Utah Revokes License for Boarding School Where Paris Hilton Says She Was Abused as a Teen

Utah: The state of Utah has revoked the license of the boarding school where socialite Paris Hilton said she was abused in her youth, saying the school “failed to provide viable health and safety services to clients.”

The state’s action, which took effect Monday, points to numerous non-compliance issues at Provo Canyon School’s campus in Springville. The school has 15 days to request a hearing before the Department of Health and Human Services.

The wide-ranging accusations, which date back to 2025, include failing to increase staff-to-client ratios, using unnecessary restraint and aggressive physical contact with customers, neglecting maintenance, and failing to verify employee information or conduct background checks on applicants in a timely manner. State health officials imposed temporary restrictions on the school in May, saying staff failed to seek emergency medical attention for a student with serious injuries.

“For more than fifty years, children have come forward with stories of abuse, neglect and trauma,” Hilton said in a statement Tuesday. “Today, the state confirmed what survivors have known all along: Provo Canyon School failed the children in its care.

“I was one of those kids. I know what it feels like to cry for help and believe no one will come. The kids still in that facility today know that eventually someone will come to protect them.”

Hotel heiress and media personality Hilton spent almost a year at the school in the late 1990s. He claims staff beat him, watched him shower, fed him unknown pills, and locked him in solitary confinement without clothes.

Hilton, 45, called on licensees in Utah to close the school. He has testified about his experiences in Congress and in state legislatures across the U.S., helping to pass youth protection laws in Utah and 15 other states. Utah has long played an outsized role in the troubled youth industry, a network of private, nonprofit residential centers for children with behavioral problems.

Provo Canyon School did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment. The state said in its letter that all services on campus must cease by Aug. 6.

In June, Hilton returned to the school to support two families who had filed a lawsuit alleging their children were mistreated there.

The school came under new ownership. Management said it couldn’t comment on anything before the change, including Hilton’s time there.