Perezhilton.com

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Perezhilton.com is an online blog site specializing in celebrity gossip. It is run by Mario Lavandeira AKA Perez Hilton, who hails it "Hollywood's Most-Hated Web Site".

Perezhilton.com publishes celebrity gossip on a daily basis, accompanied by Lavandeira's thoughts on the stories and celebrities.

PerezHilton.com was the first publication to post photos of the then-unconfirmed lovers Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. The blog had a surge in popularity, eventually averaging 700,000 readers per day [1].

Among the recurring stories is the rumoured relationship between Lance Bass and Reichen Lehmkuhl, which was officially confirmed on July 26, 2006 through an article in People. MSNBC later published an article questioning if Perez Hilton was responsible for Bass's outing. Perezhilton has successfully outed Neil Patrick Hariss in early November 2006. Hilton posted pics about Harris ex lover Max Von Essen and also pics of him and current beau David Burtka. Perezhilton says its hypocritical of the heterosexual media to crticize him for outing gay stars when the straight media talk about the love lives of heterosexual celebrities. Perezhilton says if more gay stars come out of the closet the negativity about homosexuality would decline in society because the public would realize some of their favourite stars are indeed gay.

What makes PerezHilton.com a draw for gossip enthusiasts is Lavandeira's claim that he only reports true stories, as "[he] likes having credibility" [2]. Whether his claim is true or not is unconfirmed.

The site experienced legal problems when Lavandeira was sued by the New York Post for brand infringement, and by Colin Farrell for posting a link to his sex tape.

PerezHilton.com has recently included a special Podcast titled "PEREZidential Podcast" His first cast featured an interview with former supermodel Janice Dickinson [3].

Lavandeira frequently posts pictures of himself with celebrities such as Paris Hilton, which has led to some criticism from readers.^{[citation needed]}

As of November 7-8, PerezHilton.com achieved 2.5 million visitors in 24 hours, the most visitors ever to his website over a 24 hour period, because of the breaking news that Britney divorced kevin Federline over 600 comments were posted on his frequent updates on the news, he also thanked his visitors and Britney Spears.