How Perez Hilton Achieved a Net Worth of $20 Million
When Perez Hilton was 33, he hoped to retire by the time he turned 35. He said he needed to prepare for the worst-case scenarios, which meant having enough money to live on for at least five years. Things did not go his way, and the single father of two is more active than ever trying to provide for his family. He works so hard, and his efforts have yielded fruits. Hilton is a renowned celebrity blogger; when he started his blog, the first Google AdSense earned him $5. Perez Hilton’s net worth is now at $20 million, and here is how he has grown it.
Love for Acting
In 2017, Eyewitness News published that Hilton was launching his acting career. He was bent on becoming the actor he had always dreamed of as a child and was attending several auditions. Unfortunately, he encountered lots of rejections, although the auditions were for small-screen roles. At the time, Hilton disclosed he was in Los Angeles for the pilot season, hoping to land several roles. He said he had not booked anything but for him, even getting the chance to audition alongside renowned actors was already a huge win. The goal of becoming an actor started with plays in high school. He attended Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami and established a love for theater. Hilton began dreaming of one day being in a sitcom. Thanks to watching “Will & Grace,” he envisioned himself as a gay best friend or a wacky next-door neighbor. When the blogger moved to New York City to study acting at the New York University, his love for theater deepened as he was exposed to different shows that he watched for free or at an affordable fee. While in college, he never went on stage, but in 2012, he made his New York stage debut after joining the cast of “NEWSical,” a Broadway musical.
Landing TV and Radio Deals
By 2015, he had ventured into reality television when he joined “Celebrity Big Brother.” Hilton claimed to be the highest-paid housemate on the show but insisted he was not in it for the money; instead, he wanted to show the world his true self. However, the tune changed when in 2016, Hilton said he turned down an invitation to be on “Celebrity Big Brother: All-Stars vs. New Stars” because the Channel 5 bosses refused to double his fee. According to Mirror, the celebrity blogger had signed a £150,000 deal to be on the reality show. He was, therefore, demanding £300,000 to be cast again. He still used his background in acting to land guest-starring roles in “Glee” and “Hot in Cleveland,” but these were far from his ambitions. Lead actors like Lea Michele and Chris Colfer pocket $45,000 per episode, so Hilton must have received a fraction of this figure. In 2011, he disclosed that his dream scenario was partnering with a media conglomerate like NBC Universal or Fox to have his own TV show. Hilton landed a hosting job on VH1’s “The Gossip Table” in 2015 and a radio deal with Australia’s Nova Network. He also was on “Worst Cooks in America” season 11. Some sources reveal that non-finalists on a broadcast competition show can earn $15,000-$30,000 while finalists pocket $50,000 -$1 million per season. His efforts have paid off because, in 2021, he announced he was beyond thrilled to have his own show.
Starting His Gossip Blog
It took a long time before Hilton would accomplish his acting dreams. That is not to say he lay there waiting for it to happen; he is ambitious and took to blogging. According to Latino USA, Hilton spent his childhood in front of the television. When he went to college, celebrity gossip magazines captivated him, so Hilton started making cutouts and creating colleges. He turned the physical collages into digital ones when he started his blog, perezhilton.com. It is said that the moniker, Perez Hilton, came from the celebrity observing a table reserved for Paris Hilton. He soon discovered that the Hilton heiress was not going to the clubs, but it was a marketing ploy to attract more people. Therefore, he once told his friends that although Paris Hilton was not going to the club, perhaps “Perez Hilton” was. From that instant, the moniker became his new identity.
In 2005 while living in Los Angeles and hoping to become a Hollywood star, Hilton started his gossip blog. According to BBC, the blogger did not have internet in his apartment; therefore, he would visit The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf to use their free Wi-Fi. His love for celebrity news saw him writing what was considered ugly news about celebrities, and soon, it was dubbed the most hated website in Hollywood. He started with 20,000 views a month and grew to over 8 million hits a day, and he did his part constantly updating the content. For instance, in 2007, when Lindsay Lohan was arrested for DUI, Hilton updated his site 60 times a day. However, some of the news he posted got him heavy backlash, and the one he most regrets is blogging about Fidel Castro’s death when he had not yet died. The site was raking in money since Hilton charged $9,000 per week for brands to advertise. According to Wired, in 2008, the ads on his site fetched him up to $54,000 per day. With over 198 million monthly pageviews, he was earning millions in a year. He also diversified to have his own podcast, Perez Hilton Podcast (PHP), which debuted in 2015. Hilton is also the proud author of four books. He even launched a fashion blog, CoCoPerez, to focus on fashion, magazines, models, and celebrities. The celebrity blogger knows how to create wealth, and with his determination to give his children the best life, Hilton will look for other ways to increase his net worth.
