Paris Hilton Opens Up About Nude Video Leaking When She Was 19: ‘People Called It a Scandal. It Wasn’t. It Was Abuse’

Paris Hilton is back on Capitol Hill — and again pushing for legislative change rooted in her own experience.

The Simple Life alum, 44, spoke publicly on Thursday, Jan. 22, while advocating for the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act, also known as the DEFIANCE Act. A year after she helped campaign for a law aimed at strengthening protections for institutionalized youth, Hilton returned to Washington to share what she described as a traumatic experience — and to argue that new safeguards are urgently needed.

“Coming back to the Capitol, I feel something new, strength,” she began, appearing alongside Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has played a leading role in championing the bill. Hilton then reflected on what happened when she was 19.

“When I was 19 years old, a private, intimate video of me was shared with the world without my consent. People called it a scandal. It wasn’t. It was abuse,” she said. “There were no laws at the time to protect me. 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.”

Hilton described the fallout as relentless: ridicule, public shaming, and a culture that monetized her pain.

“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,” she continued. “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 — I lost control over my body, over my reputation. My sense of safety and self-worth was stolen from me.”

She noted that in the years following the 2004 leak of the sex tape — which included footage of Hilton and her former boyfriend Rick Salomon — she has “fought hard to get those things back,” and believed she had. But she warned that AI has changed the landscape dramatically, making it easier than ever to create sexually explicit content featuring someone who never consented.

“I believed that the worst was behind me, but it wasn’t,” Hilton said. “What happened to me then is happening now to millions of women and girls in a new and more terrifying way. Before, someone had to betray your trust and steal something real. Now all it takes is a computer and a stranger’s imagination. Deepfake pornography has become an epidemic.”

If passed, the DEFIANCE Act would allow victims to take legal action against the creators and distributors of AI-generated pornographic deepfakes.

Hilton also said there are “over 100,000 explicit deepfake images” of her that have been “made by AI.”

“Not one of them is real, not one of them is consensual,” she said. “And each time a new one appears, that horrible feeling returns, that fear that someone somewhere is looking at it right now and thinking it’s real. No amount of money or lawyers can stop it or protect me from more. It’s the newest form of victimization happening at scale, to your daughters, your sisters, your friends and neighbors.”

Hilton’s husband, Carter Reum, attended the event in support.

She also cited what she called a “staggering” statistic: that one in eight girls experience harms linked to deepfake porn.

“Too many women are afraid to exist online or sometimes to exist at all, and I know how that feels, because I lived it,” she said. “Now I have a daughter who’s just two-and-a-half years old, and I would go to the ends of the earth to protect her. But I can’t protect her from this, not yet. And that’s why I’m here. This isn’t just about technology, it’s about power. It’s about using someone’s likeness to humiliate, silence and strip them of their dignity. Victims deserve more than after-the-fact apologies. We deserve justice.”

Hilton said she was speaking for people who can’t safely speak for themselves, while acknowledging she’s “lucky” to have a platform.

“I had the platform to reclaim my story, but so many others don’t,” she continued. “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 closed with a promise to keep pushing.

“I am Paris Hilton, a woman, a wife, a mom, a survivor, and what was done to me was wrong,” she said. “And I will keep telling the truth to protect every woman, every girl, every survivor, now and for the future.”