(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Paris Hilton has expressed the "betrayal" she felt over her and Rick Salomon's leaked sex tape, explaining she had been in love at the time.

A homemade video starring the 30-year-old socialite and her then-boyfriend Rick Salomon was leaked on the Internet in 2003, and Paris has opened up about the embarrassing ordeal in an intimate interview for CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight.

Paris, who is now dating nightclub manager Cy Waits, thinks people were too quick to judge, and forget she had been in a serious relationship with Rick.

"I just felt so betrayed, this was not just some random guy, this was someone I was with for a few years," she told Piers during the interview where mom Kathy was also present.

"I thought I did, and I can't believe that he would do something like that to me. It's something that changed my life forever," she replied, when asked if she had loved Rick, with whom the home movie was made in 2001.

The star knows the tape had a damaging effect on her reputation, explaining it gave people a false perception of her. She even worries about explaining the incident to her future children.

"When I was a little girl I looked up to these people like Princess Diana and these women and I think and he took that away from me. This is not what I planned, I didn't want to be known as that," she said.

"People assume, 'Oh she's a sl*t,' just because of one thing that happened to me. It's hard because I'll never...I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life and explain it to my children, it's something that has changed my life forever and I'll never be able to erase it."

Paris describes the ordeal as "the most embarrassing and humiliating thing that's ever happened in my life", and told Piers she had been ashamed to call her mom and tell her about it.

Kathy was extremely supportive though, explaining how Paris didn't want to leave home due to all the negative attention she was receiving. In the end, the Hilton family sought professional help to cope with the saga.

"She would not leave the house. We lived in New York so wherever you go there are those boxes with the newspapers, with the NY Post, the Daily News...and it was constantly sitting at the front of the reception desk," said Kathy.

"We had therapy and I think that that really helped. I didn't know what to say so that's why I reached out for professional help. The whole family was affected." (C) Cover Media