Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty
Paris Hiltonrevisited a painful moment in her life — the 2004 release of a sex tape that featured her — on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
"When I was 19 years old, a private, intimate video of me was shared with the world without my consent," said Hilton, who's now 44. "People called it a scandal. It wasn't. It was abuse."
Accompanied by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Fla.), and surrounded by reporters, the reality star, singer, and business mogul endorsed the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act, or DEFIANCE Act. The legislation would allow victims of AI-generated, sexually explicit content to take legal action against the people who create, distribute, and solicit it with the intent to distribute.
Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with ourEW Dispatch newsletter.
Hilton wrote about the pornographic film that was taken by her then-boyfriend Rick Salomon in her 2024 book,Paris: The Memoir. She recalled that she had felt pressured to allow her much older boyfriend to record them in the bedroom, just for the two of them to have. Sheused alcohol and quaaludesto prepare.
The couple had long been broken up when Hilton saw the intimate footage of herself online.
"There were no laws at the time to protect me," Hilton said during her speech. "There weren't even words for what had been done to me. The internet was still new, and so was the cruelty that came with it."
The "Stars Are Blind" singer said that the tape of her from more than two decades ago has caused serious pain, starting with people's treatment of her at the time it came out.
"They called me names. They laughed and made me the punchline. They sold my pain for clicks, and then they told me to be quiet, to move on, to even be grateful for the attention," Hilton said. "These people didn't see me as a young woman who had been exploited. They didn't see the panic that I felt, the humiliation, or the shame. No one asked me what I lost."
Meanwhile, Hilton said, she never received any profit from the video. Shedonateda $400,000 settlement that she received from Salomon to charity.
The star of reality showThe Simple Lifeand a grandchild in the Hilton Hotels family dynasty said she was speaking out on behalf of those not lucky enough to have the public platform she has.
"I had the platform to reclaim my story, but so many others don't," she said. "And what I've learned is that when your image is violated, it doesn't disappear; it lives inside you, but so does your power. Telling the truth has helped me heal, and I am so proud that today I stand here without shame."
She concluded, "I am Paris Hilton — a woman, a wife, a mom, a survivor — and what was done to me was wrong. And I will keep telling the truth to protect every woman, every girl, every survivor, now and for the future."
The DEFIANCE Act passed in the Senate last week.
Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly
