Paris Hilton’s strict Utah boarding school – stranglings, mental abuse and terror
Paris Hilton has written about her experience at Provo Canyon School, a treatment centre in Utah where she says she was physically and mentally abused daily
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Paris Hilton has opened up about her terrifying experience at boarding school as a teen in the 1990s after her parents sent her away due to her wild partying.
The socialite, now 39, claims she suffered daily physical and mental abuse when she was a student at Provo Canyon School in Utah, which changed ownership in 2000.
She alleges that staff at the school would hit and attempt to strangle students, as well as keeping them in solitary confinement and placing them in restraints when they were seen to have misbehaved.
Paris opens up about her alleged experience in her upcoming documentary This Is Paris, which comes out later this month.
As a teenager, Paris had lived in New York City’s plush Waldorf Astoria Hotel with her parents, Rick and Kathy Hilton, and younger siblings Nicky, now 36, Barron, 30, and Conrad, 26.
She recalled how she would sneak out at night to attend parties, leading her parents to confiscate her phone and credit card as punishment.
But when that didn’t work out they decided to send her away to a series of boarding schools that claimed to focus on behavioural and mental development.
The last school she went to was Provo Canyon in Utah, where she would spend 11 months.
The school describes itself as being an “intensive, psychiatric youth residential treatment center” for teenagers.
Paris told People magazine: “From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, it was all day screaming in my face, yelling at me, continuous torture.”
She added: “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.”
Some of Paris’ former classmates appear in the documentary and they claim they were often force-fed medication and held down by restraints as punishment.
When she told one classmate she wanted to run away, they snitched on her to staff, who placed her in solitary confinement, where she claims you could be held for 20 hours a day.
Paris says she began to cry every day and suffer panic attacks due to the alleged abuse.
She claims she couldn’t tell her family about it because she was only allowed to speak to them every two to three months, and when she tried to write them a letter it was ripped up by staff.
They allegedly told her that no one would believe her.
When she turned 18 in 1999 she was finally able to leave the school, but when she got back to New York she didn’t tell anyone what happened to her.
She hopes that watching the documentary with her parents will help them process the alleged abuse she endured.
A bill was passed in 2005 that makes facilities get licences from the state for operations.
To get a licence, a facility must be inspected at least once a year to make sure it is abiding by state rules.
Students must see a therapist once a week, restraint and solitary confinement may not be used and letters are to be sent and received freely, keeping up with safety measures.
Mirror Online has contacted Provo Canyon School for comment.
A spokesperson for the school told People: “Originally opened in 1971, Provo Canyon School was sold by its previous ownership in August 2000.
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