Perez Hilton: The Queen of Mean

Much of what there is to know about how Hilton got here is already the stuff of legend. He moved to New York when he was eighteen, attended NYU's theater program on a full scholarship, embraced his homosexuality for the first time, moved to Los Angeles after graduation, got fired from two jobs, returned to New York, was hired to write crap at Star magazine, hated it, fell into a deep depression, thought about killing himself ("I was going to slit my wrist, or take pills, or shoot myself, or jump off a building. I thought about it every day"), was fired by Star and then began working full time on a hobby gossip blog that he'd started and named pagesixsixsix.com, after the famous New York Post gossip page. He was still Mario Lavandeira back then. In 2005, however, the Post sued him, and he chose a new name to go by: Perez Hilton, marrying his Latino heritage to the world's most famous do-nothing rich girl. He rechristened his blog perezhilton.com. Around that time, The Insider named his site "Hollywood's most hated Web site." The world being what it is, that's all it took. He was on the map and moving fast.

About Mario, however, not so much is known. The most that usually gets printed is that his parents are Cuban, he grew up in Miami, he attended an all-boys Jesuit high school and he left town as soon as he could. That's about it. And Hilton likes it that way. "I started living the life I chose when I left Miami," he says. "Anything before the age of eighteen doesn't matter. From eighteen on, that's when I started to be myself, to be out, be gay, go see plays, date and do things like that." And yet what kind of kid was Mario, besides being a TV-watching, bed-loving freak? Hilton is pretty tight-lipped about it, but over time a few details emerge. He didn't like to go outside. He never mowed the lawn. He would have liked to have gone fishing with his dad, but that never happened. He didn't have much in common with the other kids. His mother gossiped. By age seven, Mario already knew he was gay. He was scared of the ocean and what might be in it — sea monsters and sharks, especially. In his own house, he was afraid of the toilet, fearing that some hand could rise up from the bowl, get a grip on his porky butt and haul him away. In a similar vein, between the ages of four and eight, he pooped his pants three or four times, unexpectedly, unwillingly, unhappily and so traumatically that he remembers each instance to this day. His father, the man who had brought him his dinner so many times and had allowed him so many hours of uninterrupted Diff'rent Strokes-viewing pleasure, died when Mario was fifteen. It didn't faze him too much. "I just avoided the whole mourning process," he says. "It was summer, and I had an office-assistant job. So I went back to work. That's what I do. I just don't let things bother me. I had a happy childhood. I lived in my own little fantasy world. My childhood was fun."

On the plane to Las Vegas, Hilton falls asleep instantly, a copy of Us Weekly (his favorite) rising and falling on his chest, one of his fanglike teeth poking out from between dry red lips. He usually doesn't dream, so he probably isn't dreaming, but if he was, it'd probably be about Britney. Nobody is more central to Hilton's success than Britney. She provides him with endless fodder. In fact, it's safe to say, no Britney, no Perez.

He has a fantasy about her. In this fantasy, Britney has been paid lots of money to host a big club event. It's packed. The press is there. Britney is doing lots of drugs. She passes out. An ambulance takes her to the hospital. For the next two weeks, she's in a coma. Outside the hospital, there are "vigils, prayer circles and all that stuff." Finally, she comes out of her coma and vows to do better with her life. The point of the fantasy is, those two weeks with Britney in a coma are Hilton's idea of heaven: "Oh, my God, such a great story. I love it."

Chances are, if you're a celebrity like Britney, and Hilton doesn't like you, you don't like him either. Tara Reid and Nicole Richie have both had cross words with him. Desperate Housewives gardener Jesse Metcalfe went up to Hilton in a club and said, "Do you know how many times I've fantasized about killing you?" For the most part, he doesn't care: "If you don't like what I'm writing, don't read it. It's that simple." A good portion of the gay community also has it in for him, primarily because he tends to out anyone he thinks needs outing without a second thought. He did it to Lance Bass and Neil Patrick Harris. He's done it to others. Personally, he can't understand what the fuss is about. "Why is it OK for the mainstream media to talk about the secret relationship between Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, and not OK for me to talk about secret gay relationships? I don't get it."

The plane enters a pocket of turbulence and starts banging around. The attendants are ordered to take their seats. A few people look pale. Hilton looks pale too, and pasty, but that's how he always looks. He's still asleep, untroubled by the commotion around him. If he were awake, though, he'd say it was fun. Even if the plane were going down, he'd probably say that. It's the way he is. That's the man he has become. In his mind, it's all fun, and if you don't like it, tough beans, go get on another plane. Oh, you can't? Well, that's your problem, not his.