Gossip blogger Perez Hilton admits regret at cruelty to celebrities
Perez Hilton has admitted he regrets being so cruel to celebrities.
The celebrity gossip blogger rose to fame in the early 00s with his website PerezHilton.com, featuring spiteful attacks on stars, using paparazzi shots with inappropriate doodles.
Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira Jr has now published a memoir TMI: My Life in Scandal, in which he confesses: "I have a ton of regrets, particularly because I now see that I never needed to be so mean or cruel.
“One of the many things I regret is that I hurt so many people by giving them nasty nicknames, and above all that I was unkind to the children of celebrities.
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"I also regret that I thought it was okay to out celebrities. That is something I no longer believe."
The 43-year-old blogger told the BBC his turning point came in 2010 when activist Dan Savage launched the It Gets Better movement in response to the multiple suicides of teenagers that year, who had been bullied because they were gay.
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Hilton – who appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2015 – recorded a message of support for the campaign and faced an immediate backlash.
He said: "The response I got truly shook me to my core. Almost every comment said, 'You're a hypocrite, you're a bully, you're part of the problem.' I knew a lot of people didn't like me before then, but I was living in my own little bubble.
"I had brainwashed myself into saying things like, 'If people don't like what I'm writing then they shouldn't read it.' Or '[Perez is] just a character, these people don't know the real me.’”
Hilton claims he has changed over the past 10 years, stating: “You can do your job and have an opinion and have it be strong, but not be hurtful or cruel."
Mila Kunis said in 2018 that Perez Hilton created the concept of trolling, saying: "To me, he was the first person that created ugly news, that literally just spread filth.”
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But Hilton has now responded: “Did Mila Kunis never read Us Weekly or National Enquirer or Star magazine? All of those existed before I ever did, and they did the exact same thing. Maybe I was the first to do it online, and therefore, I'm a pioneer!"
He added: “If Mila Kunis were to release a song tomorrow, and I said I don't like her song, she might be like, 'Don't say that, just keep it to yourself.’ And to Mila Kunis, I say, 'Snap out of it!'"
Hilton now has three children, born via surrogate mothers, sons Mario, seven, and Mayte, three, and five-year-old daughter Mia.
Watch: Perez Hilton defends his past actions to Mischa Barton
