Paris Hilton bravely opens up about how leaked sex tape impacted her life

When Paris Hilton made love with her boyfriend Rick Salomon in front of a video camera in 2001, she had no idea the tape would go viral on the internet.

Almost 20 years later, as the 39-year-old socialite plans to marry the love of her life, she is still haunted by the backlash from an intimate experience that she never wanted to share.

“That was just the most painful experience,” she says, talking via Zoom from her parents’ home in Bel Air, California.

“It made me really lose faith in love and trust and men and it just really breaks my heart that for the rest of my life I’m going to be judged on a private moment between two people that no one was ever supposed to see.”

The tape was released two years after she and Salomon made it – without Paris’s knowledge or consent.

“The way I was treated when this came out... people were so mean about me and making fun of me and villainising me when I was just this young girl who had trusted somebody,” she tells me.

“If this happened today it would be so different. So I am happy that things have changed and a woman is not going to be shamed for something like that and she is regarded as the victim.

“But back then I was not lucky enough to be treated that way.”

Paris, who is planning to marry boyfriend Carter Reum, is speaking frankly and freely about her life, “abusive” relationships and horrors she says she suffered at a tough boarding school.

She is talking ahead of the release of YouTube documentary This Is Paris, in which she opens up on her experience in more detail.

Paris alleges that staff at the school would hit and attempt to strangle students, keep them in solitary confinement and put them in restraints when they were seen to have misbehaved.

“I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever get over fully,” she says.

“But to actually discuss it for the first time, which I did during the documentary, was a very therapeutic experience.

“Going through that was one of the most difficult times of my life. It was like living in hell every single day.

“And the people who work at these places are very abusive and just not good people. I’ve had nightmares ever since I was a teenager, and it has affected my life in so many ways, but it’s made me strong and I think I could make it through anything after going through all of that.

“The original film was only supposed to be about me as a businesswoman and my family and basically the glamour in front of it all.

“I never thought that I would ever reveal my secrets and the traumatic experiences I went through because I’d never talked about it with anyone so I was definitely not planning on saying it on camera.

“But I ended up telling it and I am happy I did because it is really just an amazing feeling to finally get that off my chest.”

Her parents sent her to board at the Provo Canyon School in Utah, because she started to run wild after her hotelier family moved to New York to live in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

“My parents were always super, super strict and I was not allowed to go on dates, go to a school dance, I wasn’t allowed to wear make-up and I wasn’t allowed basically to go anywhere.

“So then when I moved to New York I rebelled and I was going out at night and ditching class. I wasn’t a bad kid.

“I think I just was so sheltered and then to move to New York City, this whole new world.

“I was just excited to be able to go places, but my parents were not used to that because I had been so sheltered and I was like their little girl and I think they were scared to watch me grow up. They sent me to this hellish school, but it wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know what these places were.

“They just thought it was a normal boarding school because that’s how they advertise these places. They act like it’s this really happy place where your kids are going to go and they’re going to be perfect when they come out, but a lot of parents don’t know what is actually happening in these places.” Provo Canyon School says it is aware of Paris’s upcoming documentary.

It added in a statement: “Please note that PCS was sold by its previous ownership in August 2000. We therefore cannot comment on the operations or patient experience prior to that time.

“We are committed to providing high-quality care to youth with special, and often complex, emotional, behavioral and psychiatric needs.”

After being involved in what she says were several abusive relationships and “kissing a lot of frogs”, she has found happiness with businessman Carter Reum, 39, whom she began dating nearly a year ago after ending her 11-month engagement to actor Chris Zylka, 35.

“I have never felt so happy in my life,” she says. “I didn’t even know it was possible to feel like this, because I have never really let love in because of what had happened to me.

“So, I think everything happens at the right time. We had been friends for 15 years and then on Thanksgiving, his sister invited my family and I over to their house and we just had this amazing chemistry.

“Ever since then we have been inseparable, and we haven’t spent a night apart and are just so in love. He’s just perfect for me in every way: he’s brilliant, he’s kind, he’s funny, he’s romantic, he’s loyal, he’s just everything I ever wanted.”

Head-over-heels Paris adds: “And I feel so lucky that I found him because if I didn’t find him, I think I would be alone forever because it’s so hard for me to trust anyone.”

The wedding, she says, will have to be a low-key affair.

“When I was a little girl I had dreams of this big fairytale wedding but I think with the pandemic and everything happening it’s a new world and events like that are not going to be possible... but I can’t wait for that day.

“It’s been a day I’ve been dreaming about my whole life and now that I’ve found my Prince Charming I just can’t wait.

“I wish this pandemic wasn’t happening in the world for so many reasons but also that I won’t be able to have that big dream wedding.”

Of the future, she says: “I cannot wait to have a family. I finally found the perfect match, my perfect partner.

“The meaning of life is having children and having a family, so I cannot wait for that day and it will be soon.”

Until lockdown, Paris was busy promoting her line of skincare products and DJ-ing at European venues.

But now she is been staying at her parents’ house before moving back into her own home nearby. She says: “It’s obviously been a very scary and difficult time for everyone around the world. But I always try to see the silver lining in everything.

“And I think the good thing that came out of this is that I was forced to stay at home and not travel and actually get to really reflect on my life and what’s most important to me.

“I never really thought about any of that before because I think I was just so focused on things that have happened to me that were traumatic.

“But now I have been saying to myself, ‘Paris, look what you’ve been through; you’re so strong.

“Not many people could go through so many experiences like that and end up in a good place.’

“I feel really proud of the woman that I am and the person that I’ve become. I am all grown up, I’m kind, I’m smart and I have a big heart and, yeah, I’m finally ready to show the world who I really am.”

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