American media personality and businesswoman Paris Hilton gave separate shoutouts online to the Republican and Democratic senators who are supporting the bipartisan Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act.
‘To the 10 republican senators co-sponsoring the #StopInstitutionalChildAbuseAct, thank you,’ Hilton posted Monday on X. ‘I am beyond grateful for you this holiday season.’
Hilton tagged Republican Sens. John Cornyn, Shelley Capito, Katie Britt, Thom Tillis, Tommy Tuberville, Susan Collins, Markwayne Mullin, Cynthia Lummis, Roger Marshall and Pete Ricketts in her post.
The bicameral bill, authored by Cornyn, Tuberville, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Rep. Earl Carter, R-Ga., was introduced April 27. It aims to provide stronger oversight for residential youth treatment programs to identify and prevent child abuse.
In another post, Hilton thanked the seven Democrats for co-sponsoring the bill, which is now in committee.
Hilton, an advocate of the bill since its inception, alleged in a New York Times video op-ed series last year that she was a victim of sexual abuse as a teenager in the ’90s, when she attended a boarding school in Utah.
She said she was the victim of a ‘parent-approved kidnapping’ when she was a misbehaving 16-year-old, with two men dragging her out of her home and into a congregate-care facility.
‘Very late at night, this would be around like three or four in the morning, they would take myself and other girls into this room and they would perform medical exams,’ Hilton said in the interview. ‘It wasn’t even with a doctor, it was a couple of different staff members, where they would have us lay on the table and put their fingers inside of us.’
Hilton later said she realized as an adult it was sexual abuse.
In an interview with Fox News earlier this year, Hilton said she was ‘doing everything I can in my power to fight for these children because these are children who come from families that can’t help and support them, and children from the juvenile justice system, foster care system.’
‘And they have no voice,’ she said.
Fox News’ Madeline Coggins contributed to this report.
