"Whether you love him or hate him, there's no denying that Perez Hilton - aka Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr. - has Hollywood by the balls with his constantly updated, hilarious and often vicious celebrity-gossip blog, PerezHilton.com.
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MW: Didn't you tell Howard Stern the blog originally had something to do with Clay Aiken?
Hilton: Well that's the reason I stopped using my [real] name: I started getting death threats from Clay Aiken fans.
MW: Serious death threats?
Hilton: Serious to the point where they started two hate Web sites against me. They put up my home address, my home phone number, [and] a picture of my apartment building. That's pretty hardcore, I would say.
MW: What were you saying about Clay Aiken that set them off?
Hilton: Just that he's gay. He's repeatedly denied it.
MW: Why do you think it's okay to out people?
Hilton: Because I'm not doing anything differently than what you do with your friends. I'm sure when you talk to your friends, and when you talk about Clay Aiken, you talk about his being a big queen.
I view the Web site like I'm talking to my friends. I'm not making anything up. And also, I only like to say someone is definitely gay when I know that they definitely are. I probably was the first person to talk about Wentworth Miller being gay, and that's because he is. He's denied it, but that's okay. His ex-boyfriend, Luke Macfarlane, just came out of the closet.
MW: Why is it so important to you?
Hilton: There's definitely power in numbers. And also the more there are being openly gay, the less of a stigma is attached to being openly gay and the less fear there is around it.
There are so many closeted lesbian and gay actors and celebrities -- and most of them are afraid to come out because they're afraid it's going to hurt their careers. I don't believe that. I don't think it's going to hurt their careers. I know that it's not going to hurt their careers. In the past it may have been a different story, but I can't think of a single case in the last five years where someone has come out of the closet and it's hurt their career. In fact, it helps."
Source: Article Gossip Whirl from Metro Weekly