has always been hateful to other women and I can’t stand her. She knows people will always equate her with that “firecrotch” video where she has her druggie friend Davis yelling that. yeah paris, that’s still not hot…and no sympathy or money left for you. stay in Germany
michelex23 says
Oh please, I’m not buying any of this. Trauma is probably had to wear regular clothes and eat food from a grocery store one time.
pawpaw says
Ahhh! Blind Gossip already told us about Paris trying to reinvent herself! I can only imagine V what her “trauma” was but I know I’ll be traumatized if she gains popularity again !
gailpow says
Trauma: Paris lost her real diamond tiara.
Trauma: Paris found out Nicky got a birthday party invite and she didn’t!
Trauma: Paris realized when she grows up, she will become a friend of Kim Kardashian.
Life is cruel—even for the rich!
mystic1 says
I think she was molested.
smuthound says
Bullied?
mayer2816 says
one of her family member raped someone maybe she witnessed it or something..or killed someone. who knows
RadioMarty says
Vapid thirsty vixen.
omgimbackagain says
She is not one bit likable. She is shallow, dumb, and racist.
I wouldn’t presume to guess what her trauma is and wouldn’t wish trauma on anyone, but doesn’t she have enough money to just go away?
JoshuaTree says
Molested when she got sent away to reform school when she was 14. I think it was one of those CEDU or Synanon programs.
bec215d says
If her father Rick was a friend of Epstein, and she walked in on him with a young girl – maybe even a friend – being sexually assaulted by him, that would be traumatic … Could she be trying to get ahead of the Maxwell trial and depositions? Dershowicz certainly never thought the depositions would be unsealed. I’m sure neither did others.
fanofgossip says
She is so desperate for attention. This is like that * who was pulling an identical stunt and it turned out to be acne.
I am not curious at all. Just annoyed.
JustKay says
That she was born a man?
sabrina325 says
Sexual assault
nowyoutellme says
Oh, please, nothing happened. This publicity stunt is nothing more than a bandwagon to jump on.
amagod121 says
Sexual abuse, sorry to say. That’s horrible and devastating.
Optnl: No but if she works thru those memories and traumas I’m sure she will be. But you know, not everyone is likeable and that’s okay too, as they may have superior abilities elsewhere. Nature made us all to be individual and that’s cool.
goose23 says
Sounds like sexual abuse/assault 🙁
I don’t find her likeable, but I do feel compassion for her. Experiencing trauma and not being able to talk about it is painful. Finding a “character” to perform as makes sense, I hope she is able to work through her trauma and be well.
kimmukwest says
Sexual assault. Unfortunately it would make sense given how she created a character to guard herself
MaisyDaisy says
If her big secret is that she had a nose job, then it’s not much of a secret. This is just this animal abuser’s latest attempt to stay relevant.
Bubbalou says
Trauma : some illness?
[optional] : She is likable when she is not heard of in the media. teeheehee.
Molly7111 says
Trauma: She was sexually abused by someone who cared for her as a child or by a family member. I’ve always thought from the “overly sexual” way she behaves that she was sexually abused.
lad86000 says
Trauma Her eye
Her characterb is likable still
donna47129 says
Obviously someone tried to take the silver spoon out of her mouth.
No, not the least bit likable. Trying to act like she’s been playing a character is probably the dumbest thing I’ve heard this year.
squirrelmistress says
why does it keep saying nicky? was her sister molested?
chica1984 says
I’m sure she was sexually abused, which is awful. The question becomes by whom?
The Big D says
My guess is that the “trauma” is a made up event to try and make her seem more relatable and to excuse her past behavior.
She not likable at all!