Is he canceled?still

Mario Lavandeira was a receptionist for the E! Entertainment network when Janice Dickinson, a model who was popular in 2004 due to being a judge at America’s Next Top Model, entered the building. As she made her way to the bathroom, she left her purse with her assistant, who went through looking for the model’s prescription bottle and shoved the pills into the pocket of his pants. That was something he decided to recap on his newly built website PageSixSixSix.com, where he would usually share celebrity gossip. This, however, got him fired the next day.

This was not the first time Lavandeira got in trouble and lost his job. He was let go of his previous job as a senior editor at Instinct, one of the biggest gay magazines at the time. Because of its popularity, the magazine would receive books from publishers to review and because of the high demand, some would be left behind and forgotten. Lavandeira, who needed money to survive in Los Angeles, decided to sell those books online, but because those titles were not published yet, it was illegal to be sold. An editor of their rival magazine found his account online and told Instinct about his wrongdoing, causing him to be fired.

The blog was created in 2004, and after being let go from two jobs, Lavandeira could not afford the big city anymore, and decided to move back to New York in February 2005. He was hired as a freelancer by some weeklies like In Touch and Star magazines, while also devoting his spare time to his blog. At this point, he didn’t care about what was appropriate or not to comment on because all he wanted to do was write about celebrities.

This was when his website started to be noticed (and even hated) by more people. He got a call from The Insider explaining that they were doing a feature on Hollywood’s most hated websites, him getting the number one spot. Lavandeira was taken back, but allowed them to put him on TV because that meant more traffic for his blog. This opportunity gave him a permanent position at Star magazine, and they even allowed him to continue with the blog as they did not see it as a conflict of interest.

Getting this spotlight on TV also got him his first lawsuit of his life: the New York Post sued him for using the domain PageSixSixSix — they already had a gossip column called PageSix — and since he had no way of affording a lawyer, he had no choice but to give up the domain, but he saw this opportunity to also change his name in the process of rebranding.

Thus Perez Hilton was born. He chose his first artistic name to pay homage to the outsider, the Latino inside him, who grew up lonely and bullied in school. Hilton was chosen for the power Paris Hilton had in Hollywood, showcasing the mainstream side of Mario. He wanted to use a pseudonym to protect himself from the real world and create a character that would separate his personal from his public individual.

His signature white scrawl over pictures that were usually degrading and mean towards celebrities shaped the idea that a certain star was indeed problematic. Even though his targets varied, the 2000s biggest stars that were always in the news won the spotlight in his blogs — Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears.

Perez was not afraid to offend, and shamelessly promoted himself everywhere he went. Even though it took him about two years to start making money with it, his blog became popular fast, needing the gossiper to devote about 17 hours a day online. He was able to move back to Los Angeles and utilized a cafe called Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf as his office for a long time. He could barely afford rent in the City of Angels, and definitely could not afford a technician to come into his apartment to connect the Internet he needed for his blog.

His big break came in the form of Brangelina (a ship name — where fans combine the couple’s names — that he came up with). In May of 2005, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie went public with their relationship. They flew to Africa on vacation together, and a paparazzo took pictures of the couple, but did not immediately put them up for sale until they had left the country and flown home, which can be an indication that it had been arranged by them and the photo agency. Hilton had a source who told him about the trip and the photos, which he posted and then broke the story that same day with these leaked images, becoming the first to share the news online. Suddenly, he was famous and his blog was a hit, crashing that same week.

By 2007, his blog had achieved 8.82 million pageviews per day, and advertisers were willing to pay high in order to appear in his website, with ad packs reaching $45,000. It helped escalate his work to become amongst the top ten entertainment sites in that same year, according to Comscore Media Metrix, a platform that studies and evaluates audiences online.

His success scored a TV deal with his reality show What Perez Sez premiering in 2007. In the special, each installment would highlight interviews and award show moments of celebrities that were willing to talk to him, and on the Video Music Awards’ special on VH1, Perez interviewed some of the artists that were nominated or that would perform at the award shows like Amy Winehouse and P!nk. The episodes were about three minutes long, composed with short, quick interviews that included comments from the host himself, as well as his branded white scrawl that would comment on what the artists were saying. Released on September 11, 2007, this “reality show” had four episodes, each one focusing on a theme. The VMAs was the first episode of the special. Clips from the show are difficult to find, and based on the short-lived series, it did not do well on cable. Episodes were shown during commercial breaks instead of taking up the hour-long spot on VH1.

Perez would get personal with the artists he interviewed, and while he was not rude to them, he would mention other celebrities out of nowhere just to bring them down. Some interviews felt awkward, and because of the fame and power Perez had at the time, celebrities might have felt necessary to be on his good side. In an episode with British pop-star Amy Winehouse, he calls Beyoncé something that was bleeped out, which assuming by Winehouse’s response, would be something along the lines of “a bitch” — the singer went to defend Beyoncé by saying that you have to be a bitch when you have people on your face all the time. Even though never in any episodes, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were brought up often when Perez would want to make a negative comparison. They were called “a mess” by the host, and he even poked fun at how much

“ One of the theories that Britney‘s camp is trying to disseminate is that Spears’ erratic behavior last night was due to her missing her hourly dosage of her bipolar medication.

“That’s bullshit,” a medical expert tell us.

There’s no bipolar medication that requires you to take a dose EVERY hour!!!

Plus, it takes more than missing one dose to trigger an episode.

Excuses. Excuses. Excuses.

If Britney had a breakdown, that’s one thing. If she was high on drugs, that’s another. But don’t come up with bullshit lies!” weight the twins had lost. Despite the fact that the child stars had opened up about their eating disorder, Perez had no filter when talking about people’s bodies and weights at the time.

The short videos that were released as promotional clips for the show also included the quirky side of Perez. Usually about thirty seconds long, the videos are now available on the blogger’s YouTube page, and they include him showing a garden gnome, calling it his “mini me” who “also doubles as a butt plug,” as well as him mentioning going to the VMAs while holding a whip “in case Britney gets out of hand.”

This special reality only showcased how the blogger’s online persona worked in front of the camera, as well as the power he held over celebrities. This gave Perez a lack of responsibility when saying whatever he wanted just to get a laugh or a click on his blog, giving him money for being rude to artists.

However, by 2014, his blog’s view count had decreased, after his rebrand — he had stopped calling people ugly names and had changed his tone in his writing. He was now mainly reposting news originally broken by other tabloids such as Us Weekly and TMZ. Similarly, his social media in the 2010s featured cautious gossiping that was not original content. The man who once broke stories and new content was now relying on others to post.

“No matter how much of an insider I ever become or am, I’ll still always be an outsider.”

Those were the words Perez wrote in his 2020 memoir TMI: My Life in Scandal. After years of being a gossip queen, as he titled himself, he came to apologize for his acts while still bringing up gossip from his past.

However, even when he was changing, backlash was inevitable. In 2016, Angelina Jolie’s lawyers contacted him over his coverage of the Brangelina divorce, asking for his post to be corrected or deleted. Hilton utilized his Instagram account to share his reply to the email, claiming that he had done everything right and that he was “not changing anything.” He also reminded the lawyers (and his followers) how he has “ALWAYS been a huge fan and SUPPORTER of hers!!” and claiming that he wants an apology unless they want him to be turned into her enemy. His attempt to clean his name worked, because soon after reports said that Jolie indeed apologized to Hilton.

Analyzing some of Perez’s posts about the divorce, he had sorely based his information off other sources, and simply commented on the issues. Always on Jolie’s side, he utilized interviews she’d given to different platforms to defend her. He mentions the alleged domestic abuse evidence against Pitt, as well as the tension between the excouple. The posts are still live, and Hilton seems to be clear in his intentions to report and defend the actress. It is important to note that his posts do not have dates anymore, whether it is to hide his past or in case of new controversies, to protect himself by claiming it was old news.

In the era of cancel culture, screenshots of his old posts started resurfacing on Twitter, especially after 2021’s Framing Britney documentary, which showed gossip bloggers and tabloids’ invading the singer’s privacy and how the stalking affected her life.

He has since acknowledged how toxic his work and words were, and has apologized countless times since. In his book, he mentions the fear he had during his peak circa 2007 of changing his delivery in the blog and losing readers. He opened up about his guilt which sounds truthful where he accepts the wrong in certain actions he’s done in the

“I have a ton of regrets, particularly because I now see that I never needed to be so mean or cruel.”

, “I was unkind to the children of celebrities. Some of them were really young, others teenagers, and it makes no difference that I really believed in what I was writing. I also regret that I thought it was OK to out celebrities. That is something I no longer believe.”

This said, he still causes drama among newer generations of social media users. Perez was permanently banned from TikTok in 2020 for violating community guidelines after he made a few inappropriate comments about underage kids. He had become popular on the app, gaining 1.6 million followers with an average of 10 million views per week. Perez said in an interview in December of 2020 that the app “gave [him] something to really look forward to every day” during a difficult year where he claims to have been “very depressed,” and had become his escape. Fun, easy, and young, TikTok created opportunities for 2000s celebrities to resurface years after their original success.

Perez decided to create beef with Charli D’Amelio, the biggest star on the app, by commenting on her dancing video in March of 2020. “Anyone else think it’s inappropriate for a 15-year-old to dance to this?” commented the blogger on her post, in which the teenager responded with “i’m sorry i’m just trying to have fun! :)” In the video, the girl is dancing to a remix of the song “Sugar” by Brockhampton wearing a bikini. D’Amelio — the most followed TikToker — was backed by her millions of fans, who petitioned to have Hilton removed from the app. Later, Hilton utilized his other social media appealing for this ban to be revoked, crying on an apology video and asking the D’Amelio family’s help in gaining his account back. Well, he hasn’t.

A new generation is going after Perez for his actions, showing that the change he’s claimed to have gone through has not worked for his benefit, since he was mainly coming up with excuses for his actions. Scrolling through his website today you still see his brand, the colors, the white scribbles, accompanied by light, straightforward headlines. His social media works similarly, being mostly reposts of his blog. He has his own podcast, where he talks about pop culture. He is a father of three, whom he talks openly about in the book, as well as on his YouTube, which is heart-warming.

It is hard to say if he has learned from his past mistakes, but there are definitely regrets. But with cancel culture being harsh, it is highly possible that they would lie to clear their images. We might not have completely forgiven him — and several similar gossip bloggers of the 2000s — but would bringing the past up a decade later actually help in the progress of celebrity gossip?