The state of Utah has pulled the operating license from the boarding school where media personality Paris Hilton says she suffered abuse as a teenager, state officials announced Friday — a significant win in her years-long push to overhaul what is widely referred to as the troubled teen industry.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services cited numerous violations recorded in 2026 against the Provo Canyon School’s Provo campus. Among those violations were failures to shield students from potential harm or acts of violence, as well as the use of what officials described as cruel and unnecessary practices on children. More than a dozen separate citations were listed in Friday’s announcement.
“No child should be hurt in a program that is meant to protect them; particularly programs that require the authorization of the state to operate,” said Shannon Thoman-Black, director of the division of licensing and background checks at the health and human services department.
This latest action follows a separate license revocation earlier this month targeting the school’s other Utah campus, with state officials saying that facility had “failed to provide applicable health and safety services for clients.”
The Provo campus, which the school describes on its website as a psychiatric residential treatment facility serving youth between the ages of 12 and 18, has until August 15 to cease operations there. In the meantime, state officials say they will inspect the facility at least once per week.
Hilton, who spent close to a year at the school during the late 1990s, responded to the news with an emotional statement, saying she finally feels a sense of “peace.”
“This horrific chapter of abuse, neglect, and trauma has finally come to an end,” she said.
The school has 15 days from the announcement to request a formal hearing with the department.
Staci Bradley, the school’s director of business development, pushed back on the state’s move, saying the school disagrees with the decision and is “carefully reviewing all available legal and administrative avenues, including the appeals process.”
Hilton has alleged that staff members at the school beat her, watched her shower, gave her unidentified pills, and placed her in solitary confinement without clothing.
“Today means no child will ever have to endure what we did at Provo Canyon School again,” she said.
Hilton has taken her story to Congress and to state legislatures across the country, and her advocacy has contributed to the passage of laws protecting teens in Utah and 15 other states. Utah has historically been a major hub of the troubled teen industry, a network of private, for-profit residential programs for children with behavioral challenges.
In June, Hilton visited the Provo Canyon School to stand alongside two families who filed lawsuits claiming their children were mistreated at the facility.
The school is now under different ownership, and its administration has stated it is unable to address anything that occurred prior to the ownership change, including the period when Hilton attended.
