Paris Hilton has opened up about the emotional toll of a past relationship after her sex tape was leaked when she was only 19 years old.
The infamous sex tape, which involved Hilton and her then-boyfriend Rick Salomon, who was 35 at the time, surfaced in 2004, allegedly without her permission.
According to The Telegraph, Salomon sold the video, which was recorded three years prior, and promoted it under the title ‘one night in Paris’.
For years, Hilton faced public ridicule following the release of the tape and has since shared the profound impact it had on her life.
Recently, Hilton expressed a sense of ‘healing’ upon realizing that the non-consensual distribution of such material would be classified as revenge porn by 2025.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Hilton stated: “Like, that would be illegal today. People realise just how wrong it was. And that has also been healing for me, for people to be, like, ‘wow, Paris was just a teenage girl being taken advantage of by this older guy’.”
Reflecting on the tape’s release, Hilton shared that she felt ‘like the world judged me from that point on’, describing the ordeal as ‘painful and humiliating’.
Earlier this year, Hilton spoke with Louis Theroux at Spotify Beach in Cannes, France, about the profound ‘heartbreak and devastation’ caused by the sex tape.
“It was the most painful experience I’ve ever been through in my life,” she said in June. “To trust somebody and have them put something out in the world that no one was supposed to see… and then to have people judge me based on one night with someone I trusted… that’s something that will affect me for the rest of my life.”
Hilton continued: “Back then, the media, the public, everyone was just so cruel to me. It was so heartbreaking and devastating. I had worked so hard and I wanted to be respected, I was about to come out with my reality show and then all of a sudden this happened to me.”
In May of this year, the Take It Down Act was signed into US law by Donald Trump, alongside First Lady Melania, making it a federal offense to knowingly distribute intimate images without consent.
This legislation covers AI ‘deepfakes’, and violators could face up to three years of imprisonment.