Paris Hilton Makes Emotional Admission About 2003 Sex Tape Leak

In light of the Framing Britney documentary, Paris Hilton is addressing her 2003 sex tape leak again, reinforcing how “traumatic” the era was for her mental well-being. As part of Vanity Fair’s Cocktail Hour, the heiress reflected on the documentary saying, “just after seeing the Britney documentary, my heart was broken. Watching all of that brought up a lot of memories for myself, and just the way we were treated was so wrong.”

She spoke about the way the girls –– who were then, just young ladies looking to go out and having a good time –– were talked about and treated by the media because of their celebrity status. “Because we were in the public eye we were made to be these villains…It’s such an amazing time right now that people are looking back at that and seeing it was all of these really misogynistic views.” She adds that no longer having to deal with it anymore is a “weight off [her] shoulders.”

One of the horrifying moments she had to live through was her infamous sex tape. In 2003, Hilton’s sex tape with then-boyfriend Rick Salomon was leaked online. A year later, Salomon began selling the recording himself under the title 1 Night in Paris. Salomon sued the Hilton family for defamation after Hilton allegedly implied that the video was taped without her consent. Hilton then countersued him for releasing the tape and won a hefty settlement, some of which she donated to charity.

The heiress, who is now engaged to Carter Reum, reflected on the moment saying “that will always be something that will hurt me for the rest of my life. It’s always there in the back of my mind.” She continued, “when it happened, people were so mean about it to me. The way that I was spoken about on nightly talk shows and the media…to see things with my family was just heartbreaking… I would be in tears every single day, I didn’t want to leave my house. I felt like my life was over.”

“It was a private experience between two people,” she continued. “You love someone, you trust someone and to have your trust betrayed like that and for the whole world to be watching and laughing… It was even more hurtful to me to have these people think that I did this on purpose — that killed me.”