- Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton tweeted on April 22 about a video someone had sent him that allegedly showed 25-year-old British Olympic diver Tom Daley kissing a 16-year-old TikTok star.
- People have been reacting to the allegations online, sparking a debate about age gaps in the gay community and age of consent laws.
- Hilton has not publicly shared the video and deleted a tweet in which he named the teenager, saying that he regretted mentioning him.
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Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton said on April 22 that he received a video that allegedly shows 25-year-old British Olympic diver Tom Daley kissing a 16-year-old TikTok star.
After first tweeting about the video on April 22 and stating that he would not be sharing it publicly, he followed up by saying that he was in touch with his lawyer about how to best proceed with the video and "making sure I do my duty to get it into the hands of authorities."
The video in question, which appears to have leaked online, shows a man who is allegedly Daley kissing a teenage TikTok star shirtless at a party. While Hilton originally named the TikToker, he later deleted the tweet with his name in it. He went live on YouTube on April 22, saying, "I really regret mentioning this 16-year-old's name because... he may have been drinking, he's not an adult."
Since Hilton brought up the video, people online have been discussing both the alleged incident in question and the normalization of similar age gaps between gay men.
Others have discussed the potential legality of the interaction.
According to Hilton, the video was filmed at a diving meet in Beijing, China, in March 2019, when the Tiktoker in question was 15 (and Daley would have been 24). The age of consent in the United Kingdom, where Daley is from, is 16. In the United States, it varies from 16 to 18 dependent on the state. In China, where Hilton said that the video was filmed, it is 14.
Hilton, whose real name is Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., was faced with scrutiny upon first publishing the tweet. He reasserted that video depicted Daley on Twitter, saying, "It's definitely him. 100%" in one tweet. In the April 22 live on YouTube, he doubled down, asserting that it was indeed Daley and the unnamed TikToker in the video.
"All I can confirm is that I saw this video and it is Tom Daley in the video, and it is this other person. [...] For those of you who didn't believe me, I came through with receipts," he said, also sharing multiple screenshots that he said are from the video in question.
Hilton also explained in the YouTube live video, which is currently available to watch in full, that he hadn't shared the video because the other person in the video was "16 and may have been 15 at the time," also saying on Twitter that "posting [the video] could be considered child p*rn."
Additionally, he speculated that it was possible that Daley could have bought the footage, which would have hypothetically left Hilton open to be sued for copyright violation should he have shared it.
A competitor in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympic games, Daley is also an influencer, frequently posting vlogs and workout videos to his YouTube channel, where he currently has over 850,000 subscribers. He is also married to Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black since 2017 (the couple announced they were engaged in 2015, according to news outlets), and they have a son.
Insider has not been able to independently verify the claims against Daley and has reached out to both Perez Hilton and Tom Daley for comment on the situation.
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