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Perez Hilton, the gossip blogger whose internet skills made him one of the most powerful voices in Hollywood in the early 2000s — before social media undercut his ability to gatekeep the news — recently suffered a terrible mental health crisis.

To the horror of those watching, Hilton livestreamed his own shocking deterioration.

His sister, Barbara Lavandeira, told the New York Post that on Aug. 4 she opened the door to her brother’s bathroom and found him “naked, cut up, covered in blood, with a box cutter in his hand.”

According to many traumatized viewers who saw what was happening in real time and called police, Hilton, 48, had been broadcasting from his Miami home for at least 15 minutes before TikTok took down his account.

On the Perez Hilton website, his family has written that he is in serious but stable condition and faces a long road to recovery.

I’ve followed Hilton over the years since I profiled him in 2006, when he was well on his way to becoming the most feared blogger in Hollywood. Mockery, cruelty and clickbait were his calling cards. “I’ve built my brand on being a bitch,” he told me in 2009. “So what?”

I’ve written stories about his copyright fights with paparazzi agencies, about his once-vast multimedia empire, about his well-known decision to tone down the snark.

Whatever else you think of him, Hilton, a Cuban-American........

© Los Angeles Times