Gossip blogger Perez Hilton is “receiving medical care” after authorities responded to his Miami home Tuesday night when concerned viewers alerted law enforcement that he appeared to be engaging in acts of self-harm during a TikTok livestream.
The stream, which has since been taken down, appeared to show Hilton covered in blood and holding what looked like a large knife. In the comments, viewers pleaded with him to stop and asked him to seek help.
In a statement on Hilton’s website posted Wednesday, his team and family said they were “incredibly grateful for the overwhelming outpouring of love, support, and prayers.”
“We can confirm that Perez is receiving medical care, and our family’s focus right now is on his well-being,” the statement read. “We kindly ask that you respect Perez’s privacy, as well as the privacy of his family, during this difficult time.”
A separate statement Wednesday night said Hilton “is able to communicate, which has given our family hope.”
Recent Health Scares
The alarming behavior comes months after Hilton had a three-week hospital stay that he blamed on taking flu medication on an empty stomach resulting in the development of an ulcer, a perforation, and sepsis.
“People die of sepsis,” an emotional Hilton explained in a March 23 YouTube video. “The day before I was hospitalized, I was in so much stomach pain. I was like, ‘This is weird, but it will go away.’ The next morning, I couldn’t walk. I had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital.”
It was during that health scare that Hilton said “God told him” to move his three children, all under the age of 14 and born via surrogacy, back to Miami after having lived in Las Vegas for over three years.
Warning Signs
During the livestream, Hilton could be seen running the knife along his stomach, neck, and back while making sounds that, in Megyn’s view, sounded “almost sexual.” At one point, he told his terrified guests that he was “committing suicide.” But it was the comment he made about being a “fucking parasite loser” that struck Megyn the most.
“I feel very sad about how he got here and what he did, that he felt that he had no other option but this. It’s obviously the meltdown of a human being,” she said on Thursday’s Megyn Kelly Show. “But I also can’t help but notice that it is, in a way, the perfect period at the end of… a long chapter of what I hope will be a long life, and that chapter is… life almost solely on the internet.”
Hilton, who is 48, made a name in the early aughts blogging about celebrities – often publicizing gaffes and reporting on salacious gossip. In 2010, he told Ellen DeGeneres he wanted “to be part of the solution and not part of the problem” and said he would stop bullying people on his website. He has since expanded his media footprint to include a podcast.
Following his hospitalization in the spring, Hilton released a candid video saying “God presented himself” to him and “then did something… miraculous.” In that same video, he admitted people “hated” him because he was “so selfish and “didn’t care who I hurt. I just cared about the views, the attention, the money.”
Getting Offline
Hilton was among the pioneers of internet tabloid culture, and Megyn said that she believes that digital-first existence causes people to lose their grasp on reality. “Rather than touching grass and walking through woods and swimming in lakes, you are online all the time, doing the lowest thing possible for your spirit, which is viciously, viciously mocking random celebrities,” she said.
“[Celebrities] put themselves out there… They are fair game, but Perez Hilton really has made a business of going to the lowest places, outing various LGBT people, posting naked photos of like Jennifer Lawrence that she did not bless or sanction,” Megyn explained. “He has gone after so many huge celebs so pointedly that it’s really impacted them. Jennifer Aniston called him out… and he’s apologized for it many times, only to then start doing it again.”
Breaking free of that cycle has seemingly been tough for Hilton. “I’m not trying to demonize Perez in any way. I’m saying this is his journey… He had a bad case of sepsis, and then said ‘I found God’… but then he kind of goes back,” Megyn noted.
“I just think there is a consequence to one’s mental health in spending your life day after day after day in a toxic industry online, where the clicks, the likes, and all that are never going to be enough for you, and the vitriol will always feel like it outweighs the kindness,” she added.
Her guest, Glenn Greenwald, agreed and said he believes understanding what caused Hilton’s break could help others. “Without invading his privacy… I do think it’s worthwhile to try and understand why that happened because it’s not just that he did something, he was depressed, or even ended up killing himself,” he said.
“The state of human existence that he was in… if you watched that video, is something genuinely terrifying. It’s like you have to be pushed very, very far mentally to do what he was doing,” Greenwald continued. “I do think it’s worth trying to figure out whether there is something about social media and the internet and the entertainment industry… that caused that because that was not just a breakdown… I haven’t seen many things like that before.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Greenwald by tuning in to episode 1,375 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.