Kat Von D is alleged to have been terribly manipulated by Provo Canyon School.
Utah’s Provo Canyon School is a psychiatric youth residential treatment centre that has been accused of abuse since its inception. Paris Hilton has advocated against Provo and invited Kat to share her experiences in Paris Hilton’s “Trapped in Treatment” podcast.
“My experience was probably a little different than yours because my parents put me in there because they were terrified of the tattoo world, you know,” Kat said, per Too Fab. “And I don’t blame them at the time. There was no TV shows.”
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“The perspective on tattooing was really just about, like, hoodlums and, you know, you’re either a hooker or in a gang or something terrible. And so they were terrified and they didn’t realize it was just a form of self-expression. So when I got admitted that was one of the things that they wanted to cure me from.”
Kat went on to explain how she was allegedly lied to and what toll it took on her.
“I don’t know whose idea it was, but at one point the counsellor set me aside and basically told me that I had contracted HIV from a tattoo,” Kat said. “And this was after they take your blood and a stool test and a urine test and all that.”
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“And so you’re sitting there with somebody who you think is qualified, who absolutely has zero credentials. And they’re telling you news like this. As a 15-year-old, I mean, I was, you know, I can’t even believe that that happened.”
It took Kat years to discover the truth.
“When I did get admitted out, I was never told that that was just a joke that that was false,” Kat said. “I went through my entire life up until I got tested again, you know, at the age of 17 or 18. And then realized that, ‘Okay, cool. I’m gonna be okay.'”
