Paris Hilton Revisits Sex Tape Leak In Capitol Hill Speech: 'It Was Abuse'

Hilton joined Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Laurel Lee (R-Fla.) to fight non-consensual deepfake pornography with a modern bipartisan bill.

Paris Hilton on Thursday returned to Capitol Hill and revisited the painful “abuse” of having her private sex tape leaked when she was just 19, advocating in a speech alongside Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Laurel Lee (R-Fla.) for relevant bipartisan legislation.

The Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (or DEFIANCE) Act was passed last week in the Senate and aims to allow victims of involuntary, sexually explicit deepfake imagery to take legal action against those who create, distribute and solicit it.

“Coming back to the Capitol, I feel something new,” Hilton said Thursday. “Strength.”

“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 Hilton Hotels heiress noted that the internet “was still new” when people sold her “pain for clicks” in 2004. She recalled many people telling her to “be grateful for the attention” at the time and not seeing her as an exploited young woman — but as “a punchline,” instead.