Barbara Lavandeira, the younger sister of celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, has recounted the distressing moment she found him seriously injured during a mental health crisis at his Miami home.

Hilton, whose real name is Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., was hospitalised on 4 August after police received several emergency calls concerning a disturbing TikTok livestream.

His family later confirmed that the 48-year-old was taken involuntarily to a facility for mental health examination under Florida’s Baker Act.

Barbara said Hilton had locked himself inside his bedroom that afternoon, which was unusual because he typically kept the door open.

She knocked and initially received a faint response from him, but he stopped answering when she repeatedly asked him to open the door.

After receiving no response to her telephone calls, she unlocked the bedroom and discovered that he had also locked himself inside the bathroom.

Barbara said she entered after warning him repeatedly that she would unlock the door.

She found her brother seriously injured and bleeding.

“I didn’t recognize my brother when I looked at him. I saw it in his eyes. They didn’t look the same,” she said.

Barbara immediately left the room, collected her car keys and rushed Hilton’s three children out of the house.

She called 911 once the children were safely inside the car and contacted a friend who lived nearby to remove them from the scene while she spoke with emergency personnel.

Barbara declined to reveal several details of the incident, describing them as too painful, graphic and overwhelming to discuss publicly.

The family subsequently disclosed that Hilton suffered significant blood loss and sustained injuries requiring surgery.

They said his communication had been severely restricted to close relatives, medical professionals and others directly involved in his care.

The family warned that his treatment and recovery would be a lengthy process and asked the public to disregard unauthorised reports about his condition.

Following his hospitalisation, Hilton’s mother, Teresita Lavandeira, filed a petition in a Miami family court on 7 August seeking temporary custody of his three children.

She also requested that the case records be sealed to protect the children’s privacy. The court reportedly accepted the sealing request.

Her lawyer, Natalie F. Guerra-Valdes, said the family’s priority was to protect the children, ensure their safety and restore some normality as they recovered from the traumatic incident.