Paris Hilton breaks silence on shocking claims she was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell

The world's first true influencer Paris Hilton has finally spoken out on claims that she had fallen victim to convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, who worked as Jeffrey Epstein's fixer for many years.

Hilton was forced to break her silence on the issue following the release of more than 20,000 emails relating to billionaire Epstein, which have revealed the scale of the late pedophile financier's political and social connections - naming President Trump, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Palantir CEO Peter Thiel.

But while the socialite and reality TV star does not appear to have been named, the fresh attention on the case has highlighted 2020 comments where she was grimly described by Maxwell as 'perfect' for Epstein when she was just 19.

At the time, Maxwell was scouring parties and even hanging around outside schools to find victims for her erstwhile boyfriend. In pictures from 2000, Maxwell can be seen grinning next to Hilton at a New York event, while the then-teenager spoke to Donald Trump.

Pictures of Donald Trump with Paris Hilton and Ghislaine Maxwell from 2000 resurfaced in 2020 (Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

In a lengthy interview with the Sunday Times, the infamous party girl-turned-successful businesswoman brushed off any relationship with Epstein's recruiter, saying: "I don’t even remember ever meeting her."

Maxwell's former acquaintance Christopher Mason first made the claim in 2020, describing how the now-convicted trafficker had stopped in her tracks when she saw Hilton at a party, exclaiming to a friend 'Oh my god' before remarking that the 19-year-old was 'perfect for Jeffrey' and asking for an introduction.

Around this time, when the hotel heiress was making a splash on the New York party scene, she was signed to Trump's modelling agency, T Management.

Despite claiming to have voted for Trump in 2016, she later took back the comment, saying that she had made the claim because the president 'was an old family friend and owned the first modelling agency I signed with'.

But this relationship would eventually collapse into fury.

Hilton signed to Trump's modeling agency at the age of 19 (Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect)

In her 2023 memoir, Hilton added: "When I left to go to another agency, he was furious and intimidated the shit out of me on the phone."

Now 44 and a mother of two, Hilton has come a long way from the teenage tearaway whose antics as a young adult became the fodder of the tabloid press.

Reflecting on why her name was connected to Epstein, she explained to the Times that 'I’m such a good clickbait name', leading to her being linked to the dead pedophile's social circle by the wider media.

But while Hilton rejected claims that she had associated with Maxwell or Epstein, she has not shied away from mentioning the role that sexual violence had played in her early life.

She described in her memoir how she had been drugged and raped by a man when she was just 15, before her parents sent her away to an extremely restrictive boarding school that left her suffering panic attacks for decades.

The socialite has previously opened up about the abuse she experienced in her early life (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

This violation continued into her early adult years, when her former boyfriend Rick Saloman, a man in his 30s, released a sex tape they had made when she was 19.

"Like, that would be illegal today," she pointed out.

She went on to tell the Times: “People realise just how wrong it was. And that has also been healing for me, for people to be, like, wow, Paris was just a teenage girl being taken advantage of by this older guy.”

If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org