It was easier to forget Perez Hilton’s past until this week, when what a statement from his family described as a “severe mental health crisis” played out live on TikTok. That landed the once-prominent celebrity gossip blogger in the kind of headlines he made a career out of publishing himself.
As his family asks for the kind of privacy he’s rarely afforded others, his participation in — and creation of — the cruel celebrity culture of the early aughts is on people’s minds.
Hilton rose to fame in the early 2000s after launching an eponymous blog as famous for its bubblegum pink motif as it was its crude tone and lack of anything resembling journalistic ethics. Celebrities who became his fodder were shamed, assigned insulting nicknames and at times had their photos altered, with Microsoft Paint-style drawings of penises placed near their faces. Starlets like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan were among his frequent targets at the height of their own troubles, including as they went through their own very public mental health crises. Hilton, who is gay, at times also made a sport out of speculating about people’s sexuality, including some that later came out publicly.
It was foul but influential, one of the most widely read celebrity gossip blogs, peaking around 2009 when it reportedly garnered 14 million pageviews on Oscar night alone.
