'I Speak What Is on Everyone's Minds'
"I speak what is on everyone's minds," most popular blogger says.
June 5, 2007 — -- He spends his days poking fun at Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Brangelina, but despite all that celebrity glamour, the man behind the most popular blog in the country calls himself "boring."
Mario Lavandeira, better known as Perez Hilton, is the brains behind PerezHilton.com, the celebrity gossip Web site packed with photos and Lavandeira's remarks about its subjects. It has grown so popular in the past year that Time magazine named Hilton one of its 100 Most Influential People of 2007.
Hilton recently met with ABC News at a Coffee Been shop in West Hollywood, Calif., to talk about the business of blogging celebrity trials, trysts and, more often than not, trash.
Not everyone may like what he's doing, but he said his visitors know what they're in for when they go to his home page.
"When you visit the Web site, you know you're visiting PerezHilton.com; you're not visiting The New York Times or People," Hilton said. "Inherently, it's one person's point of view -- mine -- and if you don't like it, then don't come back."
The 29-year-old L.A. native started the site because it seemed "easy and fun," adding that that was important because he considers himself a "tech idiot."
But he was savvy enough to pinpoint a niche for himself as a celebrity gossip home on the Web.
"Before me, people used the online medium, blogs as personal diaries, but I never had any desire to talk about myself. I'm boring," Hilton said. "I was more interested in analyzing and making fun of crazy celebrities."
And many others apparently share that passion -- with an average of 5 million hits a day, Hilton's Web site is changing how the public consumes celebrity news.
"People no longer want to wait a week or even eight or 10 hours to see something on 'Access Hollywood' or 'Entertainment Tonight' or read about it in US Weekly or People. They want it now, as it happens, and that is one of the really amazing, incredible and rewarding things about working online -- it's so immediate," he said. "As soon as I see or hear about something I can write about it. There is no delay."
Hilton's fans are probably coming to his site for more than just images of stars in ordinary and compromising positions. He takes it a step further with his short quips doodled across the photographs.
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