Paris Hilton revisited a painful second in her life — the 2004 launch of a intercourse tape that featured her — on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

"Once I was 19 years previous, a non-public, intimate video of me was shared with the world with out my consent," mentioned Hilton, who's now 44. "Folks referred to as it a scandal. It wasn't. It was abuse."

Accompanied by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Fla.), and surrounded by reporters, the fact star, singer, and enterprise mogul endorsed the Disrupt Express Solid Pictures and Non-Consensual Edits Act, or DEFIANCE Act. The laws would permit victims of AI-generated, sexually specific content material to take authorized motion towards the individuals who create, distribute, and solicit it with the intent to distribute.

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Hilton wrote concerning the pornographic movie that was taken by her then-boyfriend Rick Salomon in her 2024 e-book, Paris: The Memoir. She recalled that she had felt pressured to permit her a lot older boyfriend to report them within the bed room, only for the 2 of them to have. She used alcohol and quaaludes to arrange.

The couple had lengthy been damaged up when Hilton noticed the intimate footage of herself on-line.

"There have been no legal guidelines on the time to guard me," Hilton mentioned throughout her speech. "There weren't even phrases for what had been carried out to me. The web was nonetheless new, and so was the cruelty that got here with it."

The "Stars Are Blind" singer mentioned that the tape of her from greater than twenty years in the past has brought about critical ache, beginning with individuals's therapy of her on the time it got here out.

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"They referred to as me names. They laughed and made me the punchline. They bought my ache for clicks, after which they instructed me to be quiet, to maneuver on, to even be pleased about the eye," Hilton mentioned. "These individuals didn't see me as a younger girl who had been exploited. They didn't see the panic that I felt, the humiliation, or the disgrace. Nobody requested me what I misplaced."

In the meantime, Hilton mentioned, she by no means acquired any revenue from the video. She donated a $400,000 settlement that she acquired from Salomon to charity.

The star of actuality present The Easy Life and a grandchild within the Hilton Inns household dynasty mentioned she was talking out on behalf of these not fortunate sufficient to have the general public platform she has.

"I had the platform to reclaim my story, however so many others don't," she mentioned. "And what I've discovered is that when your picture is violated, it doesn't disappear; it lives inside you, however so does your energy. Telling the reality has helped me heal, and I’m so proud that as we speak I stand right here with out disgrace."

She concluded, "I’m Paris Hilton — a lady, a spouse, a mother, a survivor — and what was carried out to me was flawed. And I’ll hold telling the reality to guard each girl, each woman, each survivor, now and for the longer term."

The DEFIANCE Act handed within the Senate final week.

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