Paris Hilton says 'it was a lot' to plan her wedding while also reliving traumatic experiences from her time at a correctional school

• Paris Hilton and Carter Reum tied the knot in November 2021, as documented for "Paris In Love."
• Hilton relived her trauma from correctional school and advocated for victims during their engagement.

"Paris In Love," the Peacock docuseries about Paris Hilton's engagement and wedding, has plenty of playful footage of Hilton and her now-husband Carter Reum, both 40, making their wedding come together.

But the series also documents Hilton working through trauma she says she carries from her time at Provo Canyon School, a correctional school where the star told The Times she was abused.

The series showed Hilton's advocacy work in speaking out against facilities meant to discipline teens and children, highlighting how difficult it was for the star to process her trauma while planning the happiest event of her life.

In October — less than a month before her wedding — Hilton testified on Capitol Hill in favor of a bill that would improve and regulate conditions at such institutions.

During the testimony, Hilton said she attended four different correctional schools between the ages of 16 and 18, saying these institutions "promised that tough love would fix" her to her parents, Kathy and Rick Hilton, as Insider previously reported. She went to Provo Canyon School when she was 16 years old.

According to NBC, the bill would ensure children who attend these facilities are not physically restrained, have a right to call their parents, and have access to clean drinking water and nutritious meals.

"I was strangled, slapped across the face, watched in the shower by male staff, called vulgar names," Hilton said of her time at Provo Canyon during her testimony. "Forced to take medication without a diagnosis, not given a proper education, thrown into solitary confinement in a room covered in scratch marks and smeared in blood, and so much more."

She also said that she suffered from "severe PTSD" for over 20 years after her time in these facilities.

Hilton previously discussed her experience at the school in the documentary "This Is Paris," and she produced a podcast investigating the troubled-teen industry, "Trapped in Treatment," which premieres on January 26.

She also told The Times that Provo Canyon "was just terrifying" and that the "people who work there were sadistic and wanted to torture and hurt children."

Hilton told Insider it was difficult to delve into her trauma while planning her wedding.

"It was a lot," she said. "You're planning the most important day of your life, but then I was also flying to Washington, DC, and trying to pass laws and producing legislation. I was having to speak about it and relive all these traumatic experiences."

Although speaking about that time during a joyful period in her life was challenging, Hilton said she doesn't regret it.

"It would be much more fun to only be thinking about the love and the wedding, but this has been just such an important part of my life," she said of coming forward about her experience. "And my mission now is to put a stop to this. So it was something that had to be done."

Hilton also told Insider she was able to heal from some of her trauma during her engagement by going to therapy with her mother, Kathy Hilton, who the reality star said would previously "change the subject" when she brought up her time at Provo Canyon. The pair filmed their joint therapy session for episode nine of "Paris In Love."

"I just felt like I really just wanted to let that go before I moved on to this next phase," Hilton told Insider. "What I experienced was so traumatic and painful that it was a subject that my mom and I just never, ever discussed."

"I felt like I needed to get that off my shoulders and heal from that," she went on to say. "It's been so healing just to finally hear her say, 'I'm sorry.'"

"I know she had no idea what was happening at these schools and how abusive they were, but I'm grateful that she listened," Hilton added. "She watched the documentary and now she understands me in ways that she never did before."

The two-episode finale of "Paris In Love" will air on January 27 on Peacock. The series will also run on E! beginning February 2 at 10 p.m.