Paris Hilton has teamed up with U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to campaign for the approval of the DEFIANCE Act.
On Thursday (Jan. 22), Hilton and Ocasio-Cortez appeared together at a press conference in Washington, D.C., joined by fellow lawmakers and survivors, to rally support for the bipartisan legislation. The proposed bill would give victims of sexualized deepfakes the right to sue those who create and spread the content.
“When I was 19 years old, a private, intimate video of me was shared with the world without my consent,” Hilton said at the 17:10 mark in the video above. “People called it a scandal. It wasn’t. It was abuse. There were no laws at the time to protect me. There weren’t even words for what had been done to me. The internet was still new, and so was the cruelty that came with it.”
Ahead of the press conference, AOC took to X to spotlight the impact of Hilton’s advocacy, while also thanking her for backing the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits, known as the DEFIANCE Act.
Hilton later responded, thanking AOC for the “support and kind words.”
Hilton claimed in her speech that one in eight girls experience the harms of deepfake porn, and expressed concern over how this “staggering” statistic could impact her personally.
Hilton said during her remarks that one in eight girls are affected by deepfake porn, calling the figure “staggering” and sharing how deeply personal the issue is for her.
“Too many women are afraid to exist online, or sometimes, to exist at all, and I know how that feels because I lived it,” she said. “And now, I have a daughter who’s just two-and-a-half years old, and I would go to the ends of the earth to protect her. But I can’t protect her from this. Not yet. And that’s why I’m here.”
Earlier this month, the DEFIANCE Act cleared the Senate with unanimous approval and is now headed to the House.
Hilton has also been a vocal advocate for the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, which was signed into law in 2024.
