PEREZ HILTON: I nearly died and met God. I've finally seen the error of my gossipy ways... Now these very unlikely celebrities are helping to save my soul

As Perez Hilton prepared to ring in his birthday last month, he surely did not expect to be celebrating fresh out of a hospital bed.

The celebrity gossip blogger revealed in March that he had just emerged from a 21-day hospital stint as be battled sepsis - a result, he said, of taking flu medication on an empty stomach that triggered a cascade of health problems.

There, at the Southern Hills Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas, Hilton underwent two surgeries as he was treated for a string of medical crises including fluid in his lungs, deep vein thrombosis, kidney problems and an irregular heartbeat or arrhythmia.

In fact, the ordeal was so harrowing that the 48-year-old believed it was truly the end of the line. But his miraculous recovery, he says, was an act of God.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Hilton has laid bare his 'very profound, very real experience' of divine intervention during his hospitalization.

'It was God presenting Himself to me, and then doing something that I could only describe as a miracle to heal me... I was still unwell, and then God did something,' Hilton said.

There were multiple times during those three weeks when he said he 'thought I was gonna die,' the first being at the start of his stay, when he checked in to be treated for sepsis and then caught another infection.

Hilton's health began to improve, he said, after a surgeon 'literally flipped over all of my organs' in order to find and address a 'perforation.' However, he later declined sharply, suffering a form of arrhythmia called atrial fibrillation (AFib), as well as kidney problems and 'water near each of my lungs.'

As a result, Hilton was attached to a 'little tube giving me extra oxygen.

'I remember it was late at night, and my sweet, dear, strong mother had been going to the hospital every day, but this incident happened at night,' he said.

'I was simultaneously still and very calm on the outside, but on the inside, I was freaking out, and my brain was racing, and I thought I was gonna die.'

It wasn't until his encounter with God that he said he turned the corner. 

'What was so powerful for me,' Hilton recalled, 'was that it wasn't just God manifesting Himself. It was the one-two punch. It was God manifesting Himself and then healing me also.'

Hilton, who grew up in a Cuban family in Miami, was brought up Catholic, but said that his present religious convictions are more 'Catholic-ish' because of his disagreements with the church. 

But in the wake of revealing his newfound Christianity, he said he has been received warmly by other religious celebrities, such as Nicole Scherzinger, Kristin Chenoweth and Candace Cameron Bure. The latter, he said, has been an 'angel,' and the pair have been 'talking privately' about his brush with death.

He declined to specify exactly what happened in his meeting with God while in hospital on the grounds that: 'Some things should be kept private, and what happened with me and God was so real, so powerful, and so personal, that I want to keep it between me and God.'

'What's important to me is my personal relationship with God, and I am praying to God daily, several times a day, and crying, but all happy tears recently. Happy tears.'

Yet he divulged that his professed exchange with the Almighty allowed him to change his mindset about his rollercoaster 22-year career.

He openly confessed that he had 'made a lot of mistakes in the past which are very public. Which I own. Which I regret, which I have deep shame for, which I've apologized for repeatedly, publicly as well as privately.'

Over the years he has come under fire for a string of controversial behaviors, such as the outing of gay celebrities or the nicknames he gave certain A-listers. Now, years later, Hilton has told the Daily Mail that 'to have this experience with God and to know that God loves me, and God forgives me, it was very healing, because I then forgave myself.' 

He previously still harbored guilt over 'all of the mistakes - not even mistakes, they were awful decisions that I made' in his 'enfant terrible phase' as a celebrity blogger, when he 'knew what I was doing was wrong and I didn't care.'

'It's like if you're a drug addict, and you're stealing from your parents' money to buy drugs. You know what you're doing is wrong, and you don't care. You just want that hit,' the father of three continued. 'And that was truly what I was doing.'

For Hilton, the 'most powerful drug' was the 'attention' he garnered as an online gadfly, 'and I didn't care who I hurt in the process.'

Although his 'experience with God' reshaped his view of his past, it has not inspired a total career pivot. When people ask if he'd consider changing professions, Hilton tells them: 'No, because I'm not doing gossip. I do celebrity journalism.'

Nevertheless he said he intends to lead a 'smaller, quieter, happier life.'

As a result, he no longer bothers to respond to 'nasty comments' on social media, opting instead to instantly block the people who post them.

'Prior to my hospitalization, I used to think all attention was good attention,' he said. 'And while I acknowledge that that is still the case for a lot of people - like the Kardashians! - I am more interested in protecting my peace.'