Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton spent 21 days fighting sepsis and underwent two surgeries earlier this year, an ordeal he said made him believe he would die, before a Tuesday-night self-harm crisis that sent him back to the hospital.
Hilton, 48, whose legal name is Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., broadcast the incident on a TikTok livestream from his Miami home, prompting alarmed viewers to call 911. The Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office dispatched four squad cars, arriving just after 7 p.m. Deputies used his legal first name over a neighbor's Ring doorbell camera: "Mario, it's the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office, please step out of the house." Clips from the livestream appeared to show Hilton covered in blood while holding a knife. He was eventually taken by ambulance to a hospital, where his family said Wednesday he was "able to communicate" but still receiving treatment.
His three children, Mario, 12, Mia, 10, and Mayte, 8, all born via surrogacy, were inside the ranch-style house along with a niece and Hilton's 42-year-old sister, Barbara Lavandeira. The family said they "immediately fled" to shield the children from "witnessing any further trauma." TikTok removed the video and suspended Hilton's account.
The self-harm episode came months after Hilton publicly described a harrowing medical crisis that nearly cost him his life, a story he recounted in detail on a FOX News Media podcast with Sean Hannity, recorded July 14 and released Wednesday.
Hilton told Hannity he had taken flu medication, Aleve and Tylenol, on an empty stomach for roughly a week. The result was an ulcer and a perforation that spiraled into sepsis, landing him at Southern Hills Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas for three weeks.
"I was in the hospital for 21 days, so I thought I was gonna die," Hilton said on the podcast. "Especially because the first few days they couldn't find where the perforation was and then I had all of these other issues. My body just started breaking down."
He described a cascade of complications: fluid in his lungs, an irregular heart rhythm known as AFib, and two surgeries. "I had fluid in my lungs. I went AFib. My heart issues. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong," he said. The hospitalization, which he revealed publicly in March, became a turning point in how Hilton talked about his life and career.
On an April 8 post, Hilton wrote that he felt "like I should be scared right now, but I'm not. I definitely am worried, though. God show me the way!" A separate message attributed to Hilton said he was "GOING THROUGH IT right now" and asked for "prayers and for Christ to intervene, sooner [rather] than later."
That spiritual language was not new. On the Hannity podcast, Hilton said the Las Vegas hospitalization brought him to faith. "It was God presenting Himself to me, and then doing something that I could only describe as a miracle to heal me," he said. "I was still unwell, and then God did something." The broader trend of public figures opening up about personal health struggles has drawn attention in recent months, but few disclosures have been followed by a crisis as visible as Hilton's.
Hilton launched his celebrity gossip blog in 2004 under the name PageSixSixSix.com, later rebranding it as PerezHilton.com. Over a 22-year career, he became one of the most polarizing figures in entertainment media, a reputation he addressed directly on the podcast.
"I made a lot of mistakes in the past which are very public," he told Hannity. "Which I own. Which I regret, which I have deep shame for, which I've apologized for repeatedly, publicly as well as privately."
He compared his earlier conduct to addiction. "It's like if you're a drug addict, and you're stealing from your parents' money to buy drugs. You know what you're doing is wrong, and you don't care. You just want that hit," Hilton said. "And that was truly what I was doing." He referred to the period as his "enfant terrible phase" and said the choices were not merely mistakes but "awful decisions" he made knowingly. That history of antagonism toward celebrity families has drawn fresh scrutiny since Tuesday's crisis, with Ireland Baldwin publicly condemning years of cruelty toward her family while still wishing Hilton recovery.
When pressed on whether he still considered himself a gossip blogger, Hilton pushed back. "No, because I'm not doing gossip. I do celebrity journalism," he said.
He credited his near-death experience with helping him move past the guilt. "To have this experience with God and to know that God loves me, and God forgives me, it was very healing, because I then forgave myself," Hilton said.
In a statement posted to PerezHilton.com on Wednesday, the family described Hilton as "experiencing a severe mental health crisis and harming himself." They said the children, his niece, and his sister had been inside the home minutes before the incident.
"Our highest priority right now is helping the children begin to heal from what they experienced. An important part of that process is allowing them to safely return home and begin rebuilding a sense of security and normalcy."
The family asked media, paparazzi, and content creators to leave the area around the home and not return. "Please allow his children the privacy and space they need during this unimaginably difficult time," the statement read. Future updates would come through PerezHilton.com, the family said. As previously reported, Hilton was surrounded by loved ones at the hospital on Wednesday, including his sister Barbara.
The Daily Mail reported it would not publish clips from the Ring doorbell surveillance video captured by a neighbor's camera. Dispatch audio from the 911 calls has since provided additional detail about the sequence of events that night.
Several questions remain unanswered. The specific hospital treating Hilton after Tuesday's incident has not been named. No arrests have been reported. His current diagnosis and treatment plan have not been disclosed. And the precise timeline, whether the children were still inside when the self-harm began, or had already left, remains unclear from the family's account.
A man who spent three weeks convinced he was dying, who found faith in a hospital bed, and who publicly reckoned with years of choices he called awful, that man's family is now asking the country for the one thing he rarely gave others in his career: privacy. Whatever comes next, three children who did not choose any of this deserve to have it.
