The state of Utah has pulled the operating license from a boarding school where media personality and hotel heiress Paris Hilton says she suffered abuse as a teenager, with officials determining the facility “failed to provide applicable health and safety services for clients.”
The license revocation took effect Monday and targets the Provo Canyon School campus located in Springville. Under the action, the school has a 15-day window to request a formal hearing before the Department of Health & Human Services.
A broad list of violations dating back to 2025 prompted the state’s decision. Among the cited issues: insufficient staff-to-client ratios, unnecessary physical restraint and aggressive contact with a student, neglect of care, and failure to verify employee credentials or submit background checks on time. State health officials had already stepped in with temporary restrictions back in May after staff failed to get immediate medical attention for a student who had sustained serious injuries.
Hilton, 45, issued a statement Tuesday responding to the news. “For more than fifty years, children came forward with stories of abuse, neglect, and trauma,” she said. “Today, the state confirmed what survivors have known all along: Provo Canyon School failed the children in its care.”
She continued: “I was one of those children. 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 spent nearly a year at the school during the late 1990s. She has alleged that staff members physically beat her, watched her shower, gave her unidentified pills, and confined her alone in a room without clothing.
Hilton had been publicly calling on Utah officials to shut the school down. She has taken her story to Capitol Hill and state legislatures across the country, and her advocacy has contributed to the passage of laws protecting teenagers in Utah and 15 other states. Utah has historically been a major hub of the so-called troubled teen industry — a network of private, for-profit residential facilities serving youth with behavioral challenges.
As of Tuesday, Provo Canyon School had not responded to a request for comment. The state’s letter indicated that all operations at the campus must cease by August 6.
This past June, Hilton visited the school to show support for two families who have filed lawsuits claiming their children were mistreated there.
The school is currently under different ownership than when Hilton attended, and the current administration has stated it is unable to address anything that occurred prior to the ownership change, including the period when Hilton was a student.
