Snarky celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton has promised that he's going to be a nice guy from now on.
No more calling Jennifer Aniston " Maniston." No more outing celebrities.
Hilton made the promise yesterday during an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show and in a video on his site.
"I'm going to do things differently on my website than I have in the past. I'm not going to call people nasty nicknames. I'm not going to go the mean route. I'm going to force myself to be funnier or smarter," Hilton told DeGeneres.
Why the change of heart? Hilton, who is openly gay, says it is because of recent incidents such as the death of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide last month after being the victim of cyberbullying.
"I don't want to be a bully. I don't want to be called a bully," Hilton says in the video on his site.
The 32-year-old blogger, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, came under fire recently for speaking out against bullying gay teens, with some accusing him of being a hypocrite.
In the past, Hilton has led the charge to out celebrities, including former 'N Sync singer Lance Bass and actor Neil Patrick Harris.
But the blogger now says he is intent on changing his ways.
"From now on I really want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem," he said to DeGeneres.
But having built an empire on snark, can Hilton stick to his promise?
For now, Hilton says it's better to be kind than to be popular.
"Will my traffic go down?" he asks in the video. "If it does, I don't care, because I'm growing. I'm going to challenge myself to be better at what I do and I hope that you will stay with me."
Dave McGinn