Perez Hilton checked into hospital with “severe depression” just weeks before attempting suicide, his sister has revealed.
Perez Hilton checked into hospital with “severe depression” just weeks before attempting suicide.
The 48-year-old celebrity gossip blogger – whose real name is Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr – was hospitalised last week after self-harming in a disturbing TikTok livestream and his sister Barbara Lavandeira has told how around two weeks before that day, her brother had approached her and their mom Teresita Lavandeira to confide in them about how “empty” he had been feeling.
She told the New York Post’s PageSix: “He told us that a few days earlier, he had felt empty, hopeless and like he was a burden on everyone. He then admitted that one night when he couldn’t sleep, he had taken the remaining painkillers from his surgery in March. He said he just wanted to sleep.”
Barbara thanked Perez for being “strong enough” to speak out but urged him to seek “proper psychiatric help”, to which he agreed, and she took him to hospital that day.
She added: “He went voluntarily. After several days of evaluation and treatment, the facility determined that he could be discharged.
“That weekend, Mario seemed so much better. He looked better, too. We spent time together as a family, and he started looking up coping mechanisms and grounding techniques he had learned during his short stay [in the hospital].”
On 3 August, the former Celebrity Big Brother contestant “returned to his regular therapy sessions”, and the next day, when he attempted suicide, he “completed an intake call for an intensive outpatient program and was supposed to begin outpatient group therapy the following week.
“Later that same afternoon, our lives changed forever.”
Barbara – who lives in California but was visiting her family in Miami at the time – grew concerned when her brother didn’t respond to her attempts to check in and she was horrified when she found him.
She recalled: “August 4 will forever be one of the darkest days my family and I have ever experienced.
“That afternoon, Mario was in his bedroom with the door closed and locked, which wasn’t like him.
“When I knocked, he said he was fine, but I could barely hear him.
“After I knocked a few more times and asked him to open the door, he stopped responding. I tried calling his cellphone in case he couldn’t hear me, but he wouldn’t answer. Something just felt wrong.
“I unlocked his bedroom door and realised he was inside the bathroom. I knocked several more times and told him I was going to come in if he didn’t open the door. He still didn’t answer, so I unlocked it…
“When I opened the door, my nightmare became a reality. Mario was 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 recognise my brother when I looked at him. I saw it in his eyes. They didn’t look the same. Then, a split second later, he smiled at me. It felt like I was staring at someone else.”
Panicked, Barbara ran out of the bathroom and led her brother’s three children, Mario, 13, Mia, 11, and Mayte, eight, out of the house to her car before calling for help.
She said: “I left the room, grabbed the car keys and yelled for the kids to run to the car. Thankfully, our mom wasn’t home at the time, and I was able to get everyone out quickly.
“The first call I made was to the police. Then I messaged my best friend, who lives nearby, while I was on with dispatch, and asked her to please come get the kids and take them away from the scene…
“Eventually, I was able to go back into the house while I waited for the ambulance and place towels over Mario to help stop the bleeding. He had already lost a significant amount of blood, yet he was somehow still able to speak, although his voice was very faint.
“The ambulance took him to the hospital, and I stayed behind to speak with the crisis team that arrived.”
Although “much more happened” in the hours that followed her horrifying discovery, Barbara didn’t want to go into “many of the specific details” because they are “too painful, graphic and overwhelming.”
Perez Hilton recently sought hospital treatment for severe depression
