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SHAH ALAM – Utah authorities have revoked the licence of Provo Canyon School, a psychiatric residential treatment facility for youths aged 12 to 18 where Paris Hilton alleged she suffered mistreatment as a teenager, following health and safety violations.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services said the facility failed to provide required health and safety services for its clients, prompting the licence revocation for its Springville campus.
Shannon Thoman-Black, director of the Division of Licensing and Background Checks at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, said the department must ensure students are discharged into safe environments instead of being abruptly removed from the facility.
She added that the owners would be barred from applying for a new licence for five years, while the department would continue conducting weekly inspections and monitoring the facility’s compliance with health and safety regulations.
Provo Canyon School has been given 15 days to request a hearing with the department, while state officials have ordered the facility to cease all services by Aug 6.
The closure marks a major development in Hilton’s years-long campaign to raise awareness about alleged abuse in youth residential treatment facilities.
Hilton was sent to Provo Canyon School at 17 in 1997 and later shared her experience in her 2020 documentary This Is Paris, alleging that she endured physical and emotional abuse, isolation and excessive punishment while at the facility.
The former reality television star later became an advocate for survivors of what critics refer to as the “troubled teen industry”, calling for stronger protections and oversight for young people placed in such programmes.
In February 2021, she testified before the Utah State Senate, detailing the abuse she said she endured at the school in front of lawmakers.
Her testimony helped pave the way for Utah to pass a law regulating such facilities, with the measure receiving near-unanimous support.
She continued advocating for reform in Oregon, Missouri and California, contributing to similar measures nationwide and supporting the passage of 15 laws across the country.
In June 2024, Hilton testified before the US Congress, describing her experience in multiple youth residential treatment facilities.
“When I was 16 years old, I was ripped from my bed in the middle of the night and transported across state lines to the first of four youth residential treatment facilities.
“These programs promised ‘healing, growth and support,’ but instead did not allow me to speak, move freely, or even look out of a window for two years,” she said.
In her testimony, Hilton alleged that she was forcibly medicated, abused by staff, restrained and placed in solitary confinement.
In response to the recent shutdown announcement, Hilton described the decision as a victory for survivors and advocates who had long pushed for accountability.
“Provo Canyon School really messed with the wrong girl and with thousands of survivors who refused to stay silent for decades about what we all endured.
“This victory belongs to every survivor who told their story, every family who demanded accountability, every advocate who never gave up and every person who believed us when so many didn’t,” she wrote.
Provo Canyon School was a privately owned, for-profit residential treatment facility in Provo and Springville, Utah, serving children and adolescents.
For more than five decades, the institution faced numerous allegations of physical, psychological and sexual abuse from former students, with media personality Paris Hilton becoming one of its most prominent critics.
