Short Hills Woman Gives Celebrities Their 'Revenge'

Liz Silver is used to being the one behind the scenes with celebrity news, but her Web site has been thrust into the limelight because of a lawsuit.

The Short Hills resident is the mastermind behind PerezRevenge.com, a Web site which devotes itself to the rights of celebrities by giving them a venue to respond to allegations made against them in the media.

There has been "enormous traffic" to her celebrity-rumor-busting Web site, she said, particularly over the past few days—in no small part because of developments in her ongoing legal battle with pot-stirrer Mario Lavandeira, better known as Perez Hilton.

Last Thursday, Lavandeira won a default judgment in California against Silver, enjoining her from using the name "PerezRevenge" for her anti-celebrity-gossip Web site. Silver's attorney will be filing papers in New York and California on Monday to demand that the judgment be vacated. 

Are celebrities’ rights really a pressing issue? To Silver, the answer is yes.

Her site started from a fortuitous conversation. Last year, Silver attended a Jerry Seinfeld cancer benefit, and, after the event, went to a VIP lounge to listen to the Bacon brothers. She happened to be sitting next to Dina Lohan, mother of the tabloid-notorious Lindsay Lohan, and the women started talking.

“Dina is nothing like the person the press portrays,” Silver recounted. “She is one of the sweetest, warmest people I have ever met, and we just hit it off.  Dina was talking about the rumors that were printed, and the damage the articles caused to her family on a personal level.

“We talked about ways to fight the lies,” Silver remembered.  “She told me that it was impossible, and that she simply was at a point where the best she could hope for was a little damage control every once and a while.”

On the way home from the event, Silver spoke with a friend and came up with an idea: Create a Web site where celebrities could “fight back” against tabloid reporters and paparazzi. And hence, PerezRevenge.com was born.

“We started believing that if we simply told the celebs, agents and publicists what we had built for them—a forum for them to stand united, and to fight the yellow journalism—that they would simply do that,” Silver said. “We were naïve, but 10 months from that time, I do have just what they want—a Web site that gives back to Hollywood and the music industry all the control they lost, and the power to tell the public what they want the public to hear and to control the lies.”

With no advertising other than word of mouth through Silver's attending red-carpet events and social media like Twitter, Silver’s audience pull has been tremendous. In April, there were 116,700 unique visitors to the site, and nearly 7.7 million hits from April 1- 27.

News tips come from Web sites and news feeds, MySpace and Facebook pages, Twitter and e-mails from readers, celebrities, companies, attorneys and industry people. All information, naturally, is confirmed before printing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, responses from celebrities have been quite positive.

Silver, who had never read much celebrity journalism prior to starting her site, said it never occurred to her how damaging such journalism could be to its subjects.

“From what I hear in e-mails and comments, the public that reads these sites don't realize the negative or damaging impact these rumors have,” Silver said. “I still read ‘they're celebrities, it comes with the job.’ Personally, that is the most ridiculous and disturbing excuse I hear for why it’s okay to be mean and hurtful. They are not my rabbi or priest, they are not my politician or teacher. They are actors or performers, and once they exit the stage or the camera stops rolling, they are done being judged or critiqued.”

The work hasn’t been without its pitfalls. Lavandeira took issue with his "name" being used in the name of Silver’s site, and three months after she started, sued her for cybersquatting, the idea that her Web site could be mistaken as his.

In the meantime, Silver has plans to change the site to rPulse.com, which is almost finished in a beta model. rPulse.com, as Silver envisions it, will be “the ultimate Hollywood and music industry Web site that will have celebrity news 24/7 that is confirmed. Celebrities, movie studies and record labels will contribute to the information as well as have the ability to refute gossip, launch new music, preview movies.

“Picture a virtual mall that houses all of those industries, as well as portals for the public to enter, view and interact with celebrities and the content,” Silver said, describing her vision for rPulse.com. "The industry will have a secure area that will be its own social media center, much like a Twitter, but completely verified and secure.  The public will be able to see the public timeline from the celebs, as well as to interact through a secure firewall. The celebs will be able to communicate with each other privately or publicly.”

For the time being, Silver may be building a Hollywood of the Internet, but she plans to keep doing it from Short Hills.

"I happen to love so much about Short Hills that I do not see the need to move west yet," she said.