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In her recently published memoir, "Paris", Paris Hilton reveals that she was groomed and "kissed" by her eighth-grade teacher. The hotel heiress, now 42, writes that it took "decades" for her to come to with the fact that she was a victim.
The teacher, whom Hilton nicknamed "Mr. Abercrombie," was "handsome young" and expressed his "crush" on Hilton, who was just a teenager at the time. He gave her his phone number and asked her to keep their a secret. The teacher would call her almost every night and talk to her for hours, telling her how special and intelligent she was.
The inappropriate relationship eventually led to a secret visit to Hilton's home, where the teacher kissed her. When her parents caught them in the car, the teacher blamed Hilton, asking her: "Why did you make me do this?"
She was sent to after the incident
Hilton's parents sent her to live with her grandmother in that summer, but it took her many years to mentally confront the traumatic experience.
"It took decades for me to actually speak the word pedophile," Hilton writes. "Casting him in the role of child molester meant casting myself in the role of victim, and I just couldn't go there."
Hilton also reveals other traumatic experiences in her memoir, such as being drugged and raped at age 15 and being pressured into filming a sex tape with Rick Salomon four years later. She hopes that sharing her story will help people understand her in ways they never did before.
"The media has really controlled the story of me for over two decades, and it was just time now for me to tell the truth," Hilton told Forbes. "I hope that people can understand me in ways they didn't before and see that there's so much more to me than they ever knew."
Hilton's story sheds light on the issue of grooming, which is the act of building an emotional connection with a child to gain their trust and lower their inhibitions. Grooming is a common tactic used by abs to manipulate and control their victims.
"It's important to recognize the signs of grooming and report any suspicious behavior to the authorities," says Dr. Janet Rosenzweig, a psychologist who specializes in trauma. "It's also important for victims to know that they are not to blame and that they have the right to speak out about their experiences."