Apparently bad things happened to Paris Hilton as a teenager at boarding school. She was physically abused, she reveals for the first time.
Hotel heiress Paris Hilton (39) most people associate a life full of luxury and worry-free. But the trailer for her YouTube documentary "This Is Paris", which will be shown in mid-September, already indicated that she had been keeping a painful secret for years. She spoke about it for the first time in an interview with the US magazine "People" and made serious allegations against a boarding school where she was at the age of 17 for several months.
"I had panic attacks and cried every day"
Paris Hilton was sent to boarding school by her parents Rick (65) and Kathy (61) Hilton because they couldn't control the rebellious teenage girl. At that time the family lived in New York. Paris Hilton secretly left home to go to clubs and partying. All the efforts of her parents, who even took away her cell phone and credit card, came to nothing. Last resort: boarding school in the US state of Utah.
The school's focus was not on education, said Paris Hilton. "From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, I was yelled at all day long, it was an ongoing torture," she recalls. The staff said "terrible things". They made her feel bad and "bullied me". The 39-year-old even says: "I think their goal was to destroy us. And they physically abused us, beat us and choked us. They wanted to frighten the children so that we would be too afraid not to obey them . "
Her escape plan was thwarted by another child. The severe punishment: solitary confinement. Children should have been through this for up to 20 hours. The hotel heiress was deeply affected by these abuse. "I had panic attacks and cried every day," says Hilton. "I was so miserable. I felt like a prisoner and I hated life."
Paris Hilton's nightmare is over
Paris' family had no idea about any of this. The 39-year-old says the students were cut off from the outside world. She was only allowed to speak to her parents every few months. And when she tried to tell them about the conditions on site, everything was done to prevent this. Even letters are said to have been torn up. She was told: "Nobody will believe you!" At the age of 18, Paris Hilton left school and returned to New York. Out of shame, she kept the experiences to herself.
In "This Is Paris," three of their former classmates make similar allegations against the boarding school. When asked by "People", the school said that the school changed hands in 2000 and that it was not possible to comment on what had happened before that time. Paris Hilton is relieved to have finally unpacked: "It feels like my nightmare is over."