Paris Hilton says she was pressured to make 2004 sex tape that was leaked: ‘He kept pushing’

Paris Hilton has revealed details about a private sex tape featuring her and former boyfriend Rick Salomon in her forthcoming book.

In Paris: The Memoir, the hotel heiress claimed that she was pressured into making the videotape despite her “making excuses” not to because she “felt weird and uncomfortable about it”.

Hilton, 42, previously opened up about the “humiliating” experience and said she experienced post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the take being leaked onto the internet.

In an extract of her book, published in The Times on Saturday (4 March), Hilton said she was 18 years old when she began dating a “coarse” and “arrogant” man.

Although she does not name him in the extract, Salomon released the video shortly after The Simple Life, starring Hilton and Nicole Richie, which debuted in 2004. She later released a statement saying she did not approve of its public release and that she was “out of it” during the taping of the video.

Hilton wrote that she was “tipsy and tired” after a night out, but that he told her the tape would be “just for us”.

“No one else would ever see it,” she recalled him telling her. “And then he told me if I wouldn’t do it, he could easily find someone who would and that was the worst thing I could think of – to be dumped by this grown man because I was a stupid kid who didn’t know how to play grown-up games.”

She added: “I hated the idea of sex. I avoided sex until it was absolutely unavoidable.”

Hilton also addressed headlines at the time that “created this narrative about me sleeping around with a hundred gorgeous guys”, saying they were “not the truth at all”.

In order to make the video with Salomon, Hilton said she “had to drink [herself] silly” and take Quaaludes, a recreational drug.

“I did it. I have to own that. I knew what he wanted and I went with it. I needed to prove myself to him and to myself, so I got hammered and I did it,” she wrote.

She recalled it being “years later” when she received a call about the clip circulating online, and that there were rumours of a “full-length porno pending release”.

“I called my old boyfriend and begged: ‘Please, please, please don’t do this’. He sounded distant and cool, saying it was too late, it was already out there,” she said. “He said he had every right to sell something that belonged to him – something that had a lot of financial value.”

Hilton said “shame, loss and stark terror swept” over her when she ended the call.

Salomon sued Hilton for defamation after she expressed her disapproval at the tape being leaked. She later countersued him over its release and they settled out of court in 2005, with Hilton being reportedly awarded as much as US$400,000.

Speaking to Vanity Fair in 2021, she said that the video is “something that will hurt me for the rest of my life”.

“It’s always there in the back of my mind,” she told the magazine. “When it happened, people were so mean about it to me. The way that I was spoken about on nightly talk shows and the media, to see things with my family, was just heartbreaking.”

The Independent has reached out to Salomon’s representatives for comment.

Hilton’s memoir will be released on 14 March.