The latest Ashton and Demi drama. With a little extra Bruce Willis goodness thrown in.

Publications: National Examiner, National Enquirer, OK!, In Touch
Date: 31 Oct. 2011

Fresh trash on Thursdays! And a special welcome to gossip hell to Bruce Willis, his first mention on the cover of a supermarket rag this decade. Here are the headlines.

• National Examiner: Demi wants Bruce back
• National Enquirer: Tortured by Ashton's secret double life…
  Demi suicide shocker!
  Inside: details of her visit to this church for help
  humiliation pushes her to brink
  Bruce rushes to Demi's side
• OK!: Ashton's cheating: What Demi's kids think
• In Touch: Demi kicks Ashton out!

The big surprise in this one besides the suicide warning is the low rent Examiner getting in on this story. Their audience skews older than most, and it might be the addition of 80s TV star Willis that makes this story of any interest to them at all.

On the rocks alert and Don't try suicide warning: Kendra's story turns dark

Publications: Weekly Life & Style, In Touch
Date: 26 Sept. 2011

Fresh trash on Thursdays! Weekly Life & Style and In Touch are both published by Bauer and this week, these two and these two magazines alone among the supermarket rags decide to tell dark stories about the bimbo Kendra Wilkinson, stories that make her husband Hank look long suffering, mature and responsible. Here are the headlines.

• Weekly Life & Style: Kendra confesses: I hit my husband
• In Touch: Kendra's secret breakdown
  depression suicide and divorce
  beneath the bubbly facade, she admits, "I'm a wreck"
  Threatens husband Hank she'll kill herself
  Panic attacks and blackouts
  What finally forced him to take the baby away

Best wishes to Hank Baskett and the adorable Hank Baskett Jr. I hope both of these guys make it out of this okay.

Meanest Story nominee: Amber's deathbed confession!

Publication: In Touch
Date: 4 July 2011

Anyone who has read this blog before knows how much I dislike the entire concept of the reality show Teen Mom. Since I haven't watched it, I don't have a least favorite star of this show, but having read headlines, it seems like Amber Portwood is one of the most disagreeable.

It is my fond wish that these young women would not be on TV, but I'm not wishing them dead.

In Touch uses the word "deathbed" in a cover story about Amber Portwood. She did attempt suicide, but it wasn't anywhere near a successful attempt, so it wasn't really a "deathbed confession".

The gossip rags have only used the word "deathbed" in three cases prior to this in the last eighteen months. They have used it to describe Elizabeth Edwards and Elizabeth Taylor after they died, and they used it in a story about Zsa Zsa Gabor when it looked like she was going to die.

Zsa Zsa is 93. Amber is 21. Claiming Zsa Zsa was on her deathbed can be listed as an honest mistake.

This, on the other hand, is a nominee for Meanest Story of the Week.

Meanest Story nominee: Paula Deen suicide shocker!

Publication: National Enquirer
Date: 23 May 2011

Of all the celebrity chefs, Paula Deen is the one the Three Wicked Step Sisters like to pick on the most. This time it's the Enquirer saying the police found six empty pill bottles in her home.

Maybe she's just not tidy.

This is a nominee for Meanest Story of the Week.

Don't try suicide: John Edwards suicidal as lawyer gives him bad news.

Publication: National Enquirer
Date: 18 April 2011

John Edwards is almost the exclusive property of the National Enquirer. There has been one story about his late wife Elizabeth in People which mentioned him as a minor character, but every other story is in The Flagship and all of them are negative.

Which is no more than he deserves.

Even so, I made a promise to keep track of every time a supermarket rag marked someone for death, and finally realized that when they say someone is suicidal, this is the absolute weakest death warning around. As such, I have started a new label called "Don't try suicide" and I went back over the past death warnings and added this label to the ones that mentioned suicide.

When one of the tabloid vultures says "xxx dying!", they have a 100% probability of being right eventually. But when they say "zzz suicidal!", the chance that they are correct is much closer to 0%. Still, John Edwards goes on the death watch list, though I expect he's going to be staying on this side of the lawn for the foreseeable future.

And the camera noses in to the tears on their faces: Stories focusing on Charlie Sheen's twin toddlers

Publications: People, Weekly Life & Style
Date: 21 March 2011

Fresh trash on Thursdays! It's easy to think of Charlie Sheen as a human train wreck who deserves all the trouble now coming his way, but two different supermarket rags finally bring up a salient fact that turns makes this comedy feel more like a tragedy.

Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller are the proud parents of twin boys who are now two years old. One or both of them will get custody. Right now, Mueller has sole custody, but that only happened recently.

Here's People's take on the story this week.

• Kids caught in chaos
• Sippy cups, porn stars and threats
  
• The upside-down world of the toddlers trapped in Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller's ugly custody war

Weekly Life & Style also uses most of the cover with a reminder that there are tiny tots involved in this horrible nonsense.

• Exclusive Interview: Charlie Sheen admits "I'm losing my mind".
• After Charlie loses his job and his kids, friends fear he's suicidal.
• He tells WL&S "My lawyer wants to take the bullets out of my gun."

Here's a sentence I don't type that often.

Whatever Sheen is paying that lawyer, it's not enough.

She Fought The Law Alert™:Caylee's mom suicidal as murder trial nears

Publication: Globe
Date: 7 February 2011

Casey Anthony will soon be on trial for the murder of her daughter Caylee, who went missing from her Orlando home about a month before she turned three back in 2008. The Globe says Casey is now suicidal.

You So Crazy Alert™:Suicidal Cher can't handle Chaz's sex change

Publication: National Examiner
Date: 23 August 2010

Cher is one of those celebrities that only gets mentioned in the Three Wicked Step Sister tabloids, the Enquirer, Globe and the low rent Examiner. Those three tabloids are also the source of well over 90% of the Not Long 4 This World and Brave Last Days stories, where people have deadly diseases or are suicidal. This is the fourth cover story for Cher this year and she's had two deadly diseases, she got an expiration date of two years to live and now she's suicidal.

Somebody at the Step Sisters really doesn't like Cher. That's all this story is as far as I'm concerned, and it gets a Meanest Story of the Week nomination.

You So Crazy Alert™:Suicidal Angelina Jolie heading back to mental hospital

Publication: National Enquirer
Date: 23 August 2010

It's hard for Angelina Jolie to get a Meanest Story nomination, because the tabloids are mean to her every week. But the Flagship has her heading back to a mental institution and suicidal, so this one qualifies in my book. Brad Pitt is mentioned on the cover, supposedly he's in tears, but I decided this one is really all about Angie, so it's gets listed as a solo for each instead of a BrAngelina story.

Deadly mental anguish is this week's theme for Meanest Story.

Not Long 4 This World Alert:DEATH RACE 2010

Publication: Globe
Date: 26 July 2010

Back in January, the Globe had a cover story putting together a line-up of young people who might die, most of them because of drug usage. This week, the headline is WHO WILL DIE FIRST? with pictures of celebrities of varying ages, some who have already been on the celebrity death watch, others getting their first mention in the tabloids of any kind for 2010.

Here's the list. An asterisk by a name means this is the first time they have been put on a death watch this year.

Lisa Marie Presley*: Eating herself to death
Camilla Parker-Bowles: Now weighs 200 lbs.
Mel Gibson: suicidal
Paula Abdul*: addicted to pain pills
Pamela Anderson*: binge drinking
Bret Michaels: shocking secret
Wayne Newton*: Risking it all
Heidi Montag*: surgery obsessed

A few comments.

This is not the standard fare for the Globe. The only person who qualifies for Hey Old Timer Gossip is Wayne Newton, who they mentioned once before when his pregnant daughter fell into a coma this winter. The only "regular" Globe cover girl in this list is Camilla.

If we are to believe this report, and that's a very big if when considering the Globe, the two names that should be taken seriously are Bret Michaels and Pamela Anderson, both of whom have serious documented health problems that are not conducive to hard partying.

The rest of the list... meh. I still don't believe Mel Gibson is suicidal, plenty of people put on weight without dying immediately, and since this is the first mention Paula Abdul or Wayne Newton, I'm going to need independent verification from some publication that actually has a fact-checker on the payroll.

As for Heidi Montag... please. They just wanted to put a picture of her tits on the cover, though it should be said that this is the first time she has graced the cover of any of The Three Wicked Stepsister tabloids.

Not Long 4 This World Alert:Lindsay Lohan's life in danger

Publications: Star, In Touch
Date: 26 July 2010

Both In Touch and Star put a morbid twist on the Lindsay Lohan story. Lindsay's mom fears for her life according to In Touch and Star says she's suicidal. Other details in Star include that she's under watch 24/7, she's not eating or sleeping and she is taking a deadly drug cocktail.

This now increases the size of the death watch list to 38, and Lohan joins Bret Michaels with multiple mentions outside in the Three Wicked Stepsister tabloids. Make of that what you will.

Not Long 4 This World Alert:Mel Gibson is suicidal

Publication: Globe
Date: 19 July 2010

There is actual news about Mel Gibson today in the show business press and in the blogs of the Los Angeles Times. The William Morris Agency has finally had enough of his nonsense.

And then there's the nonsense in the Globe. They say Mel Gibson is suicidal. It's obvious he's too mean to kill himself, but with this warning he joins Sarah Ferguson and Marie Osmond as people on the Not Long 4 This World list because of alleged suicidal tendencies.

Personally, I don't buy any of these stories, but I find this one the least convincing of all.

Demon Rum Alert™:Rehab for suicidal Fergie

Publication: Globe
Date: 21 June 2010

The Globe and the Examiner are the two main sources for nasty stories about the Windsors and anyone who might have ever married a Windsor, no matter how short a time that charade might have lasted. This week it's the Globe's turn with a story about how Sarah Ferguson is suicidal and going into rehab for booze.

A headline that calls someone suicidal counts as a Not Long 4 This World addition. While the chance the prediction comes true is unlikely, the situation with Larry King's wife from late last month reminds us that it is possible. (Note: no tabloid called Shawn King suicidal before her overdose.)

Not Long 4 This World Alert:Marie Osmond suicidal after son's suicide

Publications: National Enquirer, Star

Date: 15 Mar. 2010

If you like to buy a tabloid on the basis that it will take a tragic story and make it a little worse, The Flagship is an excellent choice, and the Star works on that basis as well. Instead of publishing the story of Marie Osmond's son's suicide, both of these rags are claiming that Marie is suicidal, with the Enquirer adding the extra dollop of innuendo by calling Michael Bryan "Marie's gay son". In the real world, the family has asked that their privacy be respected, but when have the tabloids ever listened to a request like that?

I started this blog with the idea that I wanted to keep track of how often the tabs predicted celebrity deaths and how often they are completely wrong. It is my fondest desire that this is yet another instance of their error.

Note: The picture is from 1999. Michael is kid in front wearing the t-shirt and sweater vest.