Where the Hell is Tila Tequila?
Tila Tequila is, by pop culture standards, a history maker by becoming the first social media influencer in existence. In the early days of social networking, Tila had Myspace in a chokehold and became the platforms most followed subscriber. At the peak of her popularity, she had 3.7 million fans on Myspace. This was a big deal in the mid-to-late 2000s and the personality was able to parlay this fame into other ventures such as a short-lived merchandise line and modeling gigs. Her biggest pictorials include Maxim, Penthouse and Playboy.
Always trying to expand her empire, Tila Tequila eventually dabbled with music in the form of singing/rapping. She released two EPs – ‘Sex’ (2007) and ‘Welcome to the Darkside’ (2010) – but none of them were very successful. However, one of her singles titled ‘I Love U’ was able to hit #75 on the Billboard Hot Digital Songs Chart. One of her other singles, ‘Stripper Friends,’ would become heavily utilized to promote her short-lived dating show on MTV. A Shot at Love aired from October 2007 to July 2008.
A Shot at Love was actually Tila Tequila’s second reality TV show, having previously competed in VH1’s ‘Surviving Nugent’ in 2003. A Shot at Love was also noteworthy in itself because it was the first bisexual dating show to air on a major network. The premise followed straight men and gay women all hoping to be picked as the winner, with the prize being the ability to call Tila their significant other. At the time, Tila had publicly identified as bisexual and chose a man as the winner of season one and a woman as the winner of season two.
Two sex tapes aside, Tila Tequila also gave acting a shot. See what I did there? She voiced herself in two episodes of The Cleveland Show, had a small role in the gay comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and in the thriller Masterminds with Hulk Hogan’s son Nick. As far as music is concerned, her last track is a feature on Yak Boy Fresh’s 2015 single titled ‘Drunk Dialing.’ And this, my friends, is where the story takes a drastic, unexpected turn into the world of bizarre. What followed next was a slew of antisemitic and homophobic comments that eventually led to her downfall and hibernation in seclusion.
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It started with her removal from the reality show Celebrity Big Brother: UK vs USA in 2015. Tila Tequila was removed only two days into filming after making several pro-Hitler comments during her confessionals. Although she later apologized for the comments – citing depression and drug use – she continued to spend much of 2016 making similar comments about her hatred for the Jewish and LGBT communities. Once a member of the gay community herself, Tila later revealed that she was never bisexual and only played herself that way for another dabble in reality TV. Yikes!
The former celebrity even went as far as to blame the Peru Earthquake of 2018 on gay people because we were incurring God’s wrath. Ms. High & Mighty leaned quite deep into her religious beliefs and attempted a gospel album in 2019 via GoFundMe which never materialized. And even in this 2020 Instagram video shared by Perez Hilton, Tila Tequila likened herself to Jesus Christ. Because that’s definitely a thing normal people do.
So, really, where the Hell is Tila Tequila? The pariah, now age 44, has seemingly fallen off the map since 2021. The last updates I can find, she had two children and was selling personalized artwork online. With her pro-Hitler, pro-Trump and antigay opinions, I’m honestly shocked that she hasn’t been a mainstay in Fox News commentary. Maybe she had the realization that Hollywood can be a toxic place if you’re not careful, and maybe she cut out the cancer before it consumed her completely.
Wherever she is, I hope she’s happy and healed. It’s never too late to turn the ship around.