The Words in Red

Perez Hilton is a Hollywood blogger who was massive in the early 2000s. We grew up reading his blogs about celebrities. Before smartphones with cameras were everywhere, he was our bridge into celebrity gossip.

I’d even say he’s partly why I find so much journalism today so bland.

That probably sounds strange considering what he’s known for.

I remember reading his blogs and thinking he was either lying or just mean. He didn’t seem to care about the people he wrote about. He represented them in the most vicious way possible. One that, thankfully, hasn’t really been topped.

He made a fortune off humiliation.

So he was low.

Real low.

But it’s 2026, and Perez Hilton is trending for a completely different reason.

Think of the worst thing you can imagine someone doing live on camera.

According to reports, he somehow managed to top it.

He was live on TikTok, completely naked, covered in blood from his face down to his legs, from cutting himself with a knife. Presumably trying to take his own life, calling himself a parasite.

People who witnessed the livestream have almost universally given the same warning: don’t go looking for it. There isn’t enough curiosity in the world to justify seeing it.

I almost searched for it myself.

Then I watched a YouTuber, visibly shaken, beg people not to. Reddit was saying the same thing. Every account I came across had one message: don’t watch it.

Thankfully, viewers called emergency services, and authorities intervened.

He’s now in the hospital receiving treatment.

But this isn’t really about Perez Hilton.

It’s about us.

More specifically, it’s about those of us who proclaim, “Christ is King.”

I understand why many people struggle to sympathize with Perez. He built his career on other people’s pain. Teenagers like Miley Cyrus. Britney Spears during one of the darkest periods of her life. Khloé Kardashian’s appearance.

The list goes on.

None of that disappears.

But when someone reaches what is, for most of us, an unimaginable low, what is gained by withholding grace?

Instead, I watched some Christians turn this into another opportunity to preach morality.

Why?

If your hands are stretched toward him, shouldn’t they be stretched out to help?

Shouldn’t this be the moment for encouragement?

For prayer?

For compassion?

The justification I keep hearing is that we must always tell the truth.

Okay.

Let’s talk about truth.

What is truth?

In a postmodern world, a world many of these same Christians rightly criticize, truth has become little more than personal opinion.

But simply pointing at a broken man and saying, “Look how broken he is,” isn’t truth either.

Truth is reality as it is.

And reality always asks something of us.

When I read the words in red, that’s exactly what I see.

Christ bore witness to reality.

When people were hungry, He fed them.

When they were sick, He healed them.

The blind received their sight.

The lame walked.

When the sea terrified His disciples, He calmed it.

When Satan tempted Him to turn stones into bread, He refused.

When the crowd demanded His death, He gave up His spirit.

The response always matched the moment.

That’s what strikes me most.

Christ wasn’t mechanical.

He was perfectly faithful to what each moment required.

That’s why I think one theme runs through everything He did.

Restoration.

You encountered Christ, and something broken was being made whole.

That’s the consciousness of truth.

Truth isn’t merely saying the correct thing.

It’s recognizing what reality requires and responding with faithfulness.

So when I see Christians, people who have built entire platforms around proclaiming “Christ is King,” respond to a man at his absolute lowest with little more than moral commentary, I struggle to understand it.

What’s worse than what Perez Hilton is going through right now?

I honestly can’t think of many things.

So why pile on?

Not every moment is an opportunity to preach morality.

Sometimes the most moral thing you can do is practice it.

Anyone can talk.

Anyone can judge.

Christ would have given him what he needed to begin restoring what had collapsed.

Right now, that looks like grace.

Grace doesn’t erase Perez Hilton’s past.

It doesn’t erase the people he hurt.

It doesn’t erase consequences.

But grace can become part of healing.

Not just for him.

For all of us.

The same man who spent years becoming a vehicle for shame has now, in one of the darkest moments of his life, become an opportunity for the rest of us to become vehicles of grace.

That’s what I see in the words in red.

Truth isn’t a statue.

Reality isn’t a statue.

The world changes.

People change.

Circumstances change.

The truth remains, but love faithfully responds to what the present moment calls for.

The world is already on fire.

Blood is being spilled across the globe in the name of God and country.

The last thing we need is more callousness.

As for Perez Hilton, may he find comfort in his healing.

May the best possible outcome grow from this terrible ordeal.

And may all of us find the grace this moment is asking of us.