The real Paris Hilton. Although the heiress has been known for years as a character, in YouTube’s This Is Paris documentary, 39-year-old Hilton reveals her true self — and her traumatic upbringing.
“Something happened in my childhood that I never talked about with anyone,” she says in the opening moments of the documentary, which will be released on Monday, September 14. “I still have nightmares about it. I wish I could bring, like, a camera into my dreams, and, like, show you what it’s like. It’s terrifying. And I relive that every night. I experienced it and to this day I am still traumatized and I think the only way to have these nightmares stop is to do something about it.”
Throughout the doc, the DJ opens up for the first time about being sent away to multiple different boarding schools — as her parents called them — and the trauma that she experienced there, that ultimately changed her life.
“I wanted to do something, but at the same time I didn’t want to hurt my brand,” she shares in the video. “I can’t have this be part of my business, and people won’t understand. But if I don’t do this it’s going to continue to happen and I’m going to continue being traumatized and think about it the rest of my life.”
Ultimately, she comes together with multiple other survivors of one of the schools — Provo Canyon in Utah, which she calls “the worst of the worst.” Together, they begin a campaign to expose the abuse they’re alleging, with hopes that other young children will not experience the same.
The documentary also gives a look into the true Paris, who her sister, Nicky Hilton, says is “like a boy at heart,” and her relationship with those closest to her — her sister and her mother, Kathy Hilton, as well as her team.
It also details why she’s pushed so many people away, her insomnia, why she spends nearly 16 hours a day on her phone and much more.
“This is something I’ve never done before, just from always playing a character, being this persona. That’s all I’ve ever known or ever been,” the former reality star told Us Weekly exclusively about the doc. “Even watching, I was like, ‘Oh my God, can we cut this?’ They’re like, ‘Nope, you don’t have editing approval.’ It’s a very vulnerable position, but it’s also very empowering. I feel, especially it being 2020, I think it’s all about being real and authentic and showing who you truly are. Some parts are very traumatic or hard in my life and I want to be able to tell my story so people can understand me and also understand themselves.”
As her sister explains in the special, Paris is nothing like the “character” that she’s portrayed and is almost the opposite. She doesn’t care about her clothes or shoes — in the doc, she admits she wears sweats every day and hasn’t worn most of what she has. Additionally, as she’s recently revealed, the baby voice Paris has used through the years is not real.
“In everything else, I’ve always had like the baby voice and I’ve always been so different,” she told Us. “I don’t blame people for having misconceptions, because I created it with that character, who everyone thought was a real person. … Now I’m actually showing people that that was not really me. I was in on the joke.”
Scroll through the gallery below for the biggest revelations from the documentary.