Paris Hilton Opens Up About 2003 Sex Tape Leak, Says “It Was Like Being Raped”

After more than a decade, Paris Hilton is opening up about the sex tape that changed her life. Much like her protégé, Kim Kardashian, the 2003 leak of Hilton’s intimate moments with then-boyfriend Rick Salomon launched her career as it came weeks before the debut of her hit reality show, “The Simple Life.”

“It was like being raped,” the 37-year-old recalled of the distribution of the tape. “It felt like I’d lost part of my soul and been talked about in such cruel and mean ways. I literally wanted to die at some points. I was like, ‘I don’t want to live,’ because I thought everything was taken away from me. I didn’t want to be known as that.”

Hilton spoke about the leak at a post-screening Q&A for the documentary, “The American Meme,” which premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. However, it was not the first time the socialite opened up about the violation.

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Back in 2011, Hilton told Piers Morgan that she felt “so betrayed” when the footage leaked.

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“When I was a little girl, I looked up to people like Princess Diana and these women and I feel like he took that away from me,” she said at the time. “This is not what I planned. I didn’t want to be known as that. Now when people look at me, they think that I’m something I’m not, just because of one incident one night, with someone who I was in love with, people assume, ‘Oh, she’s a slut,’ just because of one thing that happened to me.”

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She also addressed it again last year, making a similar reference to Princess Diana as she did in 2011.

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