Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is still receiving inpatient medical and mental health care more than a week after a self-harm livestream on TikTok, as his sister's eyewitness account reveals the full severity of what happened inside his Miami home.
A statement posted Sunday to PerezHilton.com confirmed the 48-year-old gossip blogger, born Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., is being treated by a "dedicated team of medical and mental health professionals" at an inpatient facility. His team said his health "remains the priority" and thanked those who "reached out, checked in, and kept Perez and our family in your thoughts." The site announced it would resume publishing this week, the Daily Mail reported.
The update came the same week Hilton's sister, Barbara Lavandeira, 42, gave a detailed firsthand account to Page Six describing the moments she discovered her brother on August 4, a day she called "one of the darkest days my family and I have ever experienced."
Barbara, who was visiting from California, told Page Six that Hilton had retreated to his bedroom that afternoon with the door closed and locked, behavior she said was out of character.
"When I knocked, he said he was fine, but I could barely hear him. After I knocked a few more times and asked him to open the door, he stopped responding."
She tried calling his cellphone. No answer. She told Page Six that "something just felt wrong." She unlocked his bedroom door and realized he was inside the bathroom. She knocked again, warned him she was coming in, and when he still did not answer, she unlocked that door too.
What she found was a scene no family member should have to witness. Barbara described Hilton as "standing in front of the shower, naked, cut up, covered in blood, with a box cutter in his hand."
"What I can say with certainty is that I didn't recognize my brother when I looked at him. I saw it in his eyes. They didn't look the same. Then, a split second later, he smiled at me. It felt like I was staring at someone else."
Barbara acted fast. She left the room, grabbed the car keys, and yelled for the children to run to the car. Hilton's three kids, Mario, 13, Mia, 11, and Mayte, 8, were in the house, along with a niece. Their grandmother, Teresita Lavandeira, was not home at the time. Barbara said she "was able to get everyone out quickly." She messaged a close friend who lived nearby to come take the children away from the scene.
As we previously reported, the children and other family members fled the home just minutes before the livestream began.
Barbara called 911. An ambulance transported Hilton to a hospital in Miami. First responders treated him for a potential overdose in addition to his visible injuries. His team later confirmed he had suffered "significant blood loss" and unspecified "additional injuries."
Barbara stayed behind at the house to speak with a crisis team that arrived on scene. She told Page Six her brother "had already lost a significant amount of blood, yet he was somehow still able to speak, although his voice was very faint."
Law enforcement from the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office arrived at Hilton's residence not long after 7 p.m. that Tuesday evening, Fox News reported. The sheriff's office had received multiple calls about Hilton livestreaming acts of self-harm on TikTok. Surveillance footage captured audio of a deputy calling out: "Mario, it's the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office, please step out of the house." A source close to the situation told Fox News that Hilton was alive and had "superficial cuts all over the body."
Hilton was placed under Florida's Baker Act, the state's mental health law that allows involuntary commitment for up to 72 hours when a person is believed to be at risk of harming themselves or others. His team said in a prior statement that his "condition remains serious but stable" and that "treatment and recovery" would be a "long process." Communication, the team added, "has been extremely limited and confined to immediate family, medical providers, and others directly involved in his care."
Earlier 911 dispatch audio had already revealed grim details about the severity of the incident and the emergency response.
On August 7, three days after Hilton was hospitalized, his mother, Teresita Lavandeira, filed a petition in Miami family court to temporarily assume custody of his three children. The Daily Mail reported viewing the public records. Hilton's team said the "children remain safe and are being cared for by immediate family."
By Friday, Hilton had been able to spend time with his mother and sister, his team said. But he remains in the inpatient facility, and no timeline for discharge has been given.
TikTok took down the livestream video and suspended Hilton's account after the incident. The platform's response came after viewers who watched the stream in real time contacted authorities.
Hilton had already endured a serious health crisis earlier in the year. He spent 21 days hospitalized with severe sepsis stemming from flu complications that required emergency surgery, as Breitbart noted in its coverage of the family's ordeal. That earlier brush with mortality added another layer to what has been a punishing stretch for the 48-year-old and his family.
We previously covered Hilton's sepsis hospitalization and his own statements about fearing death during that crisis, context that now carries heavier weight.
Barbara Lavandeira used her Page Six interview to address a strain of commentary that had spread online in the days after the livestream. Some social media users framed Hilton's crisis as deserved payback for the years he spent as one of the internet's most aggressive celebrity gossip bloggers, a period during which he publicly outed public figures, drew crude doodles on celebrity photos, and trafficked in personal humiliation for clicks.
"The comments calling this 'karma' have been especially painful. I wouldn't wish what my mother, Mario's children, or our entire family is experiencing on anyone."
Barbara noted that her brother had publicly acknowledged the harm he caused earlier in his career. She pointed to a 2010 network television appearance in which, she said, he "admitted that the outings, doodles, and other things he did were wrong, and he has apologized repeatedly."
Celebrity mental health crises have drawn increasing public attention in recent years. Brad Pitt's own candid remarks about experiencing suicidal feelings during personal turmoil underscored how widespread these struggles are, even among public figures with vast resources.
Hilton's family issued a statement asking for privacy and saying that an "important part of that process is allowing them to safely return home and begin rebuilding a sense of security and normalcy", a reference to the children who were rushed from the house that evening.
Several questions remain unanswered. The nature of Hilton's "additional injuries" has not been disclosed. The specific substances involved in the potential overdose treatment have not been identified. The status of the temporary custody petition in Miami family court is unknown. And no one has said when, or whether, the Baker Act hold was extended beyond its initial 72-hour window, or under what legal authority Hilton continues to receive inpatient care weeks later.
A man's family found him covered in blood while his children were in the next room. Whatever anyone thinks of his career, three kids need their father back, and that matters more than any internet scoreboard.
