Perez Hilton: The Queen of Mean
How a Pudgy TV Addict from Miami Became the Most Hated Man in Hollywood
Photograph by Peter Yang for Rolling Stone
As a child, Mario Lavandeira spent most of his time in bed, watching TV. He watched Friends, Melrose Place, She-Ra, He-Man, G.I. Joe, The Wuzzles, Snorks, Transformers, Thundercats, The Facts of Life, Diff’rent Strokes, the talk shows, the soaps and all the MTV he could. He glued himself to the tube for hours on end, usually dressed in just a T-shirt and shorts. His parents allowed this. He didn’t even have to get up for dinner. His dad, who hung wallpaper for a living, delivered Mario’s meals to him on a tray. He may have been picked on at school, because he was chubby and effeminate, but in bed he was top dog. Nobody pinched the fat on his back there. He was in charge. It’s part of what made his childhood so special, so delightful, so memorable, so fun.
In the future, though, what would become of a child such as Mario? In fact, what should become of a child such as Mario? His mom thought he’d make a good lawyer. The way it turned out, Mario came out of the closet, changed his name, dyed his hair, gussied himself up, glued himself not to a TV but to his laptop and became Perez Hilton, of perezhilton.com, which draws about 7 million visitors every day to see what the self-styled Queen of All Media, twenty-nine years old, is up to now.
What he does with his blog mainly is scrawl nasty, snarky comments on pictures of young Hollywood-type celebrities — Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie — and hand-doodle suspicious-looking little white dots around their noses, mouths and nether regions. It’s lowest-common-denominator stuff, totally debasing, totally now, totally like he’s getting even with those kids who pinched the fat on his back, and it’s turned him into a sensation. He’s got a book deal. His chubby cheeks, pointy teeth and obnoxious-gay mannerisms have enlivened shows like The View. When he reports that Fidel Castro is dead, legitimate news outlets take him seriously (for a second). He’s being sued by DJ Samantha Ronson for $20 million, for calling her a “toxic,” no-good friend to Lindsay Lohan — a true sign of arrival. Also, he’s been banned from the Chateau Marmont for no reason other than on general principle. (“Hey, I love that kind of thing,” he says. “It means I’m doing something right!”) More recently, he got his own reality series on VH1, called What Perez Sez, about him hobnobbing with celebs. In fact, he’s become one of them now — a star, influential and to be reckoned with. The first episode boosted ratings among eighteen- to forty-nine-year-olds by 112 percent and featured Hilton teaching sweetie-pie singer Mandy Moore how to grind on a stripper pole — and maybe she should run her tongue along the pole while she’s at it.
So it’s been a crazy, wondrous, topsy-turvy time for the former Mario Lavandeira, and he probably deserves a break right about now. But that’s not how he operates. He’s got his blog to maintain. Today, for instance, he’s working inside his Los Angeles apartment, flopped in a low-slung chair, laptop balanced on his dimpled knees, searching for content. He does this nineteen hours a day. He checks his e-mail constantly and flits from one site to another, hoping against hope that the next sight he sees is a fresh picture of, say, Lindsay Lohan all coked up and slitty-eye wasted. Of course, sometimes he has to leave his place to attend an event or a party. But he’d rather not. He’d rather stay right where he is, wearing the same uniform he wore as a TV-loving kid, shorts and a T-shirt. As for his meals, since he has no dad around anymore, he has them delivered by a diet-food outfit.
“I just love what I do,” he says during a break in the action. “I think it’s so exciting. Celebrities are just so crazy. They live in these bubbles and surround themselves with enablers. I love it. They are just so much fun. And I’m all about the fun. That’s one of my mottoes: Just have fun. And if it’s not fun, make it fun. Follow the fun, create the fun, be all about having fun.”
That noted, he goes back to work. Pretty soon, he’s put a bunch of new stuff up on his site. There’s a picture of The Hills’ Lauren Conrad, known in Perezland as “Beef Curtains,” with some white dots around her nose. Of Tara Reid, with the caption WHEN WE THINK OF TARA REID WE THINK OF VODKA AND YEAST INFECTIONS. Of Jessica Simpson, with a crudely drawn penis aimed at her face. She’s sporting some of those dots too, looping out of her mouth.
Like Perez says, fun!
One sunny, warm southern California day, Hilton has no choice but to grunt a few times, struggle out of his chair, pack up his laptop, toss a few items into his shiny vinyl Hello Kitty tote and head off to the Burbank airport. Having attained celebrity status himself, he’s been hired by a club at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas as its featured attraction. His hair is hot orchid-pink. He wears black jeans, black sneakers and a colorful hoodie. His voice ranges from pretty loud to incredibly loud. Six months ago, he was living in a crummy apartment, no TV, no Internet, and blogging out of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Sunset Boulevard. His new pad is in a gated community. His old car died, so he now drives a 2007 Toyota Camry. He won’t say how much he’s making from his site, but $250,000 a year is probably a conservative estimate. In other words, he’s getting plenty rich and famous off the misfortunes and travails of others.
Today, his take on Lindsay Lohan is, “She’s a little crazy and on drugs. Maybe the drugs make her crazy. I don’t know.” His take on Avril Lavigne is, “She’s a douche.” His take on Rumer Willis is, “She’s a douche too.” His take on Jennifer Aniston is, “I hate her.” His take on Paris Hilton is — well, he doesn’t offer one, they’re friends. His take on Sienna Miller is, “I call her Sluttienna.” His take on Tara Reid is, “She’s trying to be sober now. Fuck that shit!”
Of course, Hilton does have some nice things to say, such as, “Amy Winehouse is a dear, dear friend.” He’s also fond of Madonna, Oprah, Angelina and Brad.
But then it’s back to business as usual. “I’ve written about Britney Spears more than about anyone else, by far,” he says. “I used to be the biggest Britney fan. Unlike the Nicole Richie’s or whoever, she really is talented. In her prime, she could sell it like no other. Then to see everything that’s happened, I feel lied to and cheated, like that girl I used to know and love wasn’t the real deal. It was all an act. And this is the real Britney. And the real Britney is stupid. Like stupid stupid. A dumb, druggie, awful bitch.”
Hilton’s take on what he does is, “I’m entertaining and informing, satirizing yet celebrating. It’s how I express myself. If I couldn’t do it, it’d be like my tongue was ripped out. I think I’m making the world a better place. I think what I do is good. I think what I do is noble.”
His take on himself is, “I’m not a celebrity. These days, a celebrity is someone who is famous just for being famous. It’s got negative connotations. I’m an entertainer, I’m a worker, I’m a busy bee, dripping honey everywhere.”
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