If you haven’t yet watched This is Paris, then stop what you’re doing, click here, and come back to this article in one hour 45 minutes.
Everyone needs to watch this.
Every woman needs to watch this.
I’ll admit, when I saw the trailer I thought to myself, how can someone who lives their life so publicly still have anything left to reveal? But boy was I wrong. In the documentary, which is available to stream on Paris Hiltons’ eponymous YouTube channel, the entrepreneur details everything from her rise to fame to the childhood trauma she faced and has never spoken out about. For the first time ever, Paris goes public with the alleged physical and emotional abuse she endured during her time at a reformatory center that her parents forced her to attend.
What happened to Paris in Provo Canyon, Utah, was chilling, distressing and shocking to watch. But there is one event in particular that has become etched in my mind since those end credits started rolling up the screen…
About an hour into the documentary, the narrative turns to Paris’ first-ever gig at Tomorrowland. As the most successful female DJ in the world (she charges one million dollars per performance), it was made pretty clear that this was her biggest milestone moment in her music career. But just minutes before she’s due to head onstage, Paris’ now-ex-boyfriend Aleks Novakovic began uttering what can only be described as a slew of psychological abuse in her year.
Aleks shames Paris for being too busy doing press interview than giving him attention. “You left me five times today,” he says. “You’re doing more promotion for them [the press] than for me.” The conversation veers into emotionally harmful territory, and sees Paris apologising to Aleks, crying and begging to make amends with him – right up to the Nano-second that she walks onto the Tomorrowland stage.
The whole scene is, quite frankly, deeply disturbing. It’s a hard-to-watch 10 minutes of gaslighting and toxic, fragile masculinity that sends a woman to despair. As outsiders, we’ve become used to seeing Paris bashed in the press for flitting from man to man. But the truth is this, here in the documentary. It proves a reckoning for both subject and viewer. Misogyny is an underlying factor in many of Paris’ relationships (you may remember the pictures that surfaced online in 2004 of all the bruises she sustained from Nick Carter), all deeply rooted in what happened during her time at Provo Canyon School.
Paris is strong in her self-worth and personal power. She is independent, resourceful, and resilient. And after watching this documentary, I’ve never been surer of that.