His name strikes fear in the minds of publicists, agents and actors alike. He has carved out a reputation as a gossip and a gadfly who is even blunter than Michael Musto, and he loves to proclaim that he's dangerous. With his blog, perezhilton.com, he helped force three male celebrities out of the closet in a single year, and he shows no sign of backing down from outing other celebrities.

Perez Hilton, who in real life is a 28-year-old Cuban American named Mario Lavandeira, chose his nom de plume in honor of his gal pal, Paris Hilton (yes, he really knows her). His website was first launched as PageSixSixSix.com in September 2004 (the name was subsequently changed due to legal issues), and it focused on the unconfirmed relationship between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Lavandeira stopped using his real name after receiving death threats from irate Clay Aiken fans after the blogger alleged the American Idol singer was gay. (Aiken has denied that he is gay.)

“It scared me enough to stop using my real name on the website,” Hilton said. “I was using it up to that point. And then I stopped, because I'm all, ‘Wow, maybe it's not a good idea to be really easy to reach and traced if I'm doing stuff that's gonna get such a reaction out of people.'” Hilton's popularity reached a new high in December 2006 when more than 3 million visitors a day logged on to his website by to see panty-less photos of Britney Spears.

Underwear aside, the most controversial and recurring theme of his blog is the sexual orientation of celebrities, especially those whom Hilton believes are gay. Among the celebrities he has reported on who have recently come out are Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother, Doogie Howser, M.D.), T.R. Knight (Grey's Anatomy) and former *NSYNC singer Lance Bass.

Currently, Hilton is being taken to court by two different plaintiffs who object to content on his blog. X17 Inc., a Los Angeles-based photo agency, has filed a $7.5 million suit against Hilton for allegedly using copyrighted photos without permission. He is also being sued by Reichen Lehmkuhl, Lance Bass' current boyfriend, for comments Hilton made about him and his relationship with Bass.

“The standard that I hold myself to, that is a high one, is to print the truth,” Hilton said about his unorthodox style of gossip journalism. “I won't print something that I think is speculation or conjecture. I don't engage in that discourse. I trade in the commodity of information, facts, details! After Neil Patrick Harris came out, I congratulated him and put together this little list of all these closeted actors, musicians and celebrities that I wish would come out next. Every single person that I've put on that list I know for a fact to be gay or lesbian. And I've had it confirmed from multiple sources. There is no ‘if they are.' It's ‘yes they are.' And I've had it confirmed from multiple sources.”

Many of his sources include “friends, former colleagues, neighbors, assistants, managers, assistants, publicists and relatives” of the celebrities he's reported on. One source in particular, Hilton says, is the former boyfriend of a leading actor on a current Fox drama (the two broke up before the actor became famous). Hilton would not reveal the ex-boyfriend's name because “it might get back to [actor's name removed] and my friend would kill me! But, my friend is really hot! Uh! He's hot!”

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