In March this year, openly gay celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton, who built his cruel empire on crude photoshopped doodles on faces, relentless body-shaming, outing people, and gleeful pile-ons, had a dramatic public conversion to Christianity after a severe case of sepsis left him on death’s doorstep. Hilton claimed he encountered God in the hospital and vowed to change his wicked ways, including ceasing his mean-spirited tabloiding, reading the Bible, taking his three children to church, and being a more present father.
Tragically last week, Hilton was hospitalized after a TikTok livestream captured him naked and covered in blood while self-harming. Thousands of people witnessed the gruesome spectacle before TikTok shut down the live stream.
The questions immediately began pouring in. Was this the lingering fallout from his recent sepsis battle? Was he under spiritual attack? Is he suffering from mental illness?
On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie Beth Stuckey examines whether Perez Hilton’s disturbing live stream was a mental health crisis or a case of demonic possession.
Many Christians speculate that Hilton’s self-harming was due to demonic possession. Allie acknowledges this possibility — but only if Hilton’s conversion was not genuine. If he is truly indwelled by the Holy Spirit, then demonic possession is not in the cards, she argues.
But from what she’s seen of Hilton in the months since his public conversion, Allie isn’t certain he really understands the gospel.
She highlights his continued celebration of his gay identity, his comment from a recent post claiming that he “[doesn’t] believe in everything that the Bible says,” and his new line of spiritual-themed merchandise as “red flags.”
Further, self-harm, Allie admits, is a “hallmark” of true demonic possession in the Bible.
“I don’t think that this means that it is always demonic possession, but it seems that when a demon is possessing someone, there is violence done to their bodies,” she says, citing Mark 9, where Jesus heals a demon-possessed boy who kept throwing himself into fire and water, and Mark 5, where Jesus healed a man possessed by legions of demons who cut himself with stones.
While Allie acknowledges that no one knows for certain what really happened to Perez Hilton that horrible night, the circumstances do seem to fit the biblical description of demonic possession.
“The Perez Hilton live stream looks more like demonic possession. … As soon as I saw the description of it, it reminded me of the man walking among the tombs who was cutting himself with the stones every day who was possessed by Legion,” she says.
If it’s true that he was indeed possessed by a demon, then Allie believes Hilton was never saved to begin with.
“Scripture has repeated serious warnings about those who claim to have accepted Christ as their savior but persist in this kind of unrepentant sin. … That unrepentant attitude of stubbornness of ‘This is my identity. This is how I’m going to live. I know what the Bible says. I don’t care. I am my own authority’ — the Holy Spirit is not going to allow you to continue in that if He lives in you,” she argues.
She then reads from Hebrews 10:26-27: “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.”
“I think that we can say in confidence the Holy Spirit is not living inside [Perez Hilton]. He doesn’t have the fruit of the Spirit, and we want that for him,” says Allie, urging her audience to pray for him and his children.
To hear more, watch the episode above.
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