Entertainment

Utah Revoked the School’s License Where Paris Hilton Says She Was Abused

By Erica Coleman · July 10, 2026

Paris Hilton has been telling this story for five years. Utah just confirmed it.

The state’s Department of Health and Human Services revoked the license of Provo Canyon School’s Springville campus on Monday, citing the facility’s “failure to provide applicable health and safety services for clients.” The youth residential treatment center, where Hilton says she was abused as a teenager in the late 1990s, has until August 6 to shut down entirely and cannot accept any new residents in the meantime.

The citations go back to 2025 and read like a checklist of what a facility is supposed to prevent: failing to maintain adequate staff-to-client ratios, an unnecessary restraint involving aggressive physical contact with a resident, neglect of care, and failure to complete timely background checks on employees. State health officials had already imposed temporary restrictions in May after staff failed to seek immediate medical care for a student with serious injuries.

Hilton, 45, spent nearly a year at the school as a teenager. She alleges staff beat her, watched her shower, forced her to take unknown medication, and locked her in solitary confinement without clothing. She’s spent years turning that experience into advocacy, testifying before Congress and state legislatures in more than a dozen states and helping pass laws aimed at protecting teens in residential treatment facilities.

“I know what it feels like to cry for help and believe no one is coming. Today, children still inside that facility know someone is finally coming to protect them,” Hilton said in a statement.

In June, Hilton returned to the school’s campus to speak in support of two families who’d filed lawsuits alleging their children were mistreated there — one involving delayed medical care, the other neglect. Those lawsuits, filed under pseudonyms in court documents, helped prompt state regulators to widen their investigation, according to Shannon Toman Black, director of Utah’s Division of Licensing and Background Checks. She said that once her team began digging into medical records and camera footage in June, what they found expanded the scope of the case significantly.

Provo Canyon School disputes the state’s findings. “We disagree with the state’s decision to revoke Provo Canyon School’s Springville Campus license and are evaluating all available legal and administrative options, including an appeal,” the school’s owner, Universal Health Services CEO Tim Marshall, said in a statement. The school has 15 days to request a hearing.

The revocation applies only to the Springville campus. Provo Canyon School’s separate boys’ campus in Provo remains open under a different license, though it’s currently barred from admitting new residents while state officials monitor it.

Utah has spent years at the center of what’s known as the “troubled teen industry” — a network of private, for-profit residential facilities for children with behavioral and mental health issues, largely unregulated until recent legislative pushes. Advocates say this week’s revocation is a rare moment where accountability actually caught up with a facility’s history.

The owners can’t reapply for a new license in Utah for five years.