Perez Hilton and Beth Ditto Take Punk to the People

From the Vault: In the pre-Obama George Bush era, a fledgling gay icon slash gossip blogger and a plus size queer punk became the new D.I.Y. model

URB Est. 1990

Jun 16, 2023

Editor’s note: I’ve been stewing in the guilt of not posting anything for over a week as I emerge from a bit of writer’s block. In truth, this was less of a block than perhaps an affliction of clogged creative arteries brought on by a host of mental rabbit holing. Turns out, creating new life out of two decades and literally millions of words and images is a bit daunting. The fact is, I love the act of writing — and amplifying the myriad voices URB celebrated for 20 years. But the process is not without its ability to get me stuck, analyzing, and unsure as to where to spend my limited time and energy. So, please continue to hit that like button, drop a comment, and leave a note about what you want to see here. I truly appreciate every piece of input.

[Update: I went back and counted just now, and I’ve actually posted 24x times since our launch 11 weeks ago, which is about 2x per week. So, some of this “guilt” is perception more than reality. Going forward, I’m planning to post 1x per week but will aim for a second post on most weeks. As always, I appreciate you.]

To help unblock things this week, I was glad to enlist a little help from a longtime friend and colleague, URB’s former editor (2006-2010), Joshua Glazer. Josh runs a great Substack called

The Cadence

which summarizes and editorializes ideas and evolutions across music, tech, and brands. During URB’s tumultuous late-aughts period, Josh guided and debated (he’s especially good at that part) the magazine’s direction from staunch hip-hop and electronic outpost to hold a special place in indie (and blog era) culture. Under his tenure, we spilled copious ink on artists like LCD Soundsystem, Mark Ronson, and The Rapture, along with the first national magazine covers for Kid Cudi, Gnarls Barkley, and Janelle Monáe.

Josh was kind enough to record a few words of introduction below on his time with September/October 2007 cover stars Perez Hilton and Beth Ditto for “The D.I.Y. Issue” no. 149. He reflects on the very different political/social era these creators were challenging and how they represented a new DIY ~~renaissance~~ resistance. The wonderful photos are by Tony Stamolis and shot on location in Atlantic City with the help of our photo editor Leila Baboi. In the same issue, we also covered the Afro Punk Festival, Liars, Gaslamp Killer, Hot Dollar, No Age, and Flosstradamus. Lastly, let me know what you think of adding audio to future posts or who you’d want to hear from. Enjoy.

—Raymond

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Our September/October 2007 Cover Story

Watch Out for the Big Girls

By Joshua Glazer

Photography by Tony Stamolis / Produced by Leila Baboi

Beth Ditto and Perez Hilton are BFF forever. These two “fat,” “gay,” “freaks” are invading the culture with new school technology and a good old-fashioned punk rock ethos. And if that’s not D.I.Y., we don’t know what is...

Beth Ditto: Plus Size Punk Princess

Beth Ditto’s band, The Gossip, might not be a household name. But the openly gay girl from Arkansas and then Olympia, WA, has become a celebrity in her own right, dominating the UK tabloids while hanging out with friends like Kate Moss as her band slowly climbs the music industry ladder with hit remixes and sold-out shows. But this notoriety has come at a cost. While BFF Perez Hilton has championed Ditto’s fierce on-stage performances, much of the tabloid media has focused on her weight and her lifestyle more than her music. It’s a situation not helped by her tendency to undress in public. Which leaves Ditto facing the ultimate challenge, can her D.I.Y. punk credo protect her from the trappings of infamy? URB caught up with Ditto after a manic few days, enjoying a bath in her Pacific Northwest home.

URB: Are you working, or are you enjoying some time off?

Beth Ditto: I don’t really know what time off is, basically. I don’t sit down ever, ever, ever, ever.

Is that a new development from what’s been going on with the band?

I’ve always been a busy person with a lot of projects going on. Something like a zine. But now, I write a column for The Guardian in London. I have to get that done every two weeks, so I’m constantly working. So I’m not just writing for me anymore, I’m writing for money and other people.

It’s funny when you mention the zine thing. There seems to be a real home for it in the Pacific Northwest.

Absolutely. I have a friend who pretty much lives off her zine. She does workshops for the elderly, and she does workshops for kids. I don’t think you could do that anywhere else. Do magazine workshops and actually live off it. I’m really glad. I really enjoy zine culture for the most part because some of these are huge in the punk world. Like Punk Planet.

Punk Planet just closed, didn’t it?

I didn’t even know that! Well, that’s weird.

At the same time, someone like Perez Hilton, his site is really a zine for the most part.

Everybody says the blogs have taken over the zines. My sister, she’s 15, and she knows about bands immediately, and it’s really crazy to see that happen. It took so much to get Punk Planet to Arkansas, and that was only 10 years ago. And now it’s just like at the touch of a finger. Which is crazy.

Do you think a blog like Perez’s is punk?

Definitely. What I love about Perez is even if some people think he’s shady, he reminds me of all the fags I went to high school with. And who absolutely made my high school experience a wonderful thing. You know, that’s what I think is great about him. Just hanging out with him and feeling, “Oh my god, I already know you. I know you five times.” Not to say he’s not an original, but I have always felt a strong kinship with people like him. I think that the reason he gets hated on is his site isn’t always nice. It’s not always the sweetest thing. But you know Perez would never say anything completely fucked up or racist. I think that’s what it boils down to for me.

“That’s the thing about punk. If you did it right, you got made fun of a lot in your life.” — Beth Ditto

Perez might seem mean, but find a Johnny Rotten interview that wasn’t nasty.

Think about how much shit Siouxie Sioux got walking down the street before she got famous. That’s the thing about punk. If you did it right, you got made fun of a lot in your life. So when it comes to the mainstream getting made fun of, it’s like, “Yeah, so?” People love to hate. I met Yoko Ono, and she asked me, “Who is better off, the person who was nurtured, the person who was hated, or the person who was ignored?” I guessed the one who was nurtured, but she said, “No, the one that was hated.” Yoko fucking Ono said that! After that, I don’t give a fuck about anybody anymore. I have the people I love. I have the people I like. I have my reasons, and I don’t have to justify it.

You have this extraordinary situation where that attitude gained you notoriety.

One of the hardest things about it is that you can never convince people that you didn’t set out to do these things. Because to me, the ideal for me, career-wise, was Sleater-Kinney. Those were the people that we looked up to 15 years ago.

Very few bands sustain that sort of career.

Me and [The Gossip guitarist] Nathan [Howdeshell] were staying in a hotel room together. And he was like, “I get lonely on tour. And I feel like there’s no bands like us.” When you’re playing festivals in Europe, you’re around a lot of bands. But if you’re a woman in the band or if you’re Nathan, straight boys do not understand him. They’re there to play guitar and snort coke and fuck girls. And Nathan’s so far from that. When you’re walking backstage, there are all these different trailers that belong to every band. And there’s shitloads of bands just hanging out. But there’s certain dudes that won’t even look you in
the fucking eye. They are so unnerving. You can’t prepare yourself for that. I always think about Kurt Cobain — and I’m not saying we’re anywhere near the level of Nirvana — but I think that I know exactly what Kurt felt like now. I can’t imagine the fucking fuck-offs that tried to hang out with him and talk to him about shit. Not even the crowd, but certain people you meet, it’s like, you’re so scared. Everybody’s backstage talking about getting signed. Who cares!?!? That’s not how you start a band.

Do you think it’s less important to be signed now because there are so many other routes to get your music heard?

I think it depends on you and what your needs are. Other than to not have a fuckin’ day job. How many times can you work at the Subway for six months and hope they’ll let you back cuz you’ve been gone on tour for two months? Come back and work at Burger King for two weeks, then leave again. All we wanted was to not have to do that anymore. One day people were like, “If you did this, you can have this,” and money came up. And I said, “Wait a minute, does this mean I can save some money to go to beauty school? Fuck yeah, I’ll take it.” I have no qualms about that at all.

“I think that I know exactly what Kurt Cobain felt like now.” — Beth Ditto

PEREZ HILTON: Big Mouth Strikes Again

Perez Hilton isn’t just a celebrity blogger. He’s a serious cultural force. Love him or hate him, at 7 million clicks a day, his infiltration into people’s daily lives is something most media outlets would die for. And more impressive is the fact that he does it all from a Wi-Fi connection in a West Hollywood coffee shop. Perez’s bread and butter might be the glossy celebs that get stripped bare on his sometimes scathing, occasionally sweet, and always amusing site. But his championing of underdogs such as Beth Ditto stems from a true support for the underground and a kinship for “loud, obnoxious, and openly gay” individuals, like the blogger himself.

URB: When we first reached out to you, you said you sent resumés to URB at some point. Did you want to be a music journalist?

Perez Hilton: I was working as a journalist but mainly freelancing for a lot of the gay publications. And it wasn’t floating my boat. Some of it was cool. I would actively pitch stories — “I want to talk to this person or that person.” I would occasionally have the opportunity to speak to Peaches or speak to Rufus Wainwright, but a lot of the time, they were like, “No. Go interview this local gay businessman or that politician.” My interest has always been entertainment, specifically music, so I would’ve been really happy pursuing a career in music journalism. And now I’m able to be somewhat involved in music and hopefully more involved, and it’s kind of all come full circle.

What was it about Beth that made you go, “She’s awesome. I want to put her on my site,” even though she’s not necessarily the traffic-driving celebrity?

The great thing about what I do is I can write about whomever I want. I don’t have an editor telling me what I can or cannot say. That’s really liberating. I’m just drawn to naturally talented people, and she’s ferociously talented. I’ve always been drawn to the outsiders because I consider myself the freak. I think she is, too. It’s really inspiring to me to know that she and I, in our own ways, have managed to infiltrate the mainstream while still being true to ourselves.

Tell me about when you were a kid. You were raised in Miami.

The Cuban ghetto. I’ve always loved music. My first concert, when I was six, was Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine. She’s like Cuban royalty. And for the final encore, she did “Conga,” and she invited people onstage. I went running up and did the conga with her at six years old. And it was at that time that I knew I wanted to be an entertainer — I entertain people online.

You probably entertain more people during the day than any of the celebrity entertainers you deal with.

I have a very special relationship with my readers. I love them. I appreciate. I respect my readers. I don’t look down upon them. We talk in shorthand. They’re smart.

That direct communication is really what people expect these days.

Do it yourself. I never could have imagined that any of this would be possible. When I first started, it was my little blog. I did it for fun because it seemed easy. If it would have seemed really difficult, I probably wouldn’t have done it. Anyone can sign up, click a few buttons, customize your template, and, within minutes, you’re online communicating to the rest of the world. That was so inspiring to me and creative and liberating and great. I just did it for fun, but I was always really committed and took it seriously. Even from the very beginning, I was always consistent, and I updated my Web site every single day. And mine was different. Before me, a lot of blogs were very first person. I didn’t want to talk about myself because I’m boring. I wanted to talk about celebrities because they’re crazy.

“If blogging would have seemed really difficult, I probably wouldn’t have done it.” — Perez Hilton

Do you remember what your first post was?

My very first post was about Howard Stern. I was driving into work that day, and I was listening to him, and he said something that pissed me off, and I reacted to it. The second post was about Melissa Etheridge getting a TV deal to do a sitcom, and I was offering up my suggestions on what it should be instead of what it actually was. But then it never came to be; she got cancer shortly after... It never happened. And then, that’s that.

What does the job of PerezHilton.com entail?

It entails getting very little sleep and working very hard. I usually get up around 4:30 AM because I have to be on East Coast time, and I just start scouring the Internet to see what’s out there, what interests me, while following up on emails and text messages and calls and IMs that I get from friends and sources — just producing a lot of content. One of the reasons for my success in the most basic of levels is that I work harder than anyone else. I produce more content than any of the other blogs out there. Even some of the big websites that are owned by corporations that have a staff of dozens of people. I do it all myself. And this week, I set a new record. On Tuesday, I had 7.1 million page views on my site.

Technology evolves so fast. Does it concern you that in five years, people are gonna say, “Oh, yeah, that old blog,” when they hear of Perez Hilton?

I will hopefully change with the times and adapt and grow. My three-year plan is to have a staff. I already update it enough as it is, but then I could update it even more, constantly update the site 24 hours a day. It’ll be insane. I already have a global audience, and I appreciate the fact that my readers come from all over the world. So no matter where you are, at some point, there’s always people on my site, and they can just keep coming back constantly.

Will you be running it? I’m sure you’ve gotten offers to sell.

No, I haven’t gotten a single offer. Maybe they’re afraid to buy me. I dunno.