{"id":225,"date":"2008-05-22T11:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-22T11:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2008\/05\/interview-with-perez-hilton.html"},"modified":"2008-05-22T11:05:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-22T11:05:00","slug":"interview-with-perez-hilton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2008\/05\/interview-with-perez-hilton.html","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Perez Hilton"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I continue with interviews for my Embracing SUCCESS series<\/a><\/span> with celebrity blogger, Perez Hilton<\/span><\/a>. I interviewed him while he was driving to the set of CSI. He asked to do a cameo on the show and got it! While Perez<\/span><\/a><\/span>‘s writing on his website<\/a> has a strong edginess (some have harsher words for it!)<\/a> and some of those who he writes about would disagree, I found him to be a delightful, sweet, and sincere guy. Speaking with him was so much fun! Perez<\/a>, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, was a journalist when he began blogging as a hobby for his friends. Now he\u2019s become very well known and is regarded by many as an example of the new face of A & R people because of his good ear for discovering music and enlightening people about it. After Perez<\/a> recommended artist Eric Hutchinson<\/a>‘s music on his blog, Eric\u2019s album went to #5 on the iTunes album chart, becoming the highest-charting album by an unsigned act in iTunes history.<\/p>\n

Now Perez<\/a> is negotiating to start his own record label, acting in a movie coming out this summer, has a book coming out in the fall, and has a radio mini-show . He says he\u2019s also starting a new business venture that he can\u2019t talk about yet. Can’t wait to find out what it is! ?He\u2019s also very conscious of giving back to help others! Perez Hilton<\/span><\/a> followed his passion and created a career that\u2019s turning into a passionate empire. Not bad for a venture that began as a hobby! Here\u2019s what Perez<\/a> shared. I find him inspiring!<\/p>\n

Why did you start your blog?<\/span> I started it off as a hobby, never thinking that anything would come of it and it took on a life of its own.<\/p>\n

How would you describe the power of your blog?<\/span> I don\u2019t like to use the word power, because it implies that my readers are sheep, and I have control over their actions. But I don\u2019t. I really respect my readers and don\u2019t talk down to them. I like to think that I am my reader. So my reader is smart and can smell through the BS. I like to think of what I do as having an opportunity to share. And my readers have the opportunity to receive. For example, I mention musicians almost daily. Sometimes it connects with my readers, sometimes it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

What turned the tide with your blog from seeing it as something you just did for your friends, to seeing it as something with the potential to be a real business?<\/span> I did different things through different stages. The first stage was when I got on TV for the first time, which was six months into it. I started the website in September of 2004. Six months later I got an email from the TV show, The Insider. They were doing a segment on Hollywood\u2019s most hated websites and asked how would I feel being included in it and being named THE most hated. I didn\u2019t agree with the title but felt, if you\u2019re going to put me on TV, SURE! After that, my goal was just to get on TV a second time. I figured, wow, if I could do that once, I can do it again. Then when I started making money on the website (from ads), about a year after, I thought it would be great to do this full time. This past summer, about two and a half years into it, I really thought I had something that I could turn into a real business\/growing empire. That change happened when I was able to move my mom and my sister out to Los Angeles to work with me.<\/p>\n

How do you want to be viewed?<\/span> I want to be me. Me is unlike anyone else out there. I look at myself as a unique individual. I want to be a trailblazer; I want to be a pioneer. I don\u2019t want to hype myself that much but my dream scenario is to be able to do whatever I want. I\u2019m so lucky that this year has been a dream, non-stop. All these things are happening and it seems surreal. Just this week, Madonna sent me a video! That blew my mind. She doesn\u2019t have to send me a video. She wanted to. That in itself meant even more to me.<\/p>\n

What are you most grateful for?<\/span> I\u2019m most grateful that I\u2019m able to do something I enjoy for a living. I would say that a majority of Americans probably hate their jobs. I bet if there were a scientific poll, a majority of Americans would say they hate their jobs. I LOVE what I do! I will always do my website because it\u2019s not a job for me. It\u2019s a way to express myself and be artistic. It\u2019s a way that I\u2019m able to entertain people. It\u2019s a way that I\u2019m able to educate people. It\u2019s a way that I can be silly, and vent and do so many wonderful things. It has made my life better exponentially. I feel lucky and grateful.<\/p>\n

How do you get all your gossip?<\/span> At first I was functioning more as a news aggregator, which most gossip blogs are. They consume a lot of media, digest it, and regurgitate it in their own unique way. One thing about my website is that I have a very unique voice. I think my writing style for the website is very conversational, as if I\u2019m speaking to my friends. I love to write but that\u2019s not how I normally write. I used to be a journalist. I wrote features and very lengthy articles. I have the ability to write in paragraphs and form sentences that make sense together, and all that good stuff! It\u2019s a different art form with the website. So I\u2019d read all the newspapers, consume as much media as possible, and choose and pick what I thought was most interesting. Now that\u2019s still a lot of what I do. But also, I have a lot of original content, and stuff you won\u2019t find anywhere else\u2014fun, quirky, silly things that really helps my website to stand out and keep people coming back.<\/p>\n

What gives you the most satisfaction and happiness?<\/span> I\u2019d have to say just the response I\u2019ve gotten from the music community has been the best. The music actually is what I\u2019m most passionate about in life. I\u2019m not passionate about what\u2019s going on in Lindsay Lohan\u2019s life. But I am passionate about music. I think even the cynics, or the haters, or whatever you want to call them, have grown to maybe not like me but at least respect me as someone who more often than not has an ear for good music. I love that because I love music. That all started organically. I never started mentioning music thinking that I would possibly get a record deal from it or that I would be fill
\ning concerts. Or that I\u2019d be doing anything music related. I did it like everything in my life\u2014it happened organically. I thought, \u201cLet me start mentioning bands or artists or musicians that people aren\u2019t that familiar with, or they are but that I love and want to share with the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

What lessons did you learn building your business that helped you grow as a person?<\/span> The most important key to my success is hard work. I can\u2019t stress that enough. HARD WORK!!!!! I work harder than anyone I know. Literally. I\u2019m not exaggerating. I put in 18-19 hour days Monday through Thursday, maybe a little less Friday. Then maybe 10-hour days on Saturday and Sunday. I\u2019m working all the time. But that\u2019s okay because I do what I love. And I also have very specific goals for what I want to accomplish by what age and what time. I know it\u2019s not realistic to continue to work at this pace forever. It\u2019s not healthy. But for the next couple of years, hell yeah! The reason I\u2019m so motivated to keep working as hard as I do, at this same level, is that I\u2019ve seen such amazing results in such a short amount of time.<\/p>\n

How do you rate the importance of giving back to others in the big picture of business?<\/span> It\u2019s important for me. Recently I started doing something on my website where every day I spotlight a charity. Once again, this is something that happened very organically. One day I was reading Rosie O\u2019Donnell\u2019s blog<\/a> and saw an advertisement for Autism Speaks<\/a>. I\u2019d been thinking about autism that week. I think Jenny McCarthy was talking about it. It was an issue that was on my mind so I put a link to Autism Speaks<\/a> on my website and encourage my readers to read up. It was very newsworthy. There\u2019s been an explosion of cases of autism. Now I post them on a daily basis and give my own money and my own time to organizations that I believe in.<\/p>\n

How do you feel about what you\u2019re doing?<\/span> It\u2019s inspiring. I really believe that I\u2019m making the world a better place. I\u2019m so passionate about music and am thrilled that I get to put good music out there to the Universe. I\u2019m not gonna put stuff up there that\u2019s crap. There is no Payola Perez. I only post things that I love and enjoy, and am passionate about; that I think is worthy enough of my website. Even if people think what I do is trivial, inconsequential silly or mean, the readers of my website know the truth\u2014that it\u2019s not all those things. It\u2019s part of it but not all of it.<\/p>\n

What does SUCCESS mean to you?<\/span> SUCCESS means being happy.
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Check out Perez Hilton<\/span><\/a>\u2019s website and see what all the fuss is about! He\u2019s definitely a guy who\u2019s using his high profile to follow his passions and help his readers improve their own lives while he entertains them with his own take on juicy gossip.<\/p>\n

If you enjoyed my post, please leave a comment and\/or click on the bookmark and write a short review at some of the sites, especially Stumbleupon and Digg. Thanks!

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I continue with interviews for my Embracing SUCCESS series with celebrity blogger, Perez Hilton. I interviewed him while he was driving to the set of CSI. He asked to do a cameo on the show and got it! 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