Congratulations to gossip blogger Perez Hilton, whom Forbes has named as the biggest star on the web for the third year running.
Perez, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, beat luminaries such as the Twitter founders, causing some unfamiliar with his work to query whether he deserves the top spot. Perhaps he does. Just as some are joking that, as an aggressive, foul-mouthed cheat, John Terry is the perfect embodiment of English
values, so it is tempting to think of Perez as the man for whom the Internet was made.
The Web has come into its own as a means of gambling, disseminating porn, and seeing whether Paris Hilton was wearing knickers last night; and though its founding fathers couldn’t have predicted their baby would turn out like this, it’s amazing how even an unpromising child can blossom. Britney Spears was the most searched name on the Internet for the fourth year running in 2009, and if you like your up-skirt shots of her augmented with the words “unfit mother,” Perez was the place to go.
For those unfamiliar with his shtick, that’s about the size of it, and in its early years this would have been characterized as its charm. Even Spears used to wear T-shirts advertising the site. It had the flavor of a cheeky outsider pressing his nose against the window of a Hollywood party that was taking itself rather too seriously, panting a while, then writing rude words in the condensation its breath left behind.
It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact point at which Perez passed through that window, but passed through it he most certainly has. He appears in music videos and on celebrity reality shows. He co-hosted the MTV Europe music awards, and has been touting himself as a candidate to fill Simon Cowell’s soon-to-be vacated chair on American Idol.
In joining the throng of those he mocks, Perez Hilton has completed the transformation from blogger to satirical character. That he presents TV gigs in the manner of someone who has just won a competition to do so must be part of his appeal. The Internet’s biggest star is a man who would trample over his grandmother to get inside the tent he was pissing into minutes before.
Meanwhile, former 1970s teen idol Leif Garrett has been charged with felony possession of heroin after his arrest in a Los Angeles subway station.
The 48-year-old singer and actor was charged on Friday and is free on bond. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Feb. 24.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore says deputies confronted Garrett at the downtown Metro Red Line station on Monday. They say he admitted having black tar heroin in his shoe.
Garrett was also arrested for heroin possession at an LA subway station
in 2006.
A phone message left for publicist Barbara Papageorge was not immediately returned, and it was not clear if Garrett had an attorney.
Garrett had a handful of hit songs and was a constant cover boy on teen magazines in the 1970s.
In Hong Kong, police said on Friday they had released a feng shui master suspected of forgery in his failed claim on the estate of late billionaire Nina Wang (龔如心), once Asia’s richest woman.
Tony Chan (陳振聰), 50, Wang’s former lover and spiritual adviser, spent more than a day in custody before his release early Friday on bail of US$640,000, a police spokesman said.
Chan, who has not been charged, must report back to the police in the middle of next month while the investigation continues, the spokesman added.
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