All right, I’ll be the first to admit it: I am addicted to celebrity gossip. I’m really not sure why – ask me and I’ll tell you how much I hate half of those people. But you could also ask me anything about their lives – from who I think is gay to who was reportedly at Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s wedding Saturday – and I could tell you.
But it really isn’t my fault! In a society like ours, it’s almost impossible not to be at least somewhat curious about the private lives of stars. Celebrities are everywhere. From the movies to TV to advertisements, they put their two cents in on what we wear, what we smell like and what we use on our hair. Although celebrities surprisingly don’t influence me on any of those things, I am in constant need of knowing who’s dating whom and who’s fighting with whom. Luckily for people like me, there’s a steady supply of tabloids to feed my hunger. Just go to the nearest grocery store and you’ll find plenty of choices.
We’ll start with my favorite, my personal Bible. I am one of Us Weekly’s million subscribers, and Us Weekly is definitely the glossy that I trust the most. Although it has gotten a few things wrong – they reported “exclusively” that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie adopted her second baby, Zahara, together, which was quickly proved wrong by paperwork – it scoops a lot of stories, like Britney Spears giving birth and Moore and Kutcher’s wedding. But a major problem with Us Weekly is that it tends to play favorites. I mean – how many times are they going to kiss Jessica Simpson’s ass by plastering her all over the best-dressed list? Did you see her at the MTV Music Awards? She looked – as she usually does in my opinion – like a wad of crap.
People is my second-ranked glossy, but it definitely takes the cake when it comes to subscription numbers, boasting a whopping 3,350,000 paid subscribers. My only beef with People is that it isn’t as sassy as Us Weekly and I enjoy the sass. People tends to get more exclusives, like Spears’ wedding and baby shower, but that is a title quickly being taken away by the newest celeb rag out there: OK! magazine.
OK! magazine has its roots in the UK (Brits tend to be just as celeb-happy as Americans). They just launched their U.S. edition this summer, which focuses on exclusive celebrity interviews, with the likes of Simpson, Hilary Duff and Nicole Richie posing on the covers – all eager to get their mugs spread across as many magazines as they possibly can. OK! claimed to have the first pictures of the Spears/Federline collaboration, reportedly paying close to $2 million for the pics, but when I snatched up the latest issue, baby Sean/Preston/Christian (what the hell is that baby’s name already?) was no where to be seen. So, I’ll believe it when I see it.
There is one magazine that I refuse to buy and that is InTouch Weekly. I will tell anyone I know that InTouch has gotten so many things wrong, it’s not even funny anymore. Even Oprah pointed it out when she said that a tabloid had reported that she was giving Pitt and Jennifer Aniston marriage counseling, a claim that she firmly denied. It’s the cheapest, andyou really get what you pay for.
There are even more celebrity glossies out there, such as Life and Style and Inside TV, but I prefer to stick to those I can really trust. But don’t take my word for it. You’ve got to choose which celebrity tabloid magazine is your personal guilty pleasure. After all, they say “don’t believe everything you read,” but sometimes life’s just more fun if you do.
Celebrity-focused tabloids feed readers’ needs for gossip tidbits
Daily Emerald
September 28, 2005
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