SPRINGVILLE, Utah (AP) — Paris Hilton returned Monday to the Utah boarding school where she said she was abused as a teenager on the latest stop in her yearslong campaign calling for reforms to what is commonly known as the troubled teen industry.This time Hilton was speaking in support of two families who sued Monday alleging that their children were mistreated at Provo Canyon School, the same facility where Hilton spent almost a year in the late 1990s. The hotel heiress and media personality alleges staff members beat her, watched her shower, fed her unknown pills and locked her in solitary confinement without clothing. “I dreamed of becoming strong enough, successful enough and powerful enough to come back and be the hero that I needed when I was a little girl locked inside,” Hilton said. “Today is that day, and I am not backing down.”
The school is now under new ownership, and the administration has said it can’t comment on anything that came before the change, including Hilton’s time there.Hilton, 45, called on Utah licensors to shut down the school. She has testified about her experiences there in Congress and state legislatures around the U.S., helping pass laws to protect minors in Utah and 15 other states. Utah has long played an outsized role in the troubled teen industry, a network of private, for-profit residential centers for children with behavioral issues.
