“If you don’t make money, you’re not going to be able to keep up with me.” – Sonja Morgan
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Perez Hilton & Sonja Morgan”: Patti meets the clients
Perez Hilton (a.k.a. Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr.), 36, from New York, NY introduces himself by saying that he’s probably best known for being a blogger.
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I’d say that’s absolutely true. The one thing that has always stayed with me about Perez Hilton – beyond knowing that he founded the gossip site, PerezHilton.com – is that he famously would work an insane schedule that involved blogging from the early AM to late at night.
As someone who has written, edited, and produced thousands of blog posts and articles over the years, I deeply know what a grind it can be and how passionate one must be to stay in the game. So I’ve always respected Perez’s moxie in that respect.
“I’m notorious,” Perez adds, “which isn’t exactly the most favorable kind of celebrity. I just really lost touch with who I really was.”
Between that factor and being gay, Perez says that it has been hard finding a romantic partner, and that he’s “exhausted.”
Patti Stanger and her team, watching Hilton on video, dub him Repo Man as they want to be part of repairing Hilton’s reputation.
Since I wasn’t really familiar with why Hilton is (or at least was) so controversial, I asked the Internet and got a read that he “gained notoriety for his harsh and often cruel coverage of celebrities.”
“He has grown by leaps and bounds,” Patti says of him.
Perez tells us that he has been “visually shallow” in the past, but these days he’s focused on being a single dad to his son, Mario, and pursuing a serious relationship. He’s also moved from Los Angeles to New York City to “get away from his reputation.”
Hilton is looking for a “happy person” who is passionate about what he does.
Patti’s advice is for Perez to focus on being celibate until he finds the right person, and to “take Grindr out of his phone.”
Next up, we have Sonja Morgan, 50, also from New York City. The first thing we learn about her is that she had a “high profile divorce” to John Adams Morgan, the grandson of J.P. Morgan (who, it seems, is decades her senior).
Sonja talks about how she had to “figure things out quickly” as a single mom, post-divorce, including getting back into the workforce. She tells us that she spun her experience running a large staff as the wife of a super-rich dude into a catering business called Sonja in the City.
“If you don’t make money, you’re not going to be able to keep up with me,” she adds.
Patti assesses that between Sonja’s wealth and notoriety and the fact that she has a junior high school aged daughter, she needs “a man and not a boy” in her life.
Sonja adds that she wants someone “cultured and strong minded.”
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Perez Hilton & Sonja Morgan”: the recruiting session
In this final season of The Millionaire Matchmaker, the show landed on a cocktail party-meets-recruiting session where Patti interviews a bunch of prospective matches for her clients and then hones it down to a small group for each to meet with.
Highlights from the recruiting session include:
- Randomly, Patti tells a guy who works in “software litigation” that “hackers get me wet.”
- Patti asks Jason, a 43-year-old who hasn’t been married and doesn’t have kids, “What’s wrong with you?”
- Later, Patti asks Jay, a nurse, why he didn’t instead become a doctor.
Our Patti is just brimming with rude questions is what we’re getting at here.
For Sonja, the semi-finalists include Thomas, a sports therapist, and Kent, who owns a business that furnishes resorts and runs a charity for special needs kids. When Sonja meets the group, she tells the camera that she wanted “all four doggies in the window.”
With Perez Hilton, Patti opts to skip the semi-finalist round for him entirely, presumably due to his celebrity/notoriety.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Perez Hilton & Sonja Morgan”: Perez and Gregory’s first date
When Perez meets Gregory, an aesthetician, at the beach in Santa Monica, it’s clear that they recognize each other and Perez quips, “It’s such a small gay world!”
Perez tells the camera that he met Gregory while on a trip to Mexico in 2011.
The couple rents a pair of segways and takes a tour around the promenade. They seem to have an easy vibe with each other, as the blogger-at-heart Perez observes, “I love that the only people in Santa Monica are tourists,” and Gregory adds, “And hippies.”
Fact check: that’s kind of close to spot on, in my experience, I’d say?
It’s pretty hilarious when Perez proclaims, “Hello tourists!” as though he’s a monarch on parade, as the two segway about.
Later, Perez tells Gregory that he’s different from the “character” he’s seen as in the media. Gregory seems to readily agree, telling the camera that there’s Perez Hilton the celebrity, and then Mario, “a completely different person.”
The two later enjoy champagne at an outdoor lounge overlooking the water, and Perez tells the camera that he likes that Gregory is successful and ambitious, and “I am inviting more of that into my life.”
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Perez Hilton & Sonja Morgan”: Sonja and Thomas’ first date (and… Kent’s first date?)
We only learn that Sonja has chosen the strapping, Marine-like Thomas when Patti personally escorts Sonja to meet up with him for their date.
Patti had previously told the camera that while Thomas is “hot,” she didn’t feel that he was as well suited for her as guys like the worldly, WASP-y Kent.
Patti also reveals that celebrity chef Rocco Dispirito is going to give the couple a cooking lesson and help prepare their dinner. Weirdly, Patti herself becomes part of the date and joins in the cooking lesson.
Maybe Patti didn’t feel like she was getting enough screen time or something?
Side note that I really enjoyed Rocco Dispirito in the reality show he was in back in 2004, called The Restaurant, and was bummed that it was canceled after a single season.
Things get super awkward when Patti critiques Thomas and Sonja’s interactions in real time, though the couple barely seems to acknowledge her existence as they seem super attracted to each other.
In a show that frankly is replete with dumb moments (which we of course love and eat up), perhaps the dumbest one of all time comes next: Patti forces Thomas to leave the date, only to shortly return with Kent.
Sonja, perhaps a bit tipsy on wine at this point, seems to just go with it.
“High class problem, what can I say?” she tells the camera.
Meanwhile, as Rocco continues the lesson, Patti picks right back up in critiquing the couple’s interactions at the same time.
If I’m Thomas, I’d feel extra-insulted that Sonja and Kent get to eat the food that he had helped prepare.
But then we quickly get into even more contrived territory when Patti has Kent and Thomas sit down next to each other so that Sonja can pick her favorite (I guess?). This tilts The Millionaire Matchmaker ever further into gameshow territory.
Sonja reveals that “at this point in her life” she opts for “slow, smoldering, peaceful Kent” versus the flirty, spicier Thomas.
The two are then “awarded” a bonus date of sorts on the rooftop – which actually turns out to be a hot tub on the rooftop situation.
Which culminates with a kiss.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Perez Hilton & Sonja Morgan”: post-dates upshot
Patti and David call Gregory, who says that Perez is a great guy who he feels is in a place in his life to meet someone really special. It’s implied by both the end of the date itself and Gregory’s reaction that he and Perez feel that they are better poised to be friends than to have a romantic relationship.
In the office, Perez says that the date was “lovely and fun.” Patti is disappointed that the two new each other previously, but overall Perez seems thrilled that he got out of his comfort zone.
Kent gets called next, and Patti quickly gets to the point of asking whether he and Sonja kissed. More specifically, she disturbingly frames it as, “Daddy gave tongue?”
Kent then says he is “trying to work on” getting a second date together.
Sonja then relays via video chat she feels that she and Kent have been “connected” for a long time.
Patti then pats herself on the back for the “wild” move she made, switching out Thomas for Kent.
The end of episode captions then tell us: “Perez is back in New York with a new approach, and a newfound confidence. He is following Patti’s advice, and is much more comfortable getting out into the dating scene.” And: “Sonja and Kent are in touch via phone and text. Kent is already planning a trip to New York to see Sonja.”
This feels like a soft way of relaying that Patti and crew went 0-2 in this episode.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Perez Hilton & Sonja Morgan”: where are they now?
I couldn’t find much of note about what Perez Hilton is up to on the personal front these days, but I did learn much more about why he’s “controversial” on his Wikipedia page.
The most interesting thing I discovered though is that he played a “male student” on The Sopranos in 2001!
Some stats and info about The Millionaire Matchmaker – “Perez Hilton & Sonja Morgan”
TV SHOW – The Millionaire Matchmaker
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 8, Episode 4
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Bravo
GENRE – Dating Shows, Reality TV, Trashtastic TV
AIR DATE – January 8th, 2015
GOOGLE PLAY DESCRIPTION – Mario “Perez Hilton” Lavandeira is famous for his outspoken, celebrity blogger personality and needs Patti’s help as he cannot seem to shake his “snarky” reputation in the dating community. Then, Sonja Morgan, a beautiful mother and divorceé on “The Real Housewives of New York City,” has no trouble finding a man, but it never lasts. Can Patti teach Sonja how to pick the right guy?