Barbara Lavandeira, the younger sister of celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, has described the frightening moment she found him seriously injured during a mental health crisis at his Miami home.
Hilton, whose real name is Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., was hospitalised on 4 August after police received several emergency calls concerning a disturbing TikTok livestream.
Barbara said her brother had locked himself inside his bedroom that afternoon. The behaviour immediately worried her because he normally left the door open.
She knocked and initially received a faint response, but Hilton stopped answering when she repeatedly asked him to open the door.
Barbara also attempted to reach him by telephone before unlocking the bedroom. She then discovered that he had locked himself inside the bathroom.
After receiving no further response, she entered and found her brother seriously injured and bleeding.
“I didn’t recognize my brother when I looked at him. I saw it in his eyes. They didn’t look the same,” she said.
Barbara avoided publicly describing several details of the incident because she considered them too graphic and emotionally overwhelming.
She immediately collected the car keys and moved Hilton’s three children out of the house.
Once the children were safely inside the vehicle, she called emergency services and asked a nearby friend to take them away from the scene.
Perez Hilton’s mother seeks temporary custody of his children
Hilton’s family later confirmed that authorities took the 48-year-old involuntarily to a facility for mental health examination under Florida’s Baker Act.
The law permits an individual believed to be experiencing a serious mental health crisis to undergo an involuntary examination when specific safety conditions are met.
The family said Hilton suffered significant blood loss and sustained injuries requiring surgery.
His communication was subsequently restricted to close relatives, medical professionals and people directly involved in his treatment.
They warned that his recovery would be lengthy and asked the public to disregard unofficial or inaccurate claims about his condition.
Following the hospitalisation, Hilton’s mother, Teresita Lavandeira, filed a petition in a Miami family court on 7 August seeking temporary custody of his three children.
She also requested that the case records be sealed to protect the children’s privacy. The court accepted the sealing request.
Her lawyer, Natalie F. Guerra-Valdes, said the family’s immediate objective was to ensure the children were safe and help them regain some normality while recovering from the traumatic experience.
Anyone in the United States experiencing a mental health crisis or thoughts of self-harm can call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
