Disturbing police bodycam footage has emerged from the aftermath of Perez Hilton’s August suicide attempt at his Miami home.
The three-minute video, obtained Thursday, shows first responders placing the blurred-out celebrity blogger on a stretcher outside his residence before transporting him to an ambulance. Blood was visible on the walls inside the home as officers moved through the scene.
An unidentified woman stood outside the house in visible distress while emergency workers attended to Hilton, 48. The footage captures the chaotic moments after authorities responded to a 911 call from the blogger’s sister, Barbara Lavandeira.
Lavandeira had told a Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office dispatcher that her brother was “having a meltdown,” according to audio from the emergency call. She described his condition in stark terms during that conversation.
“He’s all cut up,” she said. “I can’t tell from where, but he’s covered in blood.”
She also informed the dispatcher that Hilton was “awake in the bathroom” and had “a box cutter or a knife,” though she added that she “couldn’t see” exactly what instrument he was using to injure himself.
Lavandeira fled the home with Hilton’s three children — Mario, 13, Mia, 11, and Mayte, 8 — while authorities were en route. Several hours after arriving at the residence, officials confirmed he had been “safely recovered and transported… To a local hospital.”
In a September interview, Lavandeira offered a more detailed account of discovering her brother in the bathroom that day. She found him “standing in front of the shower, naked, cut up, covered in blood, with a box cutter in his hand.”
“What I can say with certainty is that I didn’t recognize my brother when I looked at him,” she said. “I saw it in his eyes. They didn’t look the same.”
She continued, “Then a split second later, he smiled at me. It felt like I was staring at someone else.”
Hilton was hospitalized on Aug. 4 after live streaming an apparent self-harming video, as previously reported. According to a family update, he “experienced significant blood loss and sustained additional injuries” that required surgical intervention.
The hospitalization came just months after another serious health crisis. Several months before the suicide attempt, Hilton had been hospitalized for sepsis and underwent emergency surgery for what was described as a “massive” blood clot.
After spending weeks in the hospital following the August incident, Hilton was moved to a residential treatment program in September. He has since been seeing his children during supervised visitations.
The release of the bodycam footage adds a visceral dimension to an episode that had previously been known primarily through family statements and the 911 audio. The blurred video of Hilton on the stretcher, combined with the visible blood on his home’s interior walls, documents the severity of the incident that his sister had described in her emergency call.
Hilton, born Mario Lavandeira Jr., built his career as one of the internet’s original celebrity gossip bloggers, launching PerezHilton.com in 2004. The site made him a fixture at Hollywood events and a controversial figure in entertainment media.
The August suicide attempt represented the culmination of a difficult period for the media personality, coming on the heels of his sepsis diagnosis and emergency surgery earlier in the year. His sister’s description of his demeanor — the unrecognizable eyes, the unsettling smile — suggested a profound psychological crisis beyond the physical injuries.
Hilton’s family has not publicly addressed the newly released footage. The blogger himself has maintained a limited public presence since entering residential treatment.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.