Revenge of the Nerd

Although Lavandeira won't publicly comment about his annual take, Rolling Stone and Radar Online have pegged his income at $250,000 a year, likely a conservative figure. Eleven months ago, he was living in a cramped crib with no TV or Internet connection, blogging from the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Sunset Boulevard. Last year, Lavandeira bought a 2007 Toyota Camry to replace his 1999 Honda Accord, purchased a Prius for his mother, and moved into a gated two-bedroom loft-style apartment with high-speed Internet access.

Everyone wants a piece of Perez. He sparred with Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck on The View. In his VH1 reality series, he cavorts with his favorite divas, including Gloria Estefan and Tori Amos. During London's fashion week in February, he kept company with starlets Kimberly Stewart, Kelly Osbourne, and Sienna Miller (whom he has dubbed "Sluttyiena" on his site). He played himself in an episode of FX's Dirt and was a contestant on MTV's reality show Celebrity Rap Star. He's got a book deal. And Warner Music Group is talking with him about starting his own label, offering Perez a $100,000 advance on the 50 percent profit share he'd get for finding, signing, and promoting new acts.

In the past year, he's been on the cover of The Advocate and profiled by Rolling Stone and ABC's Nightline. "I am having just as much fun now, if not more, than when I first started my blog," he says. "I am creating my own happiness."

Lavandeira insists he never expected the blog he started as a hobby less than four years ago would transform him into a one-man media conglomerate. "I just wanted to do something really cool."

Christened PageSixSixSix.com in September 2004, Lavandeira's original site prompted a lawsuit from the New York Post. It was a rough period in his life. He was struggling with his acting career and making ends meet with unglamorous jobs as a publications manager for a gay organization, as a trade show publicist, and as a reporter for Star magazine, which fired him. "I went through a severe depression," he says. "I could not fathom going through the rest of my life working a job I hated."

While Lavandeira was visiting his mother in Miami, inspiration for a new name struck during a night of partying on South Beach. He and some friends hit three or four venues, where they were told Paris Hilton would be making appearances. When the hotel heiress was nowhere to be found, Lavandeira told his friends they were more likely to run into "Perez Hilton." And thus "the trashtastic Cuban cousin of Paris and Nicky," in Lavandeira's words, was born.

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It wasn't long before he was making enemies across the entertainment universe. Search YouTube for Perez Hilton and one of the first clips to pop up depicts America's flabby, gossiping wunderkind jawing with an unnamed paparazzo at a Hollywood event. The still image teasing the footage has the word cunt and an arrow — drawn in the same digital white marker that has become his trademark tool for defacing celebrity photos — pointing at Perez's head. A caption at the bottom reads, "We hope you burn in Hell, you fat FUCK. Now everyone can see what a BITCH you are!"

The video begins with Perez strutting down the red carpet, sporting a white-and-pink hoodie and a bleached-blond cropped cut. He turns and walks toward a slender male photographer with a goatee and bushy hair, who is shouting at Perez: "You stole my picture! You don't give a shit about anybody!" Perez, his hazel eyes bulging wide, gets in the photog's face. "Talk to my lawyer, braaaaao," he says mockingly.

After a few minutes of haranguing by the paparazzo, Perez loses it, and the Miami chonga inside him comes frothing to the surface: "No one contacted me to take it down, so shut the fuck up!"

Jilted paparazzi represent just a small contingent in the Perez Hilton hater brigade. For every person who loves him, there are three who utterly loathe Lavandeira's alter ego. X17, a Hollywood-celebrity photo agency, is suing him for $7.5 million, claiming the gossip monger posts its images without permission. Among the X17 photos Perez has allegedly posted are shots of a pregnant Katie Holmes with Tom Cruise, Jessica Simpson shopping, Heather Locklear leaving a lunch meeting, and Nicole Kidman with her nephew.

In New York federal court, Louisiana celebrity photographer Ken Knight is suing Lavandeira for allegedly using a copyrighted photo of Jason Allen Alexander, the man who married Britney Spears in 2004 in a Las Vegas chapel only to have the nuptials annulled 55 hours later. Brandy Navarre, X17 Online's vice president and co-owner, says Lavandeira was sending to other bloggers the message that it was okay to use copyrighted photos without permission.

"He wouldn't be where he is today if he didn't have our images," Navarre says. "And he certainly wouldn't have as many visitors as he has now. There is no doubt that his success is built on work of others."