Paris Hilton is opening up for the very first time about the abuse she says she experienced as a teenager in an interview with People.
The reality star is gearing up to release her documentary, This Is Paris, which is set to debut on her YouTube channel on September 14.
As reported by People, the documentary, which was part of the Tribeca Film Festival, details parts of Paris’s life that she had previously kept private, including her experiences while attending several boarding schools as a teenager.
“The staff would say terrible things,” she told the magazine. “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.”
Hilton’s parents sent her to the Utah facility in the late 1990s, when she was 17 years old and getting in trouble for sneaking out to go to clubs or parties. She spent 11 months at the facility before she left when she turned 18.
She told the magazine that she was abused by staff at the facility, and was disciplined when she tried to alert her parents about how she was being treated. She was placed in solitary confinement, she said, when staff found out she was planning to run away.
“I was having panic attacks and crying every single day,” Hilton told the magazine. “I was just so miserable. I felt like a prisoner and I hated life.”
Hilton’s experience at the Utah facility will be highlighted in her documentary, which releases Sept. 14 on her YouTube channel.
The celebrity told People that she wanted to speak out about what happened to her to bring awareness to the “troubled teen industry” and so-called behavior improvement schools.
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