Perez Hilton – one of the world’s most famous gossip bloggers – has told The Sunday Times how he doesn’t expect to be forgiven for his often brutal coverage of celebrity lifestyles in the 00s.
Now in a new interview, Perez – pictured wearing a turban – confronts his backlash. Immediately, tweeters have noted the bizarre outfit choice branding it ‘cultural appropriation’. Unless, it was a cosplay of Aladdin as a metaphor for how he went from the public’s prince to street rat?
(OK public prince is a stretch, but you don’t rack up impressions like Perez without a huge fanbase).
Since the start of the #FreeBritney movement, Hilton has faced recurring scrutiny for his treatment of Britney Spears, in the midst of her mental breakdown he called her an “unfit mother” and made light of Heath Ledger’s suicide by selling t-shirts that said: ‘Why wasn’t it Britney?’
The bigger question is, why wasn’t it banned?
The Times write, “As his actions come under fresh scrutiny, he reveals how he’s coping under fire”.
He says, “I am irredeemable in the eyes of most. No matter how much I change, grow, evolve, apologise, they refuse to see me for who I am today.”
These quotes, which were taken from a longer interview, may suggest (at least partially) why Hilton is not forgiven. His apologies are far too self-centred to be genuine, and how unfair things have happened as a result of what he did. Some of the things he did were pretty bad (see: encouraging Britney’s suicide), so he wants public approval (perhaps public acceptance is more realistic), he should be grovelling.
You’d have thought at the very minimum level of trying to win people back, you’d have just worn a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.
The reason he feels like he can’t win is that every time he speaks out he makes it worse; the tell-tale sign of someone that may have changed, but not neccessarily enough.