The Enquirer goes after J.R. Martinez.

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 12 Dec. 2011

I have an odd relationship with the gossip world.  I don't watch the TV shows they follow and I don't read what's inside. All I know is what's on the cover.  I know J.R. Martinez won Dancing With The Stars this season, so the public likes him.  This means the Enquirer has some perverse notion that he needs to be chopped down to size.  Here are their headlines.

• DWTS J.R. Martinez Shocking tell-all!
• Women
• War wounds
• Winning

Let me say something nice about the Enquirer, even though I know their hearts are in the wrong place.

Nice alliteration.

This week's Natalie Wood stories.

Publications: Globe, National Enquirer

Date: 12 Dec 2011

Let us recall that the Natalie Wood story was the exclusive possession of the low rent Examiner before the case was re-opened, but now that it has been re-opened, the other, and more well heeled Wicked Step Sisters are running with the story.  Here are the headlines.

• National Enquirer: Only in the Enquirer
  Christopher Walken phone call revealed
  Natalie Wood sex secret
  What cops were never told
• Globe: Natalie Wood case solved!
  World exclusive
  30 years after shocking death
  New evidence: her last words reveal what REALLY happened
  Plus: Natalie's secret diaries
  Are they telling the truth?
  Pictures of Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken

All this week's BrAngelina drama.

Publications: Weekly Life & Style, National Enquirer

Date: 12 Dec. 2011

Two very different stories this week, mainly about Angelina Jolie, but Brad and daughter Shiloh get mentioned as well, so they count as BrAngelina.  Here are the headlines.

• Weekly Life & Style:  Angelina: Desperate to be skinny
  She's surviving on just 600 calories a day
  Brad begs a stressed and frail Angelina to stop starving herself
• National Enquirer: Brad rages at Angelina for raising Shiloh as a boy!
  All the details
  Put her in a dress! Brad orders Angie!

Meanest Story nominee: Hollywood weight battles!

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 12 Dec. 2011 

The Enquirer has a grab bag story of female celebrities struggling with their weight. Here are the headlines.

    Oprah 280 lbs.
    Boozing and Binge Eating
    Talk queen ordered "Diet or Die!"

    Demi Moore 90 lbs.
    Dramatic intervention to get her to eat

    Ricki Lake 140 libs.
    Too fat for wedding dress
    Desperate to lose 20 lbs.

This is a nominee for Meanest Story of the Week.

Bun in the Oven alert™: Ricki Lake pregnant at 42!

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 5 Dec. 2011

If tabloid cover stories are any indication, American Idol is fading and Dancing With The Stars is the new top dog among reality TV shows now.  The Enquirer says Ricki Lake is pregnant and calls this a "DWTS secret".

Best wishes to all concerned, if this is true. We will see when this story is reviewed at the end of June next year.

On the rocks alert: Oprah begs Gayle.

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 5 Dec. 2011

The Enquirer continues their crusade to make Oprah Winfrey miserable by telling stories about her love life.  This week, Gayle is allegedly leaving and Oprah begs "Please don't leave me!"

Dig up a corpse, why don'tcha? The re-opening of the Natalie Wood case makes the mainstream.

Publications: People, National Enquirer

Date: 5 Dec. 2011

 

I have little respect for the low rent Examiner, but they deserve credit as the only magazine that was calling for the re-opening of the Natalie Wood case over the past few years. Now the big guns get in on the act, People and the National Enquirer.  Here are the headlines.

• People: Natalie Wood: How did she really die?
• National Enquirer: Natalie Wood bombshell
  Robert Wagner's cover-up revealed! - boat captain

 

Meanest story nominee: 271 lb. Chaz Bono collapses!

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 5 Dec. 2011

All in all, it's not a very mean week in the supermarket rags.  The low rent Examiner wasn't delivered in Oakland yet and the Globe eats up the majority of the cover with a "Where Are They Now?" story without any dire predictions of anyone dying. The meanest story in the consistently mean Enquirer has the following headlines, listed as "Exclusive breaking news!"

• 271 lb. Chaz colapses! 
• Friends race to save him

This is a nominee for Meanest Story of the Week.

On the rocks alert: Bruce and Kris Jenner.

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 5 Dec. 2011

Fresh trash on Thursdays!  Welcome to gossip hell, Bruce Jenner! For the first time in at least two years, the most invisible adult in the Kardashian family circus gets on the cover of a supermarket gossip rag with a rumor of divorce from the woman who pimps out her own daughters for fame, now including Jenner's underage biological daughters.

I'm old enough to remember when he was a great athlete, but I also remember even then he made some questionable decisions trying to turn a decathlon championship into a career.

Casey Anthony survives assassination attempt!

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 28 Nov. 2011

The Enquirer would like to remind everyone that Casey Anthony is still the most hated person in America with a story about her surviving an assassination attempt.  Here are the headlines.

• Killer wanted to put a bullet through her brain
• She's pulled from kill zone & rushed to a new safe house
  

A lawyer for Anthony denies the entire story.

And the camera noses in to the tears on their faces: The supermarket rags take on Penn State.

Publications: People, National Enquirer

Date: 28 Nov. 2011

The story of the sex scandal is definitely the kind of story that has to get a mention in the gossip rags, and it falls upon People and the National Enquirer to do the work, a classic Luke vs. Darth match-up.

Here are the headlines.

• People:  Penn State: Pain & Betrayal
  The Victims
  The accused
  Will there be justice?
• National Enquirer: Penn State sex scandal
  What coach's wife is hiding

Meanest story nominee: Kirstie cancer drama!

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 28 Nov. 2011

If there is anyone new to this blog just stumbling upon this story, you should know that the AMI owned gossip rags hate fat Scientologists in general and Kirstie Alley in particular. More than this, the Flagship, my nickname for the Enquirer, has first dibs on hating her.  Here are this week's headlines.

• Kirstie cancer drama
• Heavy smoking is killing her

This is not the first time Kirstie has been marked for death in the tabloids.  She was given three years to live back in 2009 before this blog started. 

 

This is a nominee for Meanest Story of the Week.

This week's Demi and Ashton headlines.

 Publications: National Enquirer, Star, Weekly Life & Style, Us Weekly

Date: 28 Nov. 2011

More stories this week about Demi and Ashton than there are about Kim Kardashian.  Could the supermarket rags be getting over her at last?  It's early, but I think it's also possible.  Here are the Ashton-Demi headlines, printed mere hours before the divorce proceedings were made public.

• National Enquirer:  Demi's face is melting!
  Ashton's cheating is taking a toll
  (now and 6 months ago)
• Star: Exclusive details
      Demi: How 'Open Marriage' destroyed her
• Weekly Life & Style: January's baby: Is Ashton the dad?
• Us Weekly: Ashton & Demi's vacation to save their marriage

A lot of magazines have been predicting the divorce for a while, so I'm not handing out a scoop for this one, but if the rumor about January Jones' baby is true, that could very well have been the last straw.

Problems with Plastic alert™: Plastic surgery shockers!

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 21 Nov. 2011

The Enquirer has another grab-bag story on the cover about celebrities who have had plastic surgery that sucks. The headline reads "The good, the bad and the really ugly", but as usual, they leave the good off the front cover.  Here are the women they trash, including gossip hell newcomers Dyan Cannon and Susan Lucci.

• Barbara Walters - what went wrong
• Dyan Cannon - over the top
• Susan Lucci - Elastic face & squinty eyes
• Lindsay Lohan - bloated disaster
    

Meanest story nominee: Herman Cain and a White House intern!

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 21 Nov. 2011

Welcome to gossip hell, Herman Cain!  Just as the legitimate press is beating him up, in comes a blow from the National Enquirer, saying he had an affair with a White House intern.

I can't tell if they are trying to crush his campaign or make him look presidential. In any case, here are the headlines.

• Sex scandal explodes! 
• Friend tells all

Do you think it's a friend of the intern or a friend of Cain?  Yeah, me too.

This is a nominee for Meanest Story of the Week.

Neo-nazi marries into the Swayze clan!

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 14 Nov. 2011

 

The Enquirer decides it's an "Outrage!" that some member of now dead Patrick Swayze's family has decided to marry a neo-Nazi.

What's he supposed to do, come back and haunt them?

Bells Done Rung™: Oprah's marriage shocker!

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 14 Nov. 2011

 

The Enquirer has some fresh trash about Oprah, an alleged marriage some 30 years ago.  Here are the headlines.

• Secret husband she has been hiding for 30 years
• picture revealed inside
• Exclusive: Husband speaks to Enquirer
  

Meanest story nominee: Chaz Bono has four years to live!

Publication: National Enquirer

Date: 14 Nov. 2011

 

The Enquirer has published several bad stories about Chaz Bono's health this year and now puts the 42 year old on the Expiration Date list, giving him four years to live.  This is a strangely long time for these kinds of stories.  The longest expiration date before this were two years to live. Among the people who have gotten the "two years to live" treatment are Oprah Winfrey, Rush Limbaugh and Chaz' mom Cher.

Here are the headlines.

• Breaking news! Chaz Bono Only 4 years to live!
• Liver damage agony
• Dancing With The Stars made his health crisis worse

Best wishes to Chaz, his family and friends.  This is a nominee for Meanest Story of the Week.

On the rocks alert: The divorce of Kim'n'Kris makes the cover of SEVEN gossip rags.

Publications: People, OK!, In Touch, Weekly Life & Style, Us Weekly, Star, National Enquirer

Date: 14 Nov. 2011

 

Fresh trash... on Wednesdays!  Yes, we get a story covered in seven supermarket rags, the most of any story in at least two years.

It's official!  I now hate Kim Kardashian's guts.  After nearly two years for not caring one way or the other, her obvious timing of ending her marriage for maximum exposure in the supermarket rags convinces me that she is exactly why the 99% should consider our modern society all out class warfare.

Here are the headlines from all seven magazines, which should be counted as a clean sweep. (The Globe and low rent Examiner skew too old for Kris, and the Sun is only interested in the End of the World.)

• People: Kim's 72-day marriage: Mistake or fake?
  The real story
  Exclusive details
  What drove her to divorce now
  Husband Kris blindsided
  Just another reality TV stunt?
• In Touch: $500 Million Divorce!
  The shocking betrayal that could void Kim's prenup!
• OK!:  Kim files for divorce: "We're done!"
  After only 72 days!
  Why Kim felt trapped, embarrassed and tricked
  Kris' ultimatum: "Me or your family"
  He throws a divorce party
  Kim tells OK!: "This isn't easy"
• Weekly Life & Style: First interview only in Life&Style
  Why I left him
  An embarrassed Kim: 'There was nothing else I could do'
  Kris wants the ring back: 'She used me!'
  Ex-boyfriend Reggie asks to reunite
• Star: Kim: single & pregnant
  Divorce bombshell
  Showdown over baby ended marriage
• National Enquirer: After divorce papers filed…
  Kim & Kris' wedding scam exposed!
  photo proof inside
• Us Weekly:  My Big mistake
  Inside their final days
  Why Kim almost called off the wedding
  Their nasty private fights
  Did they marry for love or money?

 I have only one comment.  If Reggie Bush really wants to get back into the middle of this circus, he should get tested for concussion related brain damage.

This week's stories about The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Publications: National Enquirer, In Touch

Date: 7 Nov. 2011

Here are the headlines about The Real Housewives of New Jersey this week.

• National Enquirer: Teresa & Joe will lose their kids - expert warns
  Joe putting daughters' lives in danger
• In Touch: The secrets that could ruin them
  All hell breaks loose after the re-union
  Teresa catches Joe in a hotel with blonde
  Jacqueline's desperate to hide her life as exotic dancer
  Caroline's plot to bury horrific assault