“His treatment and recovery will be a long process,” celebrity blogger’s family writes in update following self-harm incident

Perez Hilton

Perez Hilton remains hospitalized in “serious but stable” condition, with the celebrity blogger requiring surgery, his family said in an update Saturday, four days after Hilton livestreamed a self-harm incident.

“We want to confirm that Perez remains hospitalized under Florida’s Baker Act,” Hilton’s family posted Saturday on his official website.

Perez’s condition remains serious but stable. He experienced significant blood loss and sustained additional injuries that will require surgery in the coming days. His treatment and recovery will be a long process. We are grateful that Perez was able to spend time with his mother and sister yesterday.”

Hilton’s family also lashed out at “false and inaccurate reports circulating in the media regarding Perez and the circumstances surrounding this situation,” adding that official statements will only be released via Hilton’s official site.

“His communication has been extremely limited and confined to immediate family, medical providers, and others directly involved in his care,” the family wrote. “He has not communicated with the media or issued any public statements.”

Hilton’s family reiterated their request for privacy, asking the media that has congregated outside Perez’s home to vacate the area, and implored photographers to stop taking pictures of Hilton’s children, as Perez himself long maintained a “no kids policy.”

“We again respectfully ask members of the media to leave the home and surrounding area, stop following family members, and cease photographing Perez’s children,” the family wrote, adding that Hilton’s kids “remain safe and are being cared for by immediate family.”

“We also ask photo agencies not to purchase, publish, or distribute any photographs of the children that may have been taken.”

On Aug. 4, Hilton appeared to physically harm himself on a TikTok livestream. The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office stated that Hilton was “safely recovered” and transported to a local hospital. Hilton was alone in his residence at the time of the incident.

Romana Didulo, the self-declared “Queen of Canada,” speaks in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 2022.

When it was over in 2025, officials toured the dimly lit building in rural Saskatchewan. Tarps covered the windows and doors, blocking the sun. The air was so foul that an officer ran outside gagging.

For the previous two years, about 20 members of a group known as the Kingdom of Canada had been living inside the decommissioned school, claiming they had taken over the country. They operated under their own principles, issued their own laws, and threatened the surrounding village with “publicly broadcast executions.” They slept in classrooms and, without running water, used five-gallon buckets as toilets.

Their leader — a woman known as the “Queen of Canada” — had been sleeping in a primary classroom, where her purse and water jugs labeled with her name still sat. A hole had been cut through a concrete wall and concealed with a cabinet that opened like a secret door. On the other side was the queen’s private bathroom with an elaborate shower.

There were more tarps on the roof that covered stashes of firewood and fuel containers. The fire chief, Gene Perreault, who was there during the walk-through, tells me the piles puzzled investigators.

“Where these fire caches are, it makes absolutely no sense,” he says as we sit in the firehouse looking at photos of the caches. “Maybe this was part of their last stand or some fucking thing.”

One theory, according to Perreault, was that the Kingdom had been planning to burn the building down, Waco-style, if the government intervened.

The queen was Romana Didulo. Born in the Philippines in 1974, she later claimed that her social class was the “modern equivalent of [the] Royal Family” — a claim that hasn’t been confirmed. Like much of Didulo’s story, the details of her upbringing are fuzzy. We know that when her parents died in her teens, she moved to British Columbia to live with family. Little is known about her life from 1999 to 2005. After that, Didulo’s digital footprint begins to reveal more about her — that she’s an intense introvert who seems to swing between grandiosity and asceticism. On her 2006 Blogger profile, Didulo listed The Secret, about the power of manifestation, as her favorite movie and Trump’s The Art of the Deal as one of her favorite books. (Didulo couldn’t be reached for this story. Neither could her “press secretary,” Darlene Ondi.)

Later in life, Didulo seemed especially concerned with — and sensitive to — housing justice. In a 2024 livestream called Queen Romana Tell Real Vision, she talks emotionally about “the mental anguish of someone who doesn’t know where his or her head is going to be laid in the evening.” The anecdote is part of an impassioned monologue about wanting to replace food banks with free grocery stores. Later, as the Queen of Canada, she repeatedly made housing a key issue, proposing $1.5 trillion in housing spending.

In 2020, at age 46, Didulo claimed to take office as prime minister. She created her own political party called “Canada1st Party of Canada.” There is no indication it was registered, meaning Didulo could never have received any votes, and she appears to have been the only official member. In videos posted to YouTube, she echoed alt-right and anti-globalist views, saying Canada withdrew from the United Nations and World Health Organization. She explained that she was sent to Earth to save her followers. “I’m not a dictator,” she says in one video. “I am sent here by the highest divine beings. And I am here to deliver peace and prosperity.”

But Didulo’s main issue was Covid-19. In the 2020 videos, she appears small, with a round face, short, graying hair, and an unblinking expression while standing in front of a rumpled Canadian flag. Speaking in a monotone voice, she claims the pandemic is really a “plandemic” organized by “the global economic reset team and their agents.”

“Number one, [they want] to control every single country’s natural resources,” she says in a YouTube video. “Number two, [they want] to control every citizen in the world.”

After finishing an explanation about why compliance with the masking mandate amounts to tyranny and “enslavement,” Didulo holds her hands off screen, focuses her gaze intensely for a few seconds — and calmly holds up a flaming surgical mask.

As QAnon conspiracy theories took hold with people from around the world and tensions around policies to prevent the spread of Covid reached a boiling point, this previously unknown woman became the unlikely answer some in Canada were searching for. Her videos were outrageous and conspiratorial, and the more elaborate and bizarre her stories became, the more people online were drawn to her. But her following didn’t just stay there.

In February 2021, Didulo joined Telegram, a platform popular with conservative users who felt censored from mainstream sites. She began posting well-known QAnon tropes, including that “elites” harvest adrenochrome — a naturally occurring compound produced by adrenaline — from children for supposed anti-aging benefits. In fact, she claimed she had personally put an end to the production of adrenochrome in secret underground tunnels.

Didulo continued to claim she was prime minister and credited with her ascension the “white hats,” the same secretive forces she claimed had propelled Donald Trump to the American presidency. She claimed the Canadian government was a “bankrupt corporation,” that Queen Elizabeth II — the British monarch and Canada’s head of state at the time — was dead, and she was replacing her. (Queen Elizabeth was, in fact, alive; she died in 2022.) Instead of civil and criminal law, there was now “natural law,” a universal code of right and wrong. All these changes were ushered in under the banner of the Kingdom of Canada: Didulo’s new name for the country that included 10 provinces, three territories, and more than 40 million people. By the end of 2021, Didulo had more than 70,000 Telegram subscribers.

In one post after another — each with its own number and title — Didulo wrote the Kingdom’s lawbook: Decree No. 1 banned the teaching of critical race theory (that racism is systemic) in all private and public schools. Decree No. 4 upped the age of consent for marriage to 24 and punished offenders to 30 years in prison “without bail or parole.” Eventually, she abolished all debt and said there was no need to pay mortgages or make credit card payments. Anyone who tried to enforce the law or collect money on behalf of a lender would face a “military tribunal”: code for execution.

Along with the legal revolution was a technological one. QAnon followers believed in “medbeds” and “replicators,” fictitious medical devices supposedly derived from alien technology. Believers insisted they existed and could cure any illness, regenerate limbs, and even grant immortality. But — because there was always a but — the technology had been “suppressed” by elites and was available only to the ultra-wealthy. Didulo claimed she had been given access to medbeds through her connection to the Intergalactic Federation of Light Beings. That was because, Didulo said, she was not human but actually an alien from the star Arcturus, incarnating in human form to save the rest of us. Her proclamations sounded like something out of science fiction — but, to her followers, she was their only hope.

“It’s weird to us outsiders, but the stranger her message, the more esoteric her appearance and manner, the more she … becomes a convincing, appealing person,” explains Canadian scholar Donald Netolitzky. “If you believe the Hidden Hand controls everything mainstream, then what truth remains is in the outliers. And Didulo is certainly an outlier.”

The institutional void created by the pandemic was “extremely responsible” for Didulo’s rise, says Queen’s University doctoral student Camden MacKenzie, who studied Didulo. Churches were closed and unable to take strong vaccine positions without alienating their members. So people went online, where figures like Didulo mixed spirituality, conspiracy, and politics into a new kind of authority. “It was really a perfect storm.”

Around the time Didulo was joining Telegram, the Ontario government announced it was awarding a thermoplastic injection moulding company called Merit Precision $1 million to boost the production of hand-sanitizer bottles. A disgruntled 54-year-old factory worker there named Frank Curtin was skeptical of the official narrative surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic and had evidently stumbled across Didulo’s videos online. (Curtin didn’t respond to interview requests but was interviewed by the Kingdom of Canada during a Covid protest and is active on social media.)

Sometime before August 2022, Curtin quit his job, then served a “cease-and-desist” letter to his boss. Similar notices were soon plastered on schools, offices, retail businesses, and restaurants across Canada. Signed in Didulo’s name, they ordered the recipients to stop complying with Covid restrictions or face “military tribunal.” Didulo’s far-out messaging had jumped from online to real life.

In June 2021, Curtin walked into a police station in Peterborough and slid one of the letters under the glass partition.

“We have a new commander-in-chief,” he said in a video later uploaded to YouTube. “It’s pretty self-explanatory.”

While the uniformed officer behind the desk went to get a colleague, Curtin wandered over to a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, who had recently died.

“Oh, look who it is,” Curtin said. “The devils themselves.”

Like other Didulo followers, Curtin believed the world was controlled by an elite cabal of wealthy pedophiles. To him, the British royals appeared black-eyed in the portrait — which he viewed as confirmation of a soullessness.

“God doesn’t look [kindly] on people who harm children,” he mused.

When the officer returned with a colleague, Curtin was asked for his name and identification.

“If you need my name, you can get it through Romana,” he replied. “She’s the new commander and chief.”

Curtin returned to the same police station in July. He had heard that the police chief had been arrested for crimes against humanity, and wanted to see for himself if it was true. When he got there, he was told that the chief had not been seen for a couple of weeks.

“That’s confirmation for me, ma’am,” he said to the officer behind the desk.

But the chief was never arrested. And when the police station was still functioning weeks later, Curtin was fuming. In August 2022, he and a group of around 20 followers returned to the station one morning. They tried to enter the building and perform citizen’s arrests on officers for continuing to enforce Covid restrictions. Instead, six followers including Curtin were arrested for charges that included assaulting a police officer. Didulo had not participated, instead remaining in a nearby RV.

Though Didulo had declared herself the Queen of Canada, her life was far from regal. In early 2021, she was renting a room in Victoria beside a car garage, and spent her days employed by an English-language school. That June, as Canadian police agencies received reports of the cease-and-desist letters being distributed throughout the country, city police went to her door. They noticed a Canada1st Party of Canada flag and a sign reading, “Smile you are on camera.” Didulo wasn’t home, so they left a card and talked to her landlord and boss, and spent a couple of days doing surveillance. Later that summer, they shut their investigation down, citing “mental health was a factor,” according to their search warrant.

Even as the authorities began to circle, Didulo continued to post online and grow her in-person collective. And the group’s threats became even more significant. Her followers referred to themselves as “We the People” (to contrast with the elites they railed against). Some members eventually had their own uniform: white baseball hats and custom windbreakers with “QR” stitched on them for Queen Romana. Each was known as His or Her Excellency, and had a specific job — security, chauffeur, media relations. A subset of her most devoted and extreme followers were known as “duck hunters,” because they were prepared to enact violence, according to the search warrant. On Telegram later that fall, Didulo ordered them to “shoot to kill” health care workers who injected children with a Covid vaccine. The operation was supposed to begin at 6 a.m. on Nov. 21, 2021. Around the same time, according to media reports, a 42-year-old “duck hunter” in Quebec was arrested after making shooting threats aimed at his daughter’s school.

After that, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, which had been monitoring Didulo for months, obtained a search warrant for her home, computer, smartphones, and digital video recorder. The warrant was based on evidence that Didulo had been “counseling” others to commit murder.

On Nov. 27, Didulo was apprehended under B.C.’s Mental Health Act, a law that allows authorities to treat people with severe mental illness without their consent. She was sent to a hospital for evaluation and released later that day, telling followers in a livestream she was “not insane.” No charges were filed.

On Jan. 30, 2022, Didulo announced on Telegram that she would be attending the “Freedom Convoy” — a major anti-Covid demonstration in the Canadian capital of Ottawa. About a dozen hardcore followers showed up on her door. Among them was a middle-aged woman known as “Raven Moonstone,” who became Didulo’s second-in-command and is seen in many of Didulo’s YouTube videos. In videos, she wears pigtail braids and describes herself as a “truth seeker and light worker,” and a “beginner investigative journalist and professional artist.”

In two hours, Didulo’s announcement raised more than $16,000 in donations. Eventually, she raised more than $100,000. Later that day, her most devout followers rented a fleet of RVs, picked Didulo up from her apartment, and began driving across the country. From that point on, Didulo and her traveling convoy led what they called a “mobile government.”

Even before the group’s arrival, someone painted a mural of Didulo on a giant white banner. Didulo’s team booked Ottawa hotel rooms for Vladimir Putin and Tucker Carlson. (Didulo has claimed to be on friendly terms with the Russian president, but there’s no evidence of that.)

On Feb. 3, Didulo walked through a procession of supporters, making her grand public entrance as the Queen of Canada dressed in a white coat, with purple gloves and a black toque. Standing in front of the Canadian parliament buildings, Didulo gave a speech about how all Covid restrictions had been lifted, and her royal decrees now carried the full weight of the law. Then, like she’d done with the mask, she tried to burn the Canadian flag — only this time she was met with boos from the crowd.

From then on, Ontario police closely monitored the Freedom Convoy, creating persons-of-interest profiles on 87 organizers and influential participants. In its 14-page report on Didulo, they called her a “Canadian conspiracy theorist with an affiliation with QAnon” and said her followers were the “true threat.” The so-called duck hunters had access to firearms, had demonstrated a willingness to mobilize, and appeared to be willing to carry out Didulo’s orders. In just over a year, the Kingdom had progressed from a group of self-proclaimed “digital soldiers” — consisting of QAnon believers, sovereign citizens, and pandemic skeptics — to a real-world army that seemed ready to commit murder. Experts considered them one of the most dangerous extremist groups in North America.

In her first one-on-one interview, inspector Ashley St. Germaine, a senior investigative officer with the RCMP in Regina, Saskatchewan, tells me the Peterborough police siege was the moment Didulo’s rhetoric turned into “actual physical … action,” and represented a significant escalation where followers demonstrated a “desire to follow through” on the threats issued in her decrees.

Throughout 2022, Didulo and her inner circle headed to the East Coast. Along the way, they stopped at parking lots for meet-and-greets and parked their RVs on the private property of supporters. Followers made Didulo’s meals, planned her speeches, and did her laundry.

While Queen Romana projected the image of a supreme ruler who alternated between benevolence and tyranny, Didulo the person was all too human. She struggled with recording equipment, yelled to assert dominance, and posted videos of herself and her followers searching their RVs for hidden trackers. She also imposed extreme living conditions, including limiting access to showers, and playing a version of the high-energy dance hit “Rasputin,” by Boney M, remixed with lyrics that praised her for up to 10 hours straight.

By that point, Didulo’s fictional laws had begun having ruinous effects. Homes were being foreclosed on. Vehicles were being repossessed. Some of her followers, including those involved in the Peterborough police siege, faced criminal charges. Citing abusive conditions, some members of her inner circle quit. Didulo responded by threatening to hang treasonous followers “head first aboard a military helicopter directly above a volcano or commercial crocodile farms (they are always hungry),” according to a Telegram post.

Keeping their fleet of rented RVs going cost about $20,000 a month. To save money, the group ate carrots and sardines. Didulo routinely used false pretenses to raise money. According to VICE, she raised more than $50,000 through a GoFundMe campaign ostensibly intended for victims of BC wildfires, before the fundraising site shut her down. Other tactics involved printing her own “loyalty money” and posting an apparent endorsement from Trump adviser Roger Stone to a fake account. In a text message, Stone tells me the Didulo story was “so long ago that I had to look it up myself,” and points me to a Newsweek article in which he suggests he filmed the Didulo video without knowing who Didulo was or how it would be used.

By the spring of 2023, life on the road had become increasingly difficult. Money was running out. More followers had quit or formed their own splinter groups. Media pressure, including by VICE, was mounting. A few months later, the Kingdom began heading west, pulling into Kamsack on Sept. 13 and claiming the Saskatchewan town — and the surrounding indigenous land — belonged to them. A bylaw officer, Ken Thompson, tells me the Queen’s security team “weren’t allowing people to walk around” the streets.

Thompson alerted a town administrator and special constable named Sherise Fountain, who went to investigate. “It was a delegate of hers,” Fountain says, “trying to tell people that the Queen of Canada had now arrived and had taken over.”

By that afternoon, the RCMP — and a convoy of local vehicles — escorted the Kingdom out of town.

That same day, 260 miles west, the mayor of another Saskatchewan town was sitting on the end of a fishing dock when his phone buzzed with a text message. For years, Mayor Brad Miller had been embroiled in a local dispute with a resident named Ricky Manz over the old Richmound School, which had closed in 2008 and been abandoned for almost a decade. Manz had bought the school property with the dream of turning it into a “Can-Abis Botanicals” shop. Ever since, multiple villagers tell me he had struggled to pay taxes on the property.

In one of the long, rambling text exchanges to Miller, Manz threatened to start a “situation” Miller would “regret” if the mayor didn’t give him an exemption for the tax payment.

Years earlier, Miller had known Manz as an excellent carpenter who could pour cement, but, Miller says, Manz “went down the rabbit hole so far that he couldn’t get out.” In the texts with the mayor, Manz laid bare a worldview that can only be described as paranoid, saying the media was owned by Wall Street and the banks were going “tits up.” But lately someone had been giving him hope.

“She travels across Canada the last year and a half meeting people and making changes,” Manz gushed in a text about Didulo. “Do some homework brother!!!!!!!! And spread the good news … they are the real deal.”

Then he tried to make a deal with the mayor: Help him get out of paying an education tax on the school property, or he was going to invite Didulo and her inner circle to live with him in the school.

“The ball is in your court,” he said in a message. “Call it a warning shot across the bow.”

(Manz couldn’t be reached for comment. His lawyer said he couldn’t answer a detailed list of questions because his client hadn’t given him approval to speak to the media.)

On Sept. 14 — one day before Manz’s warning to the mayor — Didulo and about 14 members of her inner circle pulled into Richmound, a prairie town of about 120 people a couple of hours north of Montana. Didulo drove a 2000s-era motorhome with her face airbrushed onto the side, along with the sign offering a “meet and greet” with Queen Romana. Unlike the situation in Kamsack, this time, Didulo and her followers had been invited by Manz onto private property — the Richmound School — which gave them legal protections. Didulo had a favorable first impression of the village, describing it as “very friendly” in a livestream. It wouldn’t last.

As officials later found out, living quarters inside the school were segregated by gender. Men slept in the gym and women in the library. Both groups showered in the janitor’s closet and ate in the old home-ec room, which doubled as “HRM Queen Romana Didulo Command Center,” according to the banner. In one room was a pool table. In the gym was a makeshift courtroom, complete with a jury box consisting of chairs on a stage, where the Kingdom tried their own cases, dolled out sentences, and issued fines for people who had violated “natural law.” The gym also served as a broadcast space for QRTRV: Didulo’s daily livestream. On the roof, there was a garden and Starlink dish, which the group used to upload their videos, keeping their connection with the wider world.

Among the people who came and went from the school was “His Excellency Frank Curtin,” the architect of the Peterborough police siege; a man nicknamed “Cowboy”; and a follower villagers describe as an unhinged, ex-military type who Brad Miller nicknamed “Vin Diesel.” After almost two years on the road, the school offered a higher standard of living for Didulo and her followers. Officials also believed it represented a final, desperate showdown between Didulo and the government — one that had been steadily building from the cease-and-desist letters up to the attempted takeover of Kamsack.

A wire boundary was set up outside of the school, along with private-property signs, lights, and security cameras. The temporary barrier was soon replaced with an enormous metal fence. All day and night, a vehicle slowly patrolled the perimeter. Anyone who approached was recorded. So were children at the nearby playground.

After their arrival, Miller went up to the gatekeepers, who wore baseball hats with the word “security” on them, and asked them what they were doing. “What is your concern?” he asked. They never responded. Soon after that conversation, Miller, who lives around the corner from the school, looked out the window and saw followers on the school roof with binoculars looking back.

Almost everyone in Richmound believed Didulo posed an imminent danger. Miller had spoken to people involved in the failed Kamsack takeover who told him to do whatever it took to try to get her out of their town. Miller’s wife, Arlene, had downloaded Telegram and seen enough of Didulo’s content to convince her to participate in a protest that Saturday, Sept. 16. Trucks and semis from all over the southwest came to Richmound, blaring horns and, in one case, ramming the new fence surrounding the school.

In apparent response, on Sept. 29, the Kingdom addressed a cease-and-desist letter to the village’s administration office, naming several Richmound officials, including the Millers. Citing conspiracy tropes involving the Rothschilds banking family and the Chinese Communist Party, the letter warned that failure to stop “demoralizing and immoral activities” could lead to “publicly broadcast executions upon yourselves, and undeserved devastation upon your children.”

The threats sent the village into shock. The village administration office closed, and the school playground was cordoned off. On Oct. 6, the RCMP deployed a temporary mobile detachment to Richmound so officers could keep the peace and patrol the community. The week after the letter was sent, Manz was charged with assaulting a villager who got too close to the fence. (The charges were later dismissed.)

By the time Arlene organized a second protest on Oct. 14, the RCMP announced that the Kingdom posed no “imminent threat” and withdrew the resources it had just deployed — decisions that were criticized by almost everyone in the town with whom I spoke. Inspector Germaine, the senior investigative officer with the RCMP in Regina, the provincial capital, says police had done a risk assessment and determined tensions had “very much de-escalated.” She says the RCMP had consulted community leaders and determined their presence was no longer needed. In other words, Richmound was on its own.

The Millers, married for 43 years, closed their blinds at night and lay awake with a .22 beneath their bed. On the mayor’s nightstand were three rifle clips and two cards from his grandkids: “Granpma (sic),” they read, “I love you.” He thought about how much time he could spend with them if he stepped down from his position. But he had sworn an oath. At 62, the mayor had already raised a family and retired from the oil-and-gas industry when he’d taken office. He had only taken the helm of the village at the urging of the previous mayor, who didn’t want any outsiders “screwing up” Richmound.

While they were living in the school, the Kingdom bought supplies from the general store in town. Didulo — paranoid that people in the village would poison her through the town’s utilities — bought vast quantities of bottled water. The owner of the general store even traveled to the next province over to buy goods to sell to Kingdom members. The Millers say the store owner told them more recently she’d sold mattresses to Didulo’s followers. (The store’s owner declined an interview request.)

The village hired legal counsel, who said the village didn’t have the bylaws needed to get rid of the Kingdom, and couldn’t create any new ones because the group’s use of the school was now “grandfathered” in at the time of their arrival. The special protection would only disappear if the Kingdom stopped using the property for a lengthy period. At the advice of counsel, the village pursued a municipal warrant that would let them inspect the school, which by then the group had painted a vibrant purple. But a judge quickly shot down the request, saying the information the village had provided was “insufficient.”

Miller appealed to officials on all levels, including the premier of Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, who didn’t respond to my interview request but was quoted in the media calling the situation “unfortunate” and saying it was up to the municipal government to oust the group. Frustrated by the runaround, Miller sought direct mediation with the Queen, going up to the fence and asking for a meeting. When that failed, he wrote her a letter. She never wrote back. Miller then tried to reason directly with the baseball-hat-wearing gatekeepers, inviting them over to his house for a steak. One problem with his plan: They were vegetarian.

Miller suspected there was a faction of nearly a dozen local residents who were sympathetic to the Kingdom and trying to get him and other council members fired. He soon had a name for them: “The Dividers.”

Among them was Melinda Fischer, a middle-aged woman who sometimes wore a chunky beaded necklace and cat-eye glasses. Before the school closed, she had driven the bus. Now, she seemed to mostly dig up dirt on the community and its residents. It all began in 2022, when a contractor working for the village damaged her fence while working on the house next door and didn’t reimburse her the amount she wanted. As she explained on a Didulo broadcast in 2024, “I started posting [town council] minutes and revealing all the nastiness of the corrupt village.”

Fischer then accused the town of misusing public money, falsifying public meeting minutes, and other perceived offenses. In text messages shared with Rolling Stone, she called the mayor a “pussy” and said Arlene needed dental work. (Fischer didn’t respond to a detailed list of questions.)

Fischer had tried to recruit others in her crusade against the local government, including foreman Ben Kessler. As Kessler tells me, Fischer had texted him in an attempt to get him to complain about his $20-an-hour wage, saying he should be making $30. When he refused, she turned against him. As he was spraying weeds near her house one day in 2024, he claims, she told him she was glad his recently deceased son was gone and said she hoped it had been a “horrible death.”

“I couldn’t believe somebody would actually say that,” Kessler tells me. “If you wanna talk about me and call me out and tell me I’m a whatever, that’s fine. But to use … the death of a loved one?”

Partly because of that incident, Kessler and his wife sold their house and left Richmound. The village hired a new foreman, Dustin Cowan, who was friends with Fischer. At first, Fischer was the only person the Cowans, who moved from Ontario, knew in town. Friendly at first, she invited the Cowans over to her house for wine and offered to let them park their trailer on her property.

Eventually, Fischer convinced Cowan’s retired father-in-law, who’d been diagnosed with cancer of the blood and bone marrow, to “reserve” a spot on one of Didulo’s supposed medbeds by paying tens of thousands of dollars in crypto, believing it would erase his cancer and reverse his biological age. I asked Cowan if his father-in-law, who he described as mentally and physically vulnerable, was wealthy. Cowan laughed and said, “He’s a pensioner.”

At town hall meetings, Richmound villagers took turns at the microphone, talking about how their lives had changed. They open-carried firearms and locked their doors at night. According to the Millers, at least four people, including the Kesslers, left Richmound altogether.

In the fall of 2024, after a year of failed attempts to remove Didulo and her followers through bylaws, mediation, and inspections, the village had only two practical levers left. One was shutting off the school’s water supply, which would cost $14,000. The other was plugging the sewer, which could be done for around $2,500 and would also cut off the Kingdom’s water supply. So, the town council uncovered a long-forgotten manhole and a rubber bladder was used to plug the sewer.

After a heavy rainfall the next spring, the Millers were driving past the school when they noticed water bubbling up from a different manhole and running down the highway. Arlene, who works several jobs, including as a water-treatment-plant operator, suspected the Kingdom had tampered with the shut-off valve to illegally access the municipal water supply. The water had been turned off in 2008, after the school had been decommissioned. Villagers had seen a plumber on the school property in recent months but couldn’t prove the water had been reconnected. If the group had tampered with the valve, the municipal water supply could be contaminated.

Standing on opposite sides of the fence, Miller says, he asked Manz about it, and Manz denied the group had tampered with the valve.

On July 18, Miller and two RCMP officers went to the school to inspect the curbstop. As they approached the fence, Manz appeared on the other side.

“What are you doing?” he asked, according to the school’s video surveillance.

“Back up,” an officer instructed.

“Fuck off,” Manz responded. “You’re on my property.”

The officer jumped the fence and shoved Manz so hard his hat fell off. Manz shoved the officer back, and they tumbled to the sewage-soaked ground. Miller helped subdue Manz, who was pepper-sprayed and arrested. Manz was charged with assaulting both officers and the mayor, and intimidating a justice-system participant. Didulo was also charged with the intimidation offense.

Around the same time, the RCMP received a tip about a gun inside the school. Nine days later, they executed a search warrant. Early on Sept. 3, a SWAT truck battered the school’s metal fence. Drones smashed windows to clear the way. Dozens of police cars and a pair of special-forces units moved in. The Queen had been in a classroom, where she and her 15 followers were repeatedly told to come out with their hands up. Didulo livestreamed the whole thing, musing aloud that police may actually be there to rescue her. Shortly after, several heavily armed officers entered the building and arrested the group.

The Millers heard the sirens and ran outside. For hours after, Miller was shaking. “The happiest day of my life,” he says now.

Police seized 13 semiautomatic handguns, ammunition, and numerous electronic devices. The guns all turned out to be replicas that couldn’t fire.

Seventy-two-year-old Lise Beauchamp, 37-year-old Melany Rinker, also known as Melony Vanderbrink, and 63-year-old Nancy Jancke were each charged with obstruction of a peace officer after failing to give their names and dates of birth. As of summer 2026, the charges against all three people have been paused by the prosecution. They couldn’t be reached for comment. Most of the other 15 followers who were arrested were released without charge.

After the raid, police led Fire Chief Gene Perreault through the school, along with other officials. “Very little sunlight was allowed in,” Perreault tells me, saying the Kingdom had been living in “their own prison” and he had “never seen anything like it.”

Twenty-one fire violations were found in total. In a laundry area, officials found a 45-gallon barrel stove vented out a window. In a pit below the stage was a cistern containing dead rodents. If police hadn’t intervened, Perreault says, he believed the group was at an imminent risk of carbon-monoxide poisoning due to improper and unvented heating sources.

On Sept. 5, Didulo stood on the steps of a courthouse and told onlookers she was “innocent until proven guilty.” She said the charges against her were “false.” Didulo and Manz were ordered to stay away from each other — a condition they failed to meet, resulting in an additional charge. At a bail hearing, Manz denied assaulting anyone and said the video evidence supported he had been victimized. He also faces charges for making threats.

At Didulo’s bail hearing three days later, she told the judge she would only consent to proceedings if they were under “natural law.” More recently, she said she and her followers were constantly harassed in Richmound and that she had received “daily threats” against her life. In March 2026, Didulo’s and Manz’s charges for intimidation of a justice-system participant were shelved due to lack of evidence, though prosecutors have one year to refile. The other charges against Manz are proceeding.

Since the hearing, the Queen has kept a low profile. In her absence, followers host a daily, three-hour livestream, recording themselves discussing news events from around the world, often concluding that Didulo will return and save the world from impending disaster. Didulo herself rarely appears in the videos, and the group never divulges information about her.

Before claiming to be prime minister, Didulo had created shell companies with names like “Infinite Wealth” and “Didulo Holding Incorporated.” At one point, even police noted, she had a plan to start a company in the U.K.

MacKenzie, the doctoral student, thinks Didulo would never leave her followers. “I see her as a very power-motivated person. And that’s a big thing for her to give up.”

But Netolitzky, the Canadian scholar, believes Didulo could flee: “It’s entirely possible that she has been building up funds in a bank account somewhere. And one day she is going to simply disappear.”

Today, both Manz and Fischer remain in the community. I ask Kessler, the original foreman, if he would consider moving back now the Kingdom was gone. He says there’s “no way.” The village had become associated with trauma, a place where Fischer’s comments represented “the pinnacle of the evil that happened there.”

After ousting Didulo from Richmound, the Millers petitioned the provincial parliament to update and re-release Saskatchewan’s Safer Communities and Neighborhoods Act, which will make it easier to get rid of groups like the Kingdom of Canada. Miller describes it as a “binder filled with bylaws” that a village can open should it find itself in a position Richmound did.

The Richmound School has been abandoned since the raid. One villager describes it as a “cheap prison,” “bloody eyesore,” and “constant reminder.” The Millers say they want to see it burned down and a greenhouse built nearby. What stayed with me is how the school is the first thing you see coming into town and the last thing you see on your way out: an object in the rearview mirror that shrinks with distance but never seems to disappear.

The celebrity blogger Perez Hilton allegedly livestreamed acts of self-harm on TikTok.

On Tuesday, social media feeds were flooded with users shocked after allegedly witnessing celebrity blogger Perez Hilton livestreaming acts of self-harm on TikTok. The video on the social media platform appears to have since been taken down.

The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office confirmed to Rolling Stone that it received multiple calls regarding an individual who was livestreaming acts of self-harm on social media and that deputies located the individual’s residence, who was alone inside. The Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Hilton was involved in the incident and said that the individual was “safely recovered” and transported to a local hospital, where he is receiving medical attention.

The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office Crisis Response Unit and licensed mental-health professionals are on scene providing support and resources to the individual’s family, per a statement.

“In many incidents involving a person experiencing a mental health crisis or actively harming themselves, deputies prioritize de-escalation by creating time, distance, and opportunities for communication,” read a previous statement from the Sheriff’s Office. “Unless there is an immediate threat to others, slowing the situation and utilizing crisis intervention techniques can reduce the likelihood of a suicide-by-cop encounter and minimize the risk of injury to the individual, deputies, and the public.”

A rep for Perez and TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hilton, born Mario Lavandeira, gained fame after launching his highly popular gossip website in the early Aughts and garnered notoriety for his unapologetic and often controversial take on celebrities’ lives. Several celebrities and their PR teams have denounced Perez for his vicious public insults, from Khloe Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, and Lady Gaga, a former friend of Perez.

In recent years and as online culture changed, Hilton toned down his public attacks and appeared to embrace fatherhood and adopt a kinder public persona, even integrating more family-friendly content on his site. In an interview with The New York Times in 2012, Hilton seemed regretful over his past behavior and the emotional damage he had inflicted on others. “What’s important for me is not being liked, but it is that people think I am no longer toxic to the world,” he said. “I’m aware of the fact there are going to be a lot of people with lingering resentment and a lot of skeptics,” he continued. “And that’s OK, because I am not pretending to be perfect.”

This article was updated on Aug. 5 at 1:04 a.m. ET to include an update from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office.

Jay Armstrong and Jimin Moon in 'Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody.'

When Dylan MarcAurele finally made time to watch the hit hockey romance Heated Rivalry last fall, it only took him five minutes to fall “totally in love” with the show.

Obviously, he wasn’t alone. It’s almost impossible to think of another television show that has become more of an instantaneous phenomenon than Heated Rivalry. Released by Canadian streaming service Crave, the NSFW series about rival hockey players Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) not only became one of the biggest shows of 2025, but skyrocketed its unknown leads into international stardom. By the time the final episode aired, people were already clicking play to watch the entire season again. MarcAurele sat down and wrote an entire musical.

Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody is the result of that love-at-first-sight experience. And similarly to its namesake, the off-Broadway show currently playing at the Culture Club in Manhattan has experienced an outsized response from theatergoers. MarcAurele worked with former Second City director Alan Kliffer to turn three frenzied weeks of writing and composing into a one-night-only concert. That sold out. They put on another. That also sold out. Now, what started as a small parody-musical-that-could has become a hit off-Broadway experience, complete with two extensions and in Canada and the U.K. The musical retells the story of Heated Rivalry, this time telling the tale of hockey players who want to kiss and explore each other’s bodies from the perspective of the straight, female fans who turned it into a hit. It’s a framing that, if done poorly, could have landed on the side of something cruel and misogynistic. Instead, Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody delivers something precious and side-splitting and sexy all in the same breath. And ironically — just like the source material — its creators aren’t quite sure how they got here.

“I wrote the thing over the course of three weeks. It kept getting bigger and bigger,” MarcArele tells Rolling Stone. “[We] got a Broadway cast of heavy hitters that are just amazing and eventually started joking about off-Broadway. Turns out that wasn’t a joke either.”

There’s no easy way to fit six hour-long episodes that cover almost a decade of romantic development into 75 minutes on stage. But fans will recognize the major tentpoles of this parody musical. Played by Jimin Moon (Sunset Boulevard), Shane Hollander is a wide-eyed hockey star burdened by potential and an ever deepening crush on his biggest rival, Ilya Rozanov, a Russian hunk played by Jay Armstrong Johnson (Parade), who turns what could’ve been a one-off fling into a secret years-long relationship. Their love story plays out on stage, backed by songs like the innuendo-heavy “Shane Hollander, Slap That Stick” and the Russian childhood retrospective “Big Ass, Cold Heart.” There’s also the cast’s favorite ballad “This Fuck” — which would actually fit right in on Broadway — in which Shane describes how “this fuck felt different from the last fuck” while a nonplussed Ilya makes him a tuna melt.

The show turns the cast and budget constraints of off-Broadway into a cheeky-mid show icebreaker, bringing a pre-chosen audience volunteer onstage to play the role of veteran hockey player Scott Hunter (François Arnaud in the TV series). The character — usually someone who can at least embody the spirit of the salt and pepper, smoothie-loving athlete — reads from a binder before being pulled around by cast in a lightning fast recap of his solo episode. Having a stranger suddenly responsible for action onstage can be nerve wracking. “I can’t breathe when I see it because I’m so nervous every time, and it always pays off,” MarcAurele says. “Sometimes the laughter from the audience is so loud that you can’t even hear the lyrics. I’m in heaven when that happens.

“One time the person was asleep!” Moon says, laughing.

But the sharpest framing choice is the show’s narrators, a group of exasperated and tired moms known as the Susans who, according to the show’s lore, discovered the series while on a girls’ trip to Montreal and are speedrunning the show’s appeal to a rapt audience. Their children are exhausting and the housework never ends and their husbands are babies. The only thing they want, as they sing together, is “gay hockey players with big butts / sucking dick but they’re sad / learning truths about themselves.”

“It’s this idea of three wine-drunk moms telling you the version they remember in their sauvignon blanc-induced fever,” Moon says. “The audience feels comfortable laughing at things in the show because they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s done with love.’”

No matter how good or prescient the lyrics, the show couldn’t exist without the perfect Shane and Ilya, which is why Kliffer and MacAurele tell Rolling Stone they feel so lucky that Moon and Johnson — their first choices — were in. “In their own way, they’re in love,” Kliffer says. “They really fall in love with each other over and over again every single night.” After casting was complete, the single most important goal for the creative team was not letting the parody aspect of the work take away any of the earnestness from their performances.

“I walked into the initial rehearsal with an accent that was borderline Transylvanian, and Alan and Dylan reeled me in really quickly,” Johnson says. “Connor Storrie is unbelievably good in the show, so all I have to do is pay homage to the grounded, ridiculous, ‘Wow, can’t believe he’s not Russian’ work that he did, and then ride the wave from there.”

Moon adds that the show’s large fanbase means theatergoers are almost always willing to ride that line between comedy and sincerity. “There’s moments when the audience will [go] ‘Ah!’ or ‘Whoo!’ [during] the iconic moments of yearning or loving in the show. That’s the part that feels thrilling to us,” they say. “What you’re taught when you’re learning to do comedy is to mean [it] sincerely. Everything has to be so deadass. That’s what makes it funny.

Since the show’s New York premiere on May 26, Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody has also opened in Montreal at and is scheduled to run at the Edinburguh Fringe Fest beginning Aug. 5. With two extensions under their belt, and is now scheduled to end on Nov. 1 after a successful 22 week run. But Kliffer and MarcAurele tell Rolling Stone that even when cast and crew take their final bows in New York, they know the story will keep going.

“There’s so many possibilities. Because this has been going so fast, it’s almost hard to take everything in. So we’re just letting it go one piece at a time, and hoping it runs for as long as it possibly can,” Kliffer says. “I mean, Phantom played for 30 years.”

Donald Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino stand as Spain celebrates its World Cup victory, on July 19, 2026.

For the past six weeks or so I’ve been having a recurring fight with my friends. The dispute is over whether or not it’s ethical to support the U.S. national team in the World Cup.

To the vast majority of people reading this article, this is an absurd question: of course you can and should support the United States Men’s National Team, you weirdo. And look, I’m with you. But despite the fact that my friends are pompous dorks who are no fun to watch the game with, the question they raise is valid: Are our national teams avatars of the administration in power, or of the people and promise of that country?

If you believe the former, then yeah, it’s pretty fucking weird to support the USMNT. In doing so, by that thinking, you’d be engaging in a sort of athletic nationalism on behalf of a country run by Donald Trump, the most corrupt president in history, who forced the Iranian national team to flee across the border immediately after the final whistle of each of their games, whose federal police have shot numerous civilians dead in the street during a brutal immigration crackdown, who has started a war and supported a genocide while covering up his close personal friendship with the most notorious pedophile in modern history.

I mean just look at him. On Sunday he waddled down onto the field to present Spain with their trophy, lingering on stage with the victorious team as they tried to celebrate. The presence of Mexican President Claudia Steinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did little to dilute the image of Trump standing next to his crony Gianni Infantino, grinning at all the trappings of their power, hands caressing a trophy they’d done nothing to earn, lingering well past his cue to leave Spain to their glory. This World Cup, literally, had Donald Trump’s fingerprints all over it.

And yet, this was one of the most thrilling, beautiful World Cups in recent memory. That’s America, baby — contradictions abound.

Over the past five weeks of the greatest athletic competition on Earth, we’ve seen games that will literally never leave my memory. The final, which I attended yesterday in New Jersey, was remarkably forgettable — a 0-0 draw until the 106th minute, with Spain dominating every second of play and yet unable to score, undone time and time again by their insistence on tricksy passing and the personal heroics of Argentina’s goalkeeper Emi Martinez. The rest of the tournament, however, delivered. Cabo Verde, refusing to lose until the very last moments of the first knockout round, battling back again and again against both teams that would eventually play in the final. The sheer dominance of France’s Kylian Mbappe in front of goal, scoring at will, rivaled only by the aging GOAT Leo Messi and the Norwegian warlord Erling Haaland. England’s heroic stand at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, 45 minutes in the rain, a man down, holding out for the win and singing “Wonderwall” with what felt like half the stadium when it ended. Off the pitch, too: the Algerian national team being welcomed with open arms by Lawrence, Kansas; Scottish braves drinking Boston dry and partying wildly with Haitian fans that overcame so much just to be at the tournament. In Mexico, of course, the World Cup was everything, and its fans threw joyous South Koreans pumped full of tequila into the air, and celebrated in the streets with opposing fans even after their hard-fought defeat to England.

For the United States, what the 2026 World Cup was — what our team was, what our fans were, what our performance as hosts was — is a reflection of two things at once: what our nation is and what it can be.

Our star striker, Folarin Balogun, was born here by accident, a citizen only because of a birthright system that our president is currently trying to erase. We have Ricardo and Giovanni and Freeman and Zendejas. We have another striker whose name is Haji, for goodness sake. I look at that team and I see the country America can be, one in which any soul born in or living within our arbitrary borders can become part of a great national project that seeks to improve the lives of everyone it can. And yet, I can also look at that team and see a reflection of what the country is, because there is an anchor around its neck. When Balogun was — albeit unjustly — suspended for a crucial match, Trump himself stepped in. Cronyism saved the day and got Balogun reinstated, but ruined the fragile harmony the team had enjoyed. On the pitch against Belgium, they came apart. Temperamental star Christian Pulisic tried to go alone and then quit, aging defender Tim Ream’s legs failed him when he needed them most, a young goalkeeper slipped and fell when he had no good options for support.

What more can you say about a team, about our country? The team is an entity that is capable of more but still has so far to go, that is vulnerable to the same forces of avarice and selfishness and fear that plague our national identity writ large.

It’s possible to end the story there, to say good riddance to another failed year and fractured team. But I think that’s a mistake. I think if you believe that you haven’t really been watching. I think that’s also why it pissed me off so much that some of my friends wouldn’t root for the U.S. Yes, we have flaws, like every country involved in the tournament. Yes, our current team management and political government are filled with morons. But if you won’t put on the shirt you’re essentially opting out of our future. We can’t wait around for a better world, a better team, a better president, before we deign to lend our support. Progress only comes from effort, from caring, from believing in something more.

One of my favorite images of the World Cup was a crowd shot of the opening match against Paraguay in Los Angeles: every race, color and creed of American there is, all covered in red white and blue. It’s corny and trite, sure. But that’s what it’s all about. That’s why we’re here. You have to believe. The U.S. won that game 4-2. In four years, we’ll be even better.

People line up for a viewing during a memorial service for Nolan Xavier Wells in Ocean Springs, Miss.

On Monday, the family and friends of Mississippi teen Nolan Xavier Wells said their goodbyes and paid their respects at his funeral, held at Center Pointe Church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Hundreds gathered at the church Monday morning, many wearing sky blue at the request of Wells’ mother. Wells played for his high school football team, which wore the color blue.

“Nolan had such a gentle, calming spirit about him. He had a way of making people feel seen, welcome, and valued. He could lift your confidence with just a few words and make you feel like you belonged,” said Well’s mother, Christine Wonsley, who wore a pin with her son’s picture on it. “I ask that each of you keep Nolan’s memory alive. Hold him close in your hearts, share his stories, and never stop saying his name. As long as we continue to remember him, his light will continue to shine through us all. Nolan, we love you. We’ll continue to fight for you.”

“Nolan meant a lot to a lot of people,” said Wells’ father, Elmore Wonsley. “Today shows us how much he meant to the community, to the country, and to the world.”

The service took place two weeks after 18-year-old Wells was found dead on the shore of Horn Island, a barrier island off the Mississippi coastline, on July 6. Wells had gone missing following a July 4 boat trip with friends, and his disappearance and death have drawn national attention. The Jackson County Sheriff’s department, along with the FBI, is conducting an investigation into Wells’ death. The autopsy reports from both the state and the family’s investigations have not been released.

From 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. CT, a visitation was held, followed by a funeral in which Rev. Al Sharpton officiated, and the family’s civil rights attorney Ben Crump gave a speech calling for justice. During the visitation, a slideshow of childhood photos of Wells with his friends and family played on the screen. His sports jerseys were framed and lined up next to the casket, which was adorned with blue and white flowers.

“We want to celebrate Nolan and at the same time say we want a full and thorough investigation,” Sharpton said. “For an 18-year-old young man to no longer be with us, we want answers. For the family, the closure will come when there is justice.” He added, “Long after the cameras are gone, they will bear the burden of an empty chair in the house.”

Sharpton spoke about the attention the case has brought to Wells’ family, including hate mail Wells’ mother received last week. Sharpton also thanked filmmaker Spike Lee and former NFL player Terrell Owens for attending the service. Owens posted about Wells’ death last week, tagging President Donald Trump and writing, “If you can make a call to overturn a call for a soccer match then you can make a call for the JUSTICE of Nolan Wells.”

During his eulogy, Sharpton offered a $50,000 reward for anyone who brings a tip leading to an arrest or conviction in the case of Wells’ death. Actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry texted Sharpton during the funeral to announce he’d match the reward, bringing it to $100,000. “He was not on that island by himself,” Sharpton said. “Somebody saw something or knows something.”

When Attorney Crump took the stage, he led the mourners in the audience in a chant of, “Justice for Nolan Wells.” Crump said, “We are on a ferocious search for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Someone in the audience shouted back, “So help me God!”

At the service, the song “Trust in God” was performed by Elevation Worship, “Sung” was performed by Thaddeus Fairley, Sr., and “You Know My Name” was sung by gospel singer Tasha Cobbs Leonard. Pallbearers were Carlisha Briscoe, Jaden Briscoe, Jaylen Williams, Jayvon Williams, O’Nicholas Wonsley, and Xavier Bryant. The funeral was available to be live-streamed.

After the funeral, an invite-only celebration of life was held at Jackson County Fairgrounds in Pascagoula. Wells’ mother said she wanted to give family and friends a time to “grieve together and fellowship.”

Movie producer Perry helped pay for the funeral expenses for the family, and former football player and activist Colin Kaepernick helped fund the private autopsy. Wells’ family has also been collecting donations for their independent investigation via GoFundMe.

After the funeral, Crump and Shapton put on a press conference where Crump was asked when he would have the independent autopsy results back, and he replied, “Soon.”

The Wonsleys briefly addressed the media at the press conference, as well.

“We have not fully processed or grieved Nolan,” Christine said, her voice breaking when she was asked how she plans to honor her son’s legacy. She and her husband Elmore said they were heartened to see all of the support for their son, and that it was a testament to who he was as a person.

In the days leading up to the funeral, Wonsley posted on social media, asking the public for more details surrounding the events that took place on Horn Island the day her son went missing. “Nono just know your father and I will not stop advocating for you son,” Wonsley wrote. “We are so proud of you and we love you.”