{"id":248968,"date":"2026-01-24T04:15:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T04:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/248968\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T04:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T04:15:12","slug":"they-sold-my-pain-for-clicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/248968\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They Sold My Pain For Clicks\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paris Hilton opened up about the trauma she experienced when her infamous sex tape was leaked in 2004 during a speech on Capitol Hill in which she advocated for new laws to help victims of a new kind of online abuse.<\/p>\n

The Simple Life alum<\/a>, 44, gave a powerful speech as she appeared alongside Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday, January 22 in support of the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act (DEFIANCE Act<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen 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\u2019t. It was abuse,\u201d the heiress said<\/a> of the tape, which also featured her with then-boyfriend Rick Salomon.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

ZUMAPRESS.com \/ MEGA<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were no laws at the time to protect me. There weren\u2019t even words for what had been done to me. The internet was still new, and so was the cruelty that came with it,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey called me names. They laughed and made me the punchline. They sold my pain for clicks, and then they told me to be quiet, to move on, to even be grateful for the attention,\u201d the \u201cStars Are Blind\u201d singer continued. \u201cThese people didn\u2019t see me as a young woman who had been exploited. They didn\u2019t see the panic that I felt, the humiliation or the shame. No one asked me what I lost \u2014 I lost control over my body, over my reputation. My sense of safety and self-worth was stolen from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hilton then pivoted to explain that the same thing that happened to her<\/a> is happening to millions of young women today in a \u201cnew, more terrifying way.\u201d If passed, the DEFIANCE Act would allow victims of AI-generated deepfake pornography to take legal action against both the creators and distributors.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

ZUMAPRESS.com \/ MEGA<\/p>\n

Hilton explained that this issue is personal to her, not just because there are \u201cover 100,000 explicit deepfake images\u201d of her out there but because she\u2019s a mother who fears for her own daughter, London, 2. (She shares son Phoenix, 3, with husband Carter Reum.)<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many women are afraid to exist online or sometimes to exist at all, and I know how that feels, because I lived it,\u201d she explained. \u201cNow I have a daughter who\u2019s just 2-and-a-half years old, and I would go to the ends of the earth to protect her. But I can\u2019t protect her from this, not yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s why I\u2019m here. This isn\u2019t just about technology, it\u2019s about power,\u201d she concluded. \u201cIt\u2019s about using someone\u2019s likeness to humiliate, silence and strip them of their dignity. Victims deserve more than after-the-fact apologies. We deserve justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story Paris Hilton Speaks Candidly About Infamous Leaked NSFW Tape: \u2018They Sold My Pain For Clicks\u2019<\/a> first appeared on Globe<\/a>. Add Globe as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paris Hilton opened up about the trauma she experienced when her infamous sex tape was leaked in 2004…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[78231,42625,430,156,111,139,69,36103],"class_list":{"0":"post-248968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-alexandria-ocasio-cortez","9":"tag-capitol-hill","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-paris-hilton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}