So Much For The Kinder, Gentler Perez Hilton

So here’s how Perez Hilton’s weekend ended: The gossip blogger ended up punched in the face and bleeding outside a Toronto club around 3 a.m., after calling singer Will.I.Am a “gay… fag.” So much for a new, nicer Hilton.

There’s already been an arrested in connection with the incident. Toronto police have charged 36-year-old American Molina Liborio with assault in the case. This sounds like Will.I.Am’s manager, known as “Polo Molina,” who Hilton had fingered as the man who punched him and who had previously turned himself in to Toronto cops, according to TMZ.

The attack occurred shortly after Will.I.Am repeatedly demanded Hilton stop writing about him and Hilton, by his own account, called him “gay” and a “faggot” to get under his skin.

Which, honestly, is the sort of over-the-top hissy fit anyone would expect from the Perez Hilton, Scourge of the Internet. That Perez Hilton is so shameless his brand is practically bulletproof; he runs sex pictures of a beloved gay icon and people barely bat an eyelash.

But Hilton’s been trying to overhaul his image and turn more nice and advertiser-friendly. Which makes it unfortunate, for him, that he’s talking defensively about his own meanness in the widely-viewed video (above) about this incident, which he also documented on Twitter (below).

Although Hilton’s demolished his image rehabilitation, he can take solace that nothing he ever does will ever destroy his brand as the web’s most shameless gossip. Still, Will.I.Am still looks worse here, for managing to underline Hilton’s (shudder) clout as a music critic and writer with an angry confrontation. Can we somehow conjure sympathy for the guy who called someone else “gay” and “a fag” in a tawdry nightclub fight? Yes, apparently, we can.