Paris Hilton is a true pop culture icon. She rose to fame due to her presence on screen as a reality television star, but achieved an equal level of notoriety for her allegedly leaked s*x tape that became public when she was just 19 years old.In the most recent news about the Hilton Brands heiress, Paris Hilton made an appearance on Capitol Hill on January 22 to speak on her endorsement of the DEFIANCE Act, a bill that would allow victims of AI-generated and sexually explicit deepfake content to take legal action against its creators if passed. Hilton drew from experience, and her words were powerful,"Coming back to the Capitol, I feel something new, strength. When I was 19 years old, a private, intimate video of me was shared with the world without my consent. 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."She went on to talk about her experience after the tape got leaked, and the manner in which she was treated,“They called me names. They laughed and made me the punchline. They sold my pain for clicks, and then they told me to be quiet, to move on, to even be grateful for the attention. These people didn't see me as a young woman who had been exploited. They didn't see the panic that I felt, the humiliation or the shame. No one asked me what I lost — I lost control over my body, over my reputation. My sense of safety and self-worth was stolen from me.”The DEFIANCE Act is an initiative backed strongly by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was alongside Paris Hilton as she spoke.Paris Hilton elaborates on dangers of AI deepfakes on Capitol HillParis Hilton eventually shifted the focus from her personal experience to the issue of AI and deepfakes. She was direct in presenting the idea that the threat level from this rapidly advancing technology is a real and present danger.“I believed that the worst was behind me, but it wasn’t. What happened to me then is happening now to millions of women and girls in a new and more terrifying way. Before, someone had to betray your trust and steal something real. Now all it takes is a computer and a stranger’s imagination. Deepfake pornography has become an epidemic.”She went on to add that "over 100,000 explicit deepfake images" of her exist that have been "made by AI" and,“Not one of them is real, not one of them is consensual. And each time a new one appears, that horrible feeling returns, that fear that someone somewhere is looking at it right now and thinking it’s real. No amount of money or lawyers can stop it or protect me from more. It's the newest form of victimization happening at scale, to your daughters, your sisters, your friends and neighbors.”Paris Hilton is taking an important stand, and her past experience seems to uniquely equip her to speak on the topic with authority.For more updates on pop culture, keep reading SoapCentral!