ST ELIZABETH, Jamaica – American media personality and businesswoman Paris Hilton says she is horrified by allegations of abuse made by eight US boys against a school for troubled teens in St Elizabeth, along the island’s south coast.

Speaking at a press conference at Jack Sprat restaurant in Treasure Beach in the parish a short while ago, Hilton said: “I am a survivor of the troubled teen industry and, as a parent, I am horrified by the allegations made by eight young American boys who were rescued … by Jamaican authorities, just walking distance from where I stand right now.

“I heard these boys were stripped naked, violently beaten, whipped and water boarded,” Hilton said.

Jamaican authorities earlier this year removed the boys from the Treasure Beach-based Atlantis Leadership Academy —
which advertises itself as a faith-based school serving young men who have “taken some wrong turns in their lives” — in response to the disturbing allegations.

Hilton, an institutional child abuse survivor and known child advocate against institutional child abuse and neglect in youth residential programmes, is in Jamaica to donate items in support of the boys and speak publicly in the town Atlantis Leadership Academy once resided.

The event is hosted by Paris’ nonprofit 11:11 Media Impact, the social impact arm of her next-gen media company.