Gossip columnist Perez Hilton probably hoped for bigger crowds and better buzz for his inaugural North American tour of up-and-coming musical acts. But the three-and-a-half week trek ended on a high note on Saturday as upwards of a thousand people showed up at the Avalon Hollywood theater to check out the vibrant lineup of would-be superstars.

Numbers may have been boosted by the addition of a not-so-secret mystery headliner, indie rock band The Gossip, who are probably better known internationally. The other performers on the final stop of the “Perez Hilton Presents” club tour included the B-52s-like rock band Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head, English singer/songwriter Julian Perretta, the glam-rock New York band Semi Precious Weapons, and usual headliner New Zealand dance-pop-rock starlet Ladyhawke (pictured at left).

And, of course, the excitable Hilton drew loud shrieks from his core demographic of young women packed into the front rows each time he took the stage to introduce the next act. “I have this little gossip site, but music is really my passion,” he said at one point. “This is a dream of mine.”

Whether the dream will yield a second tour is questionable. The trek drew modest crowds, and tickets for some of the all-ages gigs were given away. Tickets for the Hollywood show could be bought at the window for $25, down from the advertised day-of-sale rate of $31. Norwegian singer Ida Maria, one of the headliners, dropped out after a week claiming “total exhaustion.”

It also passed under the radar of the music industry, whose denizens are neither enamored of Hilton’s day job nor thrilled that he landed his own label at Warner Music Group. Hilton was aware that his stamp of approval could backfire on the artists, telling the Seattle Weekly that “if you love Ladyhawke, you shouldn’t let your dislike for me get in the way from coming to the show. Just get over it. It’s not about me.”

On the other hand, the promoters did seem to keep costs down, judging by the fact that many of the artists set up their own equipment. Ladyhawke (a.k.a. Pip Brown) recounted that she had driven 8,000 miles in a van with both her bandmates and with Semi Precious Weapons. Presumbly Ladyhawke and Semi Precious Weapons’ cross-dressing frontman Justin Tranter had plenty of time to swap makeup tips and pantyhose tricks.

Octogenarian poet Maya Angelou was alive and well on Sunday, despite the dire overnight reports of online gossip site TMZ and a panicked army of Twitter followers. 

TMZ reported on Saturday night that the prolific writer was hospitalized earlier in the evening ahead of a scheduled appearance at an awards show in Los Angeles. The report spread like wildfire through cyberspace, and Angelou became the top trending topic on Twitter as anguished members of the microblogging site passed around the news. Some morbid scribes added an “R.I.P.” for good measure.

The only problem is that 81-year-old Angelou was not ill, and was nowhere near Los Angeles. She was about 1,800 miles away in her hometown of St. Louis.

TMZ updated its story on Sunday to say that Angelou was never scheduled to appear at the event. It blamed the erroneous report on event organizers, saying that someone had told one of its cameramen that Angelou was a no-show because she had been hospitalized.

The online gossip community has had a mixed track record with recent deaths and mishaps. The emergence of Twitter means that such reports now get amplified. TMZ got the worldwide scoop on the death of Michael Jackson in June, but wrongly reported the following month that former UFC superstar Kimo Leopoldo had died. Last month, gossip columnist Perez Hilton claimed that former Charlie’s Angels star Jaclyn Smith had tried to commit suicide. It appeared to be a case of mistaken identity. Hilton also suggested in 2007 that Fidel Castro had died.

Former “Charlie’s Angels” star Jaclyn Smith did not shoot herself in Honduras, despite gossip columnist Perez Hilton’s claim to the contrary on Tuesday.

Hilton created an international incident after he sent out a Twitter message: “OMG! Jaclyn Smith suicide attempt! Tragic news! She’s in critical condition! Details coming ASAP!” 
    
His source was a Honduran newspaper that later appeared to correct its initial report to say that rather than Smith, the victim was a woman who played her stunt double.
    
Smith quickly took to Facebook and Twitter to calm the masses: “Jaclyn is safe and home with her family. She is not in Honduras. It is a lie.”
    
Hilton, who once reported that Fidel Castro had died, took a lot of heat on Twitter, with the word “douche” cropping up frequently.

Disappointed that Ozzy Osbourne pulled the plug on his annual hard-rock festival Ozzfest this year? Maybe a new package tour organized by gossip columnist Perez Hilton will help fill the vacuum. Or not. 
     
The so-called “queen of all media” says he has lined up “the hottest acts on the planet — from all over the world!” to tour North America, beginning Sept. 10 in Atlanta, Ga.

“Perez Hilton Presents…” — with an initial lineup featuring Norwegian rock musician Ida Maria, New Zealand singer/songwriter Ladyhawke and the British pair of electropop artist Frankmusik and singer/songwriter Julian Perretta, runs through Oct. 3 in Los Angeles, he revealed on his blog Tuesday.

Other stops on the club trek include Boston (Sept. 14), New York City (Sept. 16) and San Francisco (Sept. 30). Tickets start going on sale on Thursday.

Hilton, the recent subject of a glowing profile in the Los Angeles Times, is already dipping his toes into the music industry through an imprint at Warner Music Group. His blog postings and Twitter messages often sing the praises of such acts as Katy Perry and Lady Gaga (not to mention Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys). 
     
One act that likely won’t appear is the Black Eyed Peas. Hilton got into a mild contretemps with the group’s road manager in Toronto last June following an exchange of angry words with singer will.i.am. He is suing the road manager, who was charged with assault by the Toronto police.

Back on Sunday, “Waiting on the World to Change” singer John Mayer intimated on his Twitter page that he was looking to take a break from the social networking website for people with short attention spans.

“Suffering cerebral atrophy,” Mayer wrote. “Since I’ve been communicating in short pulses, I’ve been writing lyrics the same way.”

In a follow-up post, Mayer added: “The single-serve idea is killing my writing. Laying off a little in the coming weeks. Need books, thoughts, a sequence of ideas that build.”

All well and good. After all, communicating with your fans in 140 characters or less can be limiting. But then Mayer followed that pair of Sunday posts with a number of new Twitter updates.

Mayer is reportedly at work on a new album. So on Monday he wrote “Doing vocal warmups, trying to simulate that 1am singing vibe in the afternoon.”

Later in the day, he described the catch-a-butterfly feeling of trying to compose a song with the barest elements of it wafting around in his head. Then on Tuesday came these words of wisdom: “Writer’s block cure: accept temporary suckage.”

Since then, at least a dozen Twitter posts have appeared on Mayer’s page, including musings about a hummingbird and a statement about the disturbing use of the hardcore drug crystal meth by youths.

So much for Mayer’s pledge to lay off Twitter. Can the world expect the sound of silence to reign sometime soon from the Twitterific pop star? Who knows.

Mayer is one of the most frequent celebrity users of Twitter, and in recent months he has mocked celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, faked a friend’s trip to the hospital and hinted he was buying an engagement ring for then girlfriend Jennifer Aniston (they have since broken up).  Good times.

And even if Mayer can’t keep quiet on Twitter, when he played guitar at the Michael Jackson memorial this month he respectfully did it without singing, earning a few kind words from critics.

In a sign of how controversial Miss California’s campaign against gay marriage has become, the organizers of the Miss California pageant say they have been targeted from both gay rights advocates and foes of same-sex unions, with the former slamming them for not denouncing their tiara-holder Carrie Prejean more forcefully and the latter targeting them for distancing themselves from the comments at all.

“We’ve gotten it from both sides,” the openly gay Keith Lewis, co-executive director of the Miss California pageant, told Reuters.

Organizers of the Miss California pageant are likely to have their phone ringing even more now, after Lewis went on CBS program “The Early Show” on Friday and said that before the Miss USA pageant, in which Prejean finished second, his group helped her get breast implants in an attempt to propel her to the Miss USA crown, as had been reported earlier this week.

“The Early Show” co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez asked Lewis, “Can you settle this once and for all? Did you pay for or help pay for Miss California’s breast implants?”

“We assisted when Carrie came to us and voiced the interest in having the procedure done, yes,” Lewis responded.

Lewis had previously told Reuters that his group only supported Prejean’s decision to have the surgery, and he would not say who paid for it.

Regardless of who paid, the fact that Lewis and model Shanna Moakler, co-executive director of Miss California, have talked about Prejean’s surgery on TV points to how much of a rift has emerged between them and Miss California, after she said in response to a question during the Miss USA pageant that she did not agree with gay marriage. The Miss California pageant organizers have also criticized Prejean’s comments in media statements, but they have stopped short of saying they would strip her of her Miss California crown.

Still, the rebuke that the 21-year-old Prejean has received from the pageant backers pales in comparison to what gay celebrity blogger Perez Hilton said about her. It was Hilton, who as a judge at the Miss USA pageant, asked Prejean the question about gay marriage that has made her a hero to many conservatives, and the scorn of gay rights advocates. Afterward, he said in a video blog that if Prejean had been named Miss USA, he would have leapt on stage and ripped the tiara from her head. Those comments even prompted a Miami drag queen to denounce Hilton.

Hilton said he believes that Prejean will capitalize on the controversy, the way some celebrities he follows on his blog have done.

“She’ll probably cash in on this and charge a lot of money to go on the lecture circuit, might possibly write a book and may possibly use that money to get even bigger breast implants than the ones she already has,” Hilton told Reuters.

Prejean announced this week that she will star in a TV ad campaign from the National Organization for Marriage, aimed at convincing voters in states where gay marriage could soon become legal that they should speak out against it. The ads will air in New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and elsewhere.

So in light of the flare-up over Prejean’s comments, it’s worth finding out who she is.

Raised about 10 miles from the coast in the largely conservative town of Vista, California, Prejean is a student at San Diego Christian College, an evangelical school, where she is studying special education, her spokeswoman Melany Ethridge said. For now, her plans are to continue with college, Ethridge said.

Ethridge said that Prejean was not available for an interview.

Last weekend, Prejean received a hero’s welcome when she returned to her mega-church, The Rock.

Lewis told Reuters that he has always known Prejean to be friendly to gays like himself, and that he believes she has more liberal views about gays apart from the gay marriage issue, which he disagrees with her about.

“I would be excited when people really start to flesh out how she feels about civil unions and about civil rights and about a lot of the other issues,” Lewis said.

Some good has come out of the controversy for Lewis. He said that more women than ever before are applying to try out for Miss California this year, with some wanting to promote gay marriage and others wanting to denounce it.

Given that beauty pageants often feature nothing but platitudes, maybe it’s a good thing that this year’s Miss USA has sparked a debate, instead of more empty calls for “world peace.”

On Sunday night, Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton was crowned Miss USA, but all the talk on Monday was about how runner-up, Miss California Carrie Prejean, fueled the gay marriage debate by saying during the telecast that she does not agree with same-sex weddings.

On Monday, Prejean told Access Hollywood that she sticks by her answer, despite the uproar from gay rights supporters.

“It did cost me my crown,” she said. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I said what I feel. I stated an opinion that was true to myself, and that’s all I can do.”

Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who was one of Miss USA’s judges and asked Prejean the question about gay marriage that got her into trouble, had a different take. In an expletive-laced online video blog, the gay self-proclaimed “Queen of All Media” said after the telecast that Prejean should have just avoided the question. “She lost not because she doesn’t believe in gay marriage, she lost because she’s a dumb (expletive),” Hilton said.

It’s significant that Hilton asked Miss California about gay marriage, because the state’s voters approved a ballot measure in November banning same-sex weddings. Since then, the Iowa Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriages and the Vermont legislature has made the unions legal in that state.

Hilton and Prejean gave the country something to talk about, other than gowns and make-up. But since many of those in the audience at Miss USA are gay, perhaps Hilton was right that Prejean just did not know how to play to the home crowd. As model and Miss USA judge Claudia Jordan told celebrity Web site TMZ, “She should have known her audience better. There’s only like five straight guys in the audience at the pageant.”

(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

Actor Christian Bale’s expletive-laced tirade on the set of the upcoming action movie “Terminator Salvation” has been the talk of Hollywood this week. The widely heard audio tape from that verbal explosion has been remixed into a dance song and has inspired a T-Shirt. 

But on Wednesday, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton linked to perhaps the most creative product of the audio remix cottage industry that has resulted from Bale’s blow-up. It’s a mashup of the Bale tape and footage of television commentator Bill O’Reilly losing his cool on the set of his news program. Be warned, audio from ”Batman” Bale’s tirade is not exactly family friendly.
    
The recording of Bale’s outburst was first posted at celebrity news site TMZ.com. Bale reportedly lost his temper on the set of “Terminator Salvation” when the director of photography interrupted a scene the actor was playing in.
    
Hollywood has a long history of on-set tirades and grudge matches. What’s new is that the Internet provides a place to hear exactly how bad Hollywood’s bad boys and girls can be. Does that mean actors like Bale will keep their behavior in check next time? Don’t bet on it.

Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton began his rise to fame by gossiping online about the adventures — and misadventures  — of Hollywood’s bold and beautiful but now he finds himself being talked about with a musical about him set for the stage.

 From August 8-14, “Perez Hilton Saves the Universe! (or at least the greater Los Angeles area): The Musical” is running at the New York International Fringe Festival. Organizers describe the show as exploring  a normal day in Hilton’s life – well, were it not for the plans of evil terrorists and Kathy Griffin.  Throughout the day, Hilton wrestles with the demons of love, ego and celebrity, all whilst saving Los Angeles from an imminent nuclear disaster, with a pop music backing.

But not everyone is so enamoured by Hilton’s new-found celebrity status. ” Do we really need a Perez Hilton musical?” asks another rival celebrity blog.

Can’t get enough Hollywood gossip? Don’t have time to sign on to the Web? Never fear, the Queen of All Media is here!

Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, the self-styled “Queen of All Media,” has unveiled a new subscription phone service, starting Wednesday, that will call people with recorded news flashes of the latest celebrity gossip from Hilton.

Fans who sign up for “Gossip on the Go” at www.perezhilton.com will receive at least 8 calls a month for $4.99 a month. His partner in the service is the company Entertainment Mobile. 

Hilton’s blog has been around since 2004, and it claims to be read by as many as 10 million people monthly. Recently, Hilton has been expanding his activities beyond simply blogging, and this month he launched his own clothing line. Hilton’s real name is Mario Lavandeira.