Netflix’s chilling documentary, Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare, details the horrors victims faced at child rehabilitation programs, and Paris Hilton has an important connection to it. The film walks viewers through the brutal conditions and the alleged abuse of the teenagers forced to attend a program called Challenger Camp. This infamous camp claimed to be a form of wilderness therapy but is something much more sinister. Children were abducted with parental consent and forced to embark on a 500-mile hike across the Utah desert, only to face even more brutality once actually arriving at the camp.
The documentary is gripping from beginning to end and paints a vivid picture of the dangers of these types of programs. It features testimony from the victims, which serves to show how real and large of a problem these camps have caused. The documentary also features a face many may not have expected—businesswoman, socialite, and model—Paris Hilton.
Did Paris Hilton Attend Steve Cartisano’s Challenger Camp?
Although Paris Hilton is featured in Netflix’s documentary, Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare, she did not attend the specific camp it is focused on. The documentary mainly looks at Steve Cartisano’s Challenger Camp and the troubling “kidnap and survive” philosophy he built it on. When she was 16 years old, Hilton attended a similar program at a youth treatment center in Utah called Provo Canyon School.
Why Paris Hilton Is In Netflix’s Hell Camp Documentary
Paris Hilton has long been an advocate for survivors of similar child-rehabilitation programs, so it makes complete sense that she would participate in a documentary intended to bring light to this issue. In 2021, she spoke on Capitol Hill about her experiences, and she has advocated to Congress multiple times. The documentary opens with Hilton speaking candidly to Congress about what she went through, as she says “I was strangled, slapped across the face, watched in the shower by male staff“.
According to USA Today, Hilton was taken from her home in the middle of the night and forced to spend two years in residential treatment facilities. Her parents had been tricked into thinking that the attention deficit disorder that she had been diagnosed with prior would be able to be best managed through “tough love“. Including Hilton and her experiences, not only provides a platform for a victim to speak and process, but also draws audiences in, as she is a very recognizable figure, and gives the project a larger viewer base to educate about the dangers of such camps.
