So, you’re expecting Keeping Tabs to address the Star cover you saw in the checkout aisle this week? You know, that whole “5 Years Later … JonBenet Murder Solved!” deal? Oh come on. You should know better by now. “Solved” is a term the tabs see as open to interpretation, and nothing about this story seems any more conclusive than anything else the tabs have reported about JonBenet in the last five years. The big news this time—a source calls it the “final piece of the puzzle”—is that “special high-tech tests” were supposedly carried out on JonBenet’s bedsheets, confirming the fact that she wet her bed the night she died. These results, the Star claims in a world exclusive, “directly contradict” Patsy Ramsey’s prior insistence that the sheets were dry and lend credence (well, enough credence to satisfy the Star) to the theory that JonBenet was killed in a fit of rage over her bedwetting. “This is the smoking gun,” says a “source close to the investigation.” “It’s stunning evidence—and it puts the focus directly on Patsy, which is where it should have been all along.” Fair enough, but “solved“? Keeping Tabs suggests the Star just file this piece of information along with the 9,564 other “smoking guns” and “final pieces” of the JonBenet puzzle they’ve offered over the years.
JonBenet aside, the tabloid story that really got KT to thinking was last week’s Star cover about Martha Stewart: “Martha Stewart Balloons to 212 lbs!” Supposedly, the media mogul has gained some 55 pounds of late, taking her from her fighting weight of 157 pounds to an impressive 212. And the “shocking reason” she’s gotten heavy? “Martha has no one to share her success with,” the Star explains. “After she returns home from a tough day, that’s when it really hits her hard, the fact that she’s all alone in the world,” says a “pal.” “Sometimes she can’t help herself and she raids the fridge.”
Something about the image of those eager beavers in the Star newsroom making it their job to keep track of how often Martha Stewart is chowing down on Chinese food leftovers sparked a KT epiphany: It’s all about the seven deadly sins. From Martha Stewart’s purported gluttony (there’s also a Globe story on how Rosie O’Donnell has been cheating on Weight Watchers) and right on down the line, the tabs like nothing better than to spotlight those most guilty of pride, lust, wrath, avarice, sloth, and envy.
Let’s take ‘em one at a time, though, shall we?
Sure, there’s pride in that Star story about President Bush’s ex-fiance (“I’m So Proud of George W!”), but that’s not the kind we’re talking about. The tabs most love to find celebs being vain and self-important—witness their maniacal obsession with rooting out who’s had plastic surgery. (This week’s target? Farrah Fawcett, who, according to Star columnist Jose Lambiet, has gotten a new nose.) Then, there’s the Globe’s cover piece on Kathie Lee Gifford’s “Desperate Fight To Stay Young,” complete with stealth photos of her working out in a hotel gym. Gifford, claims the story, “has mounted a frantic campaign to turn back time and save her face and figure.” A plastic surgeon is called in to assess some photos of Kathie Lee and concludes tactfully that there are “obvious” changes in her eyes and lips.
Lust? Don’t even get us started. American Media wouldn’t be in business if there weren’t so many lustful residents of Tabloidland. KT’s current favorite? That Star cover story about how weekend Today show host David Bloom has supposedly been treated for sex addiction. Of particular note is the Star’s cover treatment, in which photos of everyone associated with the show are posted with the invitation for readers to “guess which one” is the offender. But KT was also particularly taken with the Globe’s look at the “raunchy real-life past” of portly actor Robbie Coltrane—who plays Hagrid in the new Harry Potter movie. “He’s always claiming to be fat and ugly, but he’s had more women than Brad Pitt,” says an “old pal.” “Robbie has left enough broken hearts behind him to fill a movie theater.” Coltrane also manages to straddle sin categories into gluttony: His “huge ambition took the form of a physical hunger that had to be fed,” ex-love Robin Paine supposedly told the Globe. “He’d stuff his mouth with food and go on all-night drinking binges at a seedy boxers’ hangout.”
Of course, there’s always wrath aplenty in the tabs, but none more interesting than this week’s Globe cover story on the problems already plaguing the young marriage of Jennifer Lopez and Cris Judd. (“J.Lo Marriage Hits the Skids; Diva and dancer are ‘at each other’s throats—it’s a FULL-BLOWN CRISIS.’ “) The couple, are said to be “at war,” supposedly over her widely panned TV special, which Judd oversaw. According to a “pal,” J.Lo. is miffed that her husband “made her come across like an unhip version of Cher,” while he says that “if anyone’s at fault it’s Jen for lacking the stage presence for his creative vision.”
“Why did I listen to you?” insiders say she “seethed” at Judd. “And he fired back, ‘Don’t blame me! YOU’RE the one who turned a class act into a campy spectacle.’ ”
Avarice, anyone? Well, the tabs are always up for a good story about celebrity acquisitions. This week’s Enquirer, for example, reports that Oprah Winfrey dropped a cool $250,000 on antique furniture for her new pad. In addition to her new food bills, the Star offers a whole Martha Stewart sidebar about “her lavish lifestyle,” featuring photos of each of her homes with a price-tag graphic. And let’s not forget what’s going down on the soap opera Passions set, where, according to the Star, actor Josh Ryan Evans “who suffers from a rare form of dwarfism that makes him look like a child” has been “developing a giant ego” and “throwing his weight around.” Evans has reportedly been “making noises that he’s going to walk at the end of his contract this year” unless he gets a huge pay raise.
And this week’s sloth’s story comes courtesy of the Globe, in the form of a piece titled “John Goodman: I Don’t Want To Work!” The actor admits that he’s “really lazy now. I don’t want to work, except maybe for director Francis Coppola. And I like Clint Eastwood, because he only does one take, which means less work.”
And finally, there’s envy. According to the Star, Alec Baldwin says Sarah Jessica Parker is “the person I envy most. She falls out of bed and shoots a great, funny show in New York. My dream in life is to be the male Sarah.” (That kind of sentiment might also qualify as somewhat slothful, but let’s not quibble.)
But, still speaking of envy, KT must confess that she’s been feeling a little envious herself—of the people at the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation. According to the Enquirer, said foundation recently released a study detailing what one’s choice in ice cream flavors reveals about one’s personality. Rocky-road lovers, for example, are “charming, sociable and goal-oriented,” while butter-pecan aficionados are “conscientious,” people of “high standards, devoted and fiscally conservative.” Those favoring mint chocolate chip are said to be “ambitious and confident, but sometimes skeptical about life—a realist.” And if you like all kinds of ice cream? Well, watch that waistline. Unless you find someone to share it with, you might find yourself on the cover of the Star.
