Published: October 16, 2008

Every day for the past two years, Fordham students from Lincoln Center and Rose Hill have united through reading the trashiest, yet most hilarious digital “rag mag” of Fordham’s time: FUrez Hilton’s blog.

This Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) student’s anonymous postings became a means of entertainment for students who loved to hear gossip about their classmates, professors and even the lunch ladies. Heartache, hilarity and humiliation were common emotions felt by the “Fordham celebrities” whose antics dominated the site. FUrez was the main source for information about students’ drinking habits, parties on and off campus, inappropriate behavior, sexuality and every so often, campus news and updates.

Unfortunately, the blog came to a close with its final post on May 16  as FUrez Hilton prepared to graduate and leave Fordham and its obsessed blog readers behind. But after months of silence, FUrez decided to make a quasi-comeback last month. In this interview, we’ll find out why he decided to start up his blog once again, get a glimpse of what life is like outside the gates of Rose Hill and maybe dig up some gossip of our own.

OBSERVER: FUrez, good to see you back online. How’s the fab life after Fordham?

FUREZ HILTON: It’s fun, I guess. I live in Chelsea, but my apartment is bleeding me dry! I don’t know why I had to buy a bar for my living room… I live above one.

OBSERVER: So, you’re working now, right? Did Fordham prepare you for the professional world?

FH: I got a good job at a great company. I perfected the art of procrastination during my time at FU, so I’m a pro at getting 800 things done an hour before I go home.

OBSERVER: Do you enjoy working in the real world or would you rather still be stuck at FU?

FH: I would sell my kidney to go back to FU. Having money in the bank is nice, but there’s nothing like being able to stay up till all hours of the night with your best friends.

OBSERVER: You were very open with your sexuality on FUrez Hilton. Is it easy to be honest about homosexuality in the workplace, or would you advise homosexuals at Fordham to keep their “gay” signifiers under wraps?

FH: I’ve always been quiet about my personal life. You knew I was gay on FUrez, but you never knew if I was dating anyone, single, fighting with my ex, etc. When I’m at work, I’m not there to talk about my personal life; I’m there to do my job, and I do just that. I’ve got plenty of friends and time to have fun and be myself, but I’ve also got an apartment in Chelsea and rent is not cheap! I’m not stifling myself in any way; it’s just an issue that’s irrelevant to what I do for a living, so there’s not really a need to either promote or suppress it at work.

OBSERVER: Now that you have a real job, why did you decide to make a quasi-comeback on the FUrez Hilton blog?

FH: They say the first year out of college is a big transition year. I know a lot of people from the class of ’08 who are still looking for jobs and wish just as badly as I do that they could be back. So why not keep us all connected? Sure, there’s Facebook, but [the blog is] something that only [Fordham students] could truly understand and laugh at. So if it makes their day a little bit funnier, I don’t see why it’s such a big deal.

OBSERVER: What was your favorite encounter with a FUrez fan, on or off campus?

FH: I loved all of the fan encounters at the Spice Girls concerts last year; those were a lot of fun. The best post-grad one has been on 50th Street by Blockheads, when a group     of kids walked past me and gasped.  I didn’t know who they were, but I turned around after a few feet and saw them looking then turned back around and kept walking. A few seconds later I heard, “We love you FUrez!” It made my day.

OBSERVER: Did you ever partake in a conversation about the blog and pretend to be a fellow reader instead of revealing yourself as the man, the myth, the legend, that created it all?

FH: Actually, no! That would have been fun, but people figured out it was me [who wrote the blog] pretty early on. That kind of ruined Overheard On The Ram Van [a segment of the blog] after a while, because when I was on the van, no one would speak.

OBSERVER: What would you do if someone who disliked FUrez started a blog all about you and followed and recorded every move you made like paparazzi?

FH: You know I would live for something like that. I guess I’d just have to make sure to have good lighting at all times. Nothing is worse than bad lighting.

OBSERVER: How did you finally know that you became the well-known, Fordham superstar you are today?

FH: I was at Villanova watching my little brother play football and ran into a girl from high school. We were talking, and she said her boyfriend (who knew me from high school too) went to a graduation party where the graduate’s little brother was a Fordham student. When her boyfriend mentioned that he only knew one person who attended Fordham (me), the kid’s face got very serious, and he was like, “He’s a legend at Fordham. You can’t cross that kid. He had this Web site, and everyone knows him and tried to be his friend.” I hate when people say I have a big ego, because things like that are what do it to me.

Check out the famed FUrez Hilton blog at furezhilton.blogspot.com.