As the editor in chief of magazines like Us Weekly, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour, Bonnie Fuller's genius (as it was referred to in magazine circles) always lay in the fact that she was always spiritually closer to her reader than to the so-called Manhattan media elite. Not only were celebrities "just like us," but Bonnie was just like you.

At her last job – overseeing Star magazine at American Media – the jig was up, probably because by then, everyone had already copied her formula, and because the Internet was starting to kill the celebrity weeklies' buzz.

Now, Mail.com's Jay Penske is betting that the woman who has trouble fitting her tweets into 140 characters (and famously used to avoid her computer and email altogether) gets this Web stuff.

Exhibit A: The site has sufficient confidence in Bonnie Fuller as a brand name outside of the media crowd to scrawl her name across the top.

Exhibit B, from the official press release:

"While the new digital stylings of HollywoodLife.com offer unprecedented opportunity for readers to take part in the news and reviews, the site's feminine bling will come from Ms. Fuller's editorial presence.
…
"HollywoodLife.com is much more than just a next step in my career", says Ms. Fuller. "Rather, it's the next step in my relationship with the female audience. The site's interactive nature allows for a more immediate, emotional connection between readers and myself. It's a place that offers the right mix of news and opinion where women can express themselves and ask their own questions."

They've got a point: no matter how many perky exclamation points print glossies add to their headlines to make them seem even more informal and girlfriend-like, it's still a one-way form of address. And that lofty platform was, more often than not in the case of the magazines Fuller edited, used as a way to exploit and create female insecurity about bodies, clothes, relationships, and so on. These days, the Internet can offer an entirely different way to talk about whatever women want to talk about.

On Day 1, the new "conversation" seems to be mostly between the headline writers and various celebrities.

Although the "Hollyscopes" section does want to you, the reader, to be in on the fun. Quite desperately so, actually.

So far, the site is sticking to a relatively proven formula of red carpet chatter, the stars of Twilight, and click-to-buy beauty. Diets and relationship advice are so far mercifully absent, as is bodysnarking. But what's the conversation here besides commenting?

Oh. That.

Hollywood Life

Related: Shooting Britney [The Atlantic]

Earlier: Do We Need Women's Blogs?

One reason is simple: The editors of these publications hammer out every detail of the stories they're going to print before they've even assigned writers to the pitches. A tipster passed on this e-mail, which she received from a Glamour freelancer foraging for quotes:

Hey Ladies,

For the October issue of Glamour magazine, my editors are working on a story called "Guilty Man Pleasures." The editors are looking for quotes about things good women do with men that are so bad.

Two examples are:

"I am currently seeing a guy who is way, way too young for me, but after ending a serious three-year relationship, he is just what the doctor ordered. The sex is so good I keep thinking he must be a professional and that my invoice is going to arrive any day now." -Elizabeth Hogan, 31, Winter Park, FL

"My most recent naughtiness: ‘accidentally' finding my boyfriend's checkbook and looking through it to see if he'd purchased an engagement ring. He had!"-Jaime Hobson, 27, Boston

Other examples are the woman who has webcam sex with her long-distance boyfriend, the girl who lets the guy she's dating read text messages from other guys just to make sure he knows there are others interested, the woman who's trying to save money but still gets her monthly Brazilian bikini wax just because she and her man love the feeling...

You've read this story before. It was called "The Best Sex Secret I've Never Told Anyone" in Glamour's June issue. In Cosmo, the story's called "Confessions," and they run it every month. These aren't real journalistic sources speaking — these are archetypes. This writer isn't looking for news — she just needs photogenic ladies to slot into a pre-written narrative. Glamour already knows exactly who it's looking for: "The girl who lets the guy she's dating read text messages from other guys just to make sure he knows there are others interested, the woman who's trying to save money but still gets her monthly Brazilian bikini wax just because she and her man love the feeling." No wonder we never read anything interesting in the pages of these magazines.

Anna, who used to work at Glamour, says then-editor Bonnie Fuller was notorious for dispatching writers to find sources who exemplified predetermined characteristics and narratives. "It was like the Bush Administration in the run-up to the Iraq war: first they decided what the 'story' was, then we found ways to make the 'facts' suit that agenda," she says. But it's not a problem unique to any one ladymag: Alison Stein Wellner, a women's magazine freelance writer who'd apparently reached the end of her tether, wrote in January of her exasperation at having to do story after story where the reporting was shoehorned around an inelastic narrative sent down from on high. Of one magazine, which she does not name, Wellner writes:

They wanted a story about how women with certain Bad Disease found their lives changed by the illness. Sounds reasonable enough. The process is this: I am to go out and find a number of women with this Bad Disease and talk to them about how their lives have changed. I am given various storylines by the editors: my distant marriage has been made closer. Bad Disease made her fearless in the face of a relationship that used to terrify her. She embraced alternative treatments, but not too much, so she doesn't seem like a wacko. Etc.

These are storylines dreamed up in an editorial meeting. They are invented. They are fiction.

My job is to then talk to as many women — real breathing women — as possible to find someone that conforms to these storylines. I am asked to provide photos. If the woman has an undesirable quality — like, say, she's a lesbian — she's disqualified.

Just a few weeks ago I happened to get into conversation with a junior editor at Vogue — which, for all its faults, is still one of the only American women's magazines to actually include any long-form feature writing that goes much beyond Area Woman Brought Closer To Husband By Bad Disease. This editor told me that she was itching to cover the financial crisis. (Vogue has apparently noticed that there has been a financial crisis.) The only problem, said this editor, was that her magazine's coverage would have to take the form of a profile, and because of Vogue's female audience, the profile would have to be of a woman. What's more, any appropriate profile candidate would need to be attractive. "I pitched Sheila Bair to the photo department," said this editor, "and they said, 'Are you kidding? We can't shoot her.'"

That next week, the New Yorker published an excellent profile of Bair, the chairman of the FDIC, a profile that explored her Republican background and how her pro-choice leanings probably scuttled her own political ambitions within her party, and explained how Bair had tried to address the subprime mortgage crisis before it actually came to threaten the rest of the economy. Vogue's latest issue, in case you're curious, has a story about Vanessa Traina (rich, likes clothes) and devotes two pages to a mother-daughter duo from Austin who sometimes like to share dresses and shoes. I did not notice any stories about the financial crisis.

But at least you'll be able to read all about Guilty Man Pleasures come October in the pages of Glamour.

The Best Sex Secret I've Never Told Anyone [Glamour]
Confessions [Cosmopolitan]
Why Magazines Suck [TDB]
The Contrarian: Sheila Bair And The White House Financial Debate [New Yorker]

Fully accepting Edwards' version of the time line of events, Bonnie places the blame for his candidacy on Elizabeth:

The bigger question is "why did Elizabeth Edwards drink her husband's Kool-Aid? How could she have possibly believed that her husbands affair would remain a private matter when he was running for President of the United States? Hello, the National Enquirer had already broken the story last fall. Why in fact, did she knowingly encourage her spouse to even enter the campaign when she had been fully informed about the affair for over a year? And she helped support and propagate John Edwards' image as a devoted husband and family man.

Actually, let's dispense with the problem with Bonnie's facts first. John and Elizabeth say that she was told "sometime" in 2006; Edwards threw his hat in the ring on December 28, 2006 (the same week Rielle Hunter was quoted talking about her documentaries in Newsweek). Elizabeth was, however, no where to be seen in any of the photographs or press reports. The first documented incidence I can find of them together was on January 14, 2007 when Edwards gave a speech for MLK Day, followed by a campaign event on January 20, 2007 — more than a month after the official announcement (and long after the decision had been made). Frankly, at the point at which John Edwards was contracting with Rielle Hunter to make documentaries of him in Summer 2006 — mistress or not — the decision for him to run for President had obviously long been made. So, she'd hardly been "fully informed about the affair for over a year" when she encouraged him to run — assuming, in fact, that' she's "fully" informed now.

That aside, there are plenty of reasons Elizabeth might well have assumed John's indiscretion might never come out. Anyone in Washington can tell you that plenty of men cheat on their wives in this town and no one ever says a word. If John told her, as it seems he is telling us, that he had a "brief" indiscretion with a staffer, that's a lot different than a long-term torrid affair and far less likely to become public. Elizabeth, by all accounts, has sacrificed a lot for John's political career and is as committed to his political goals (poverty eradication, universal health care, etc.) as he is. So maybe once she got over her grief and anger, once she made the decision to stay with him, maybe she convinced herself that no one else would ever have to know about her humiliation. Goodness knows that's not the first time that such a thing has come to pass. And looking at the race, and her husband and her political ideals, maybe it wasn't such a stretch to believe that a one-night stand wouldn't make the papers. Most politicians' don't.

The second point to consider is whether his indiscretions make him a bad father (in Fuller-speak, "family man"). Not that I wouldn't rage to the high heavens if I discovered my father had been unfaithful to my mother, but that would have almost no bearing on whether he was a good father to me or not. That's not to say whether John Edwards is or not — he might well not be and, if Rielle's child is his, I would guess that the general consensus would be he's not — but what he did or did not do with his penis on the side aren't the determining factor in that by a long shot.

Fuller's main point is this:

Well, she may not want to admit it but Elizabeth is as guilty as her husband at this point, in inviting the public into her family's personal life.

What evidence Fuller has for that is unclear. Because she stood by his side? Because she did what you do when your spouse is running for office? Standing next to him at a rally, or giving a speech, or sitting for an interview is tantamount to letting the press into your bedroom or the inner workings of your marriage? While I have no doubt that Fuller, the former editor of Star Magazine and US Weekly, repeated that to herself in the mirror every morning before heading to the office to scroll through paparazzi photographs to use in her next poorly-sourced, sometimes mean-spirited celebrity-gossip-filled issue, that doesn't make it, you know, actually true. I don't want Bonnie Fuller's minions in my closet at night any more than I want George Bush's.

Basically, Elizabeth Edwards forgave her husband and, by her own admission, wanted to be spared public humiliation so she didn't run through the streets telling everyone her husband had an affair. She began to try to make her own peace with it in her own way, and at the same time recognized that, in terms of policy issues, she still thought her husband was the best candidate for President and supported him. How terrible of her. While I disagree with her assertion that her husband's actions in the affair — especially given the timing, the money he paid Rielle to work for him, the kid, the shady antics involved in paying both her and Andrew Young to leave North Carolina and the possibility that he has continued to lie about it — should not be subject to public scrutiny, I don't think she bears any responsibility for his actions or her desire and willingness to continue to support him. He is the villain here, at least in terms of his marriage and the affair and its effect on his political career — not her. And slapping blame on her for convincing herself that her private humiliation might remain private is just ugly and unwarranted.

Today [Daily Kos]
Elizabeth Edwards Drank Her Husband's Kool-Aid And Became His "Ambition Enabler" [HuffPo]
Politics 2008: John Edwards, Untucked [Newsweek]

Here, allow me to excerpt. Here's the NY Times' David Carr on Fuller:

When the current issue of Glamour promises "101 Racy Little Sex Ideas," you are seeing Ms. Fuller's twining of sex and numerology. Ditto for this week's People, which promises "91 Sexy and Single Guys." The added single digit seems gratuitous, but admit it: you wonder what the 101st weapon in the erotic arsenal looks like and which guy came after the 90 other hotties. That prurient need to know just a little more is pure Bonnie Fuller.
The critical moment — Ms. Fuller's version of published cold fusion — arrived in 2002 when she took over Us Weekly, a distant cousin of People magazine that Jann Wenner owned. She not only turned Us into its own darn thing, but found a way of presenting celebrity news as a not-so-guilty pleasure... "I'm not embarrassed to say that I was reading proofs in the delivery room," Ms. Fuller wrote of the birth of her second child.

The magazine is at its most provocative, though, when it turns its attention to personalities not typically associated with high fashion — Oprah Winfrey, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Cindy McCain, Condoleezza Rice. The resulting photographs are fascinating not because of any reality they reveal but because of the fantasy they unleash.
Vogue sets its sights on an of-the-moment character and transforms her into an impossibly perfect version of herself. In the accompanying story, her accomplishments are detailed: Her charitable acts. Her legislative successes. Her business acumen. But the primary photo rarely illustrates all that brainy, do-gooder activity. The photo is pure glamour.
It taps into that core desire to be gorgeous and declares it righteous and worthy and, most important, smart. Vogue validates the modern careerist's fantasy, that she can run the world and look fabulous doing it.

The little fairy wore a prett dress with a fluttery skirt. The dress was white but every time the fairy moved it shimmered...

No?

Eh, I give up.
The Editor Who Keeps Vogue In Fashion [Washington Post]
101 Secrets (And 9 Lives) Of A Magazine Star [NY Times]

• Britney is in the hospital again; her new psychiatrist went to her home and decided she was a danger to herself and others. She went calmly, without resistance, and will be there for 72 hours, though she cannot be forced to take medication against her will. There's tension between her family and Sam Lutfi; the doctor seems to believe that Sam is in charge. [TMZ]
  
• Reports that Britney tried to commit suicide are not true. [TMZ]
  
• Apparently Britney was driving around her neighborhood "like a madwoman," which prompted a call to the shrink. [People]
  
• More sources are coming out claiming that Heath Ledger was an addict. Isn't it wrong to speak ill of the dead? May he rest in peace. [Page Six]
  
• Oh, Heath's rep denies all drug stories, including the one where Michelle drove him to rehab and he wouldn't go in. [Rush & Molloy]

• Entertainment Tonight and The Insider will not air a "shocking drug video" starring Heath Ledger they paid several hundred thousand dollars for — out of respect for Heath's family. In other words, someone got yelled at. [Perez Hilton]
• A "freelance reporter" was arrested outside of Brad Pitt's house, for trespassing. I swear I was nowhere around. [AP]
• Has Farrah Fawcett gone to Germany to treat a huge tumor on her liver? What about the cancer down below? No matter: Be well, Farrah! [Page Six]
• On a lighter note, Alan Cumming was swinging from a disco ball at a party recently — until it ripped from the ceiling and he fell on his face. [Page Six]
• Paris Hilton was seen making out with Elisha Cuthbert. Yawn. [Page Six]
• Oh, but Paris says she had a sleepover at Nicole Richie's house on Sunday and that baby Harlow Winter Kate Madden looks like Nicole and Joel. "I was crying when I saw [the baby]," the heiress claims. Actually, it's sweet. No snark here. [People]
• As we mentioned last night, Ethan Hawke's girlfriend, aka The Nanny, is with child. Tacky much? [Page Six]
• A stylist who once worked with Britney has slapped the singer with a $50,000 law suit, claiming she hasn't been paid since August. Guess Ms. Spears has had other things on her mind. [Gatecrasher]
• Bonnie Fuller, former editor of Star magazine, writes, "Dear Lynne and Jamie Spears: Hooray For The Intervention." Dear Bonnie Fuller: Shaddup already. [Huffington Post]
• Paul McCartney says reports he had an angioplasty are untrue and he's feeling great. Surely you were worried. [People]
• Mary Lynn Rajskub, aka Chloe on 24, is pregnant: "With the strike going on, I had to keep busy!" [People]
• After 17 years, Montel Williams will end his talk show. Williams, who has multiple sclerosis, is planning a full-year of "best of" episodes, so you'll still be seeing his bald head on TV for a while. [People]
• David Beckham has a new tattoo: A six-inch Brigitte Bardot-inspired portrait of his wife, Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham. [Mirror]
• Holly, Bridget and Kendra, known as The Girls Next Door, will be on the cover of Playboy for the third time. Hugh Hefner says, "To be perfectly frank, I have unexpectedly fallen in love. It is the relationship with Holly that will probably last forever. The others will last for as long as they want it to last before going on with their careers and lives." Uh, romantic? [Yahoo News]
• Christina Aguilera's baby won't be on the cover of OK! next week, because the magazine wouldn't guarantee a full-cover photo of Xtina and Max. In addition, Christina "hates Nicole Richie" a source says, and doesn't want their babies to be on the same cover. Meow! Surely Max will be dating Harlow soon? [MSNBC]
• Jorge Garcia, aka Hurley from Lost, wanted to have a blog but the people behind the show feared he would spill plot secrets. Boo! Let Hurley write! [MSNBC]
• Will the writers' strike nix the Oscars? The Academy is preparing two back-up shows just in case. Film history and film clips, snoozeville. [USA Today]
• A former friend of Anna Nicole Smith claims that attorney-turned-boyfriend Howard K. Stern took pictures of unconscious Daniel Smith for profit and said "they might be worth some money one day." So disgusting. [Yahoo News]
• Eva Longoria on what kind of mom Jessica Alba will be: "She's going to be amazing!" Very insightful, Eva. [People]
• Um, this new Amazon/Pepsi commercial starring Justin Timberlake (with cameo by Andy Samberg!!!!) is pretty effing funny. [The.Life Files]

Lynne Spears, what were you thinking? Or not thinking and not doing? Did you never sit down with either of your daughters—Britney, now just turned 26, and the divorced mother of two toddlers or Jamie Lynn, 16 and now three months pregnant—and give them The Talk?

And what kind of mother upon hearing the news that her 16-year-old daughter is knocked up, reacts by picking up the phone and negotiating to get her daughter's photo plastered on the cover of a magazine with a tell-all interview by the daughter and herself inside?

Is Lynne Spears An Even Worse Mother Than Britney? [Huffington Post]
Related: Dad "Devastated" By Jamie Lynn's Pregnancy [US]
Lynne Spears' Parenting Book [US]

I can absolutely sympathize with Angelina on this one. I have to admit that even though I produced four grandchildren, showed up occasionally for Shabbat dinners and never got even one tattoo, I still never felt like I quite got that golden seal of M-I-L (mom-in-law) approval either. Nevertheless, Star readers are a harsher bunch than I.

In a new poll, they are overwhelmingly on Jane Pitts' side — 77% would choose Jen over Angie as the guest they most want to have to their Christmas dinners.

OK, so let me know who you'd like to have or absolutely not have at your holiday dinner.

I would like to invite the following people (some no longer with us except in spirit):
—Robert Redford because he has managed to do a lot of good in the world and yet keep his personal life fairly private
—Bette Davis just because she is such a hoot, we will be laughing too hard to eat
—Henry Fonda as long as he acts like he did in "It's a Wonderful Life."
—Meryl Streep for a touch of class (but I bet she helps with the dishes.)
I would also like to invite Tom Hanks because I think he is the greatest actor in the world but I don't want to spoil his family dinner by making him go to some stranger's house

Ho Ho Oh No, It's Jen's Giant Christmas Crisis! [Huffington Post]

All the perks of stardom and $100 million in the bank can do nothing to diminish the fact that he'll be the man in the middle between Angelina Jolie and his mom, Jane Pitt, at the dinner table this Thursday. And if you believe some of the reports — and I do — there is no love lost between these two ladies, to say the least.

According to our sources at Star magazine, Brad is the one who is insisting that his better half, their four kids and their entourage private-jet into his hometown of Springfield, Missouri to break bread with his parents and the rest of his family. And Angie can't be thrilled about it.

I'm sure Angelina got quite the earful from Brad's mom after she confessed to British Cosmopolitan that she took a wild trip to Disneyland while high on LSD. "I've done just about every drug possible. Coke, heroin, ecstasy, everything," Angelina admitted to the mag. Clearly, she wasn't thinking about how her words were going to play back in Missouri when she gave the interview.

Then again, think of it from Jane Pitt's perspective. How do she and her husband Bill, perfectly normal non-Hollywood people, explain that kind of confession to their hometown friends? How do they deal with a "daughter-in-law" who's also admitted that she used to like to cut herself, wear the blood of her last husband around her neck and boasted publicly about the unbelievable sex life she had with that last husband? It would be a wonder if Jane didn't have agita.

And boyyyyy, would our holiday time dinner conversations be fun then!

Home For Thanksgiving! [Huffington Post]

Okay so I made up that last part. But you sorta get the gist!

Oops, Brit Did It Again (Made Moms Feel Awesome, That Is) [Huffington Post]

1977: Helen Gurley Brown anticipates the "cougar" trend... 30 years before Demi & Ashton.

1987: Giving birth: All it takes is a slinky, electric-blue gown and a lot of hair gel?

1997: The Bonnie Fuller Method on how to get a man to commit: Issue an ultimatum .

2007: Wondering if your gynecologist is silently judging you? She is.

• Page Six reports that crooner Michael Buble "struck out" when flirting with Devil Wears Prada actress Emily Blunt. What they didn't mention: The two have been dating for over two years. [Page Six]
  
• Paula Abdul in tears on a recent 'Idol' conference call: "I've never in my life been called a whining bitch and a loser." So just to get this straight, uh, "wino bitchface" is okay? [Page Six]
  
• Some in Lindsay Lohan's "camp" say her bad behavior may be the fault of Hollywood execs who paid her too much money. [New York Times]
  
• Mischa Barton was absolutely not eating magic mushrooms when she got sick at that Memorial Day party. [NY Daily News]
  
• Lindsay Lohan's release from rehab falls a week before her 21st birthday bash; unlike Mischa, we bet she won't be such a Debbie Downer! [Gatecrasher]

• But Britney and her vomit-caked dress should probably stay away. [MSNBC]
• Everyone is scratching heads over how exactly SNL's Tracy Morgan managed to get soooo drunk when that device around his ankle is supposed to monitor his skin for alcohol levels. And by "everyone" we mean Lindsay. [Page Six]
• Between ScarJo, Penelope Cruz, and now this nameless "blond model", is actor Josh Hartnett's lady taste starting to look a little beard-y to you? [Rush & Molloy]
• You thought the art of the inane coverline was a talent limited to inane magazines? Bonnie Fuller used her skills to kick ass at a cable access show. [Page Six]
• And then there's the fine art of cutesily dissing other magazines' inane coverlines! [Star]

Watching is all I can do... Every book we read, every TV show we watch we relish the glance we get into someone else's world. I feel like I've seen everything. I'm the ultimate voyeur, nothing's a mystery, I've built up this tolerance to watching...

Thus spake the protagonist of 'I Am A Ghost', an internet video produced by Noah Fuller, oldest child of Bonnie Fuller. Bonnie, as you'll remember, is the founding father of the modern celebrity-sartorial complex as evidenced by her former stewardship of US Weekly and now the fast-crumbling American Media empire that owns Star and the National Enquirer. And today comes news that not only is Bonnie shopping around a reality-show about herself (a la Atoosa! Oh wait, and Teen Vogue's Amy Astley! And Jane's Brandon Holley! And, oh yeah, Jann Wenner!) but that shaggy-haired NYU film student Noah wants to direct it!

According to his MySpace profile, Noah wears bandannas and thick glasses, and likes to be photographed smoking cigarettes while reclining in the grass. Also, some of his friends have asymmetrical haircuts, and at least one of those friends appears to be jerking off in 'I Am A Ghost' (in case you care for that sort of stuff!). Anyway, if you felt a "Just Like Us" kicker coming on, you are just about where we are in the whole "This is where I hurl my laptop out the window and think about what Third World country one could visit that would not seem too Angelina-derivative right now" trajectory. Happy lunch hour, everyone!

Bonnie Totally Tubular [Gatecrasher]

Mommy, Make Me A Star [Jossip]
Noah Fuller's MySpace [MySpace]
Related: SoapNet Picks Up The Fashionista Diaries
[Yahoo]

Problem is, most women know that things like, say, divorces (Reese) and parental deaths (Angelina) are events that cause grief. And these same women know that with grief, comes weight-loss. It's a law of the universe. The same way that Russell Crowe = total fucktard.

There are, of course, the few girls who eat more when they're unhappy, but that's usually a consequence of low-level dysthymia, not full blown, can-I-make-it-through-the-day? despair. It's the latter that causes weight loss: the quick, severe, I-look-so-hot-yet-feel-so-bad type of anguish. Everyone woman we know says that she never feels worse - or looks hotter in a pair of tight jeans - than after the end of a serious relationship. Fucked up, that.

So, just a brief note to Janice Min and Bonnie Fuller: "diets" and "anorexia" suggest some sort of choice in the matter (or the intervention of Rachel Zoe); they give the impression of willful starvation or drug-use that inevitably leads to treatment for exhaustion or consultation with a nutritionist (see Richie, Nicole; Olsen, Mary Kate). This ain't that.

Who's fat? Who's lonely? Who's feuding? Celebrity weekly round-up after the jump.

This could have been the shortest round-up ever: they're all shit, read the phone book instead.

But no. Let's plow on, if only to find out who's lame, who's lamer and who should be taken outside and shot.

Life & Style continues in its cheerfully ridiculous fantasy land, getting Jennifer Aniston engaged, Brad and Angie planning a wedding and Kevin and Britney back together. Still, it's the kind of magazine aimed at morons who think a $2 lipstick from Wal-mart will actually make them look like Jessica Alba, just because L&S told them so, so credibility is the least of their problems.

In Touch has the world's least convincing headline: Jen Looks Pregnant! She looks pregnant. Not that she is or anything. Unless she is. But In Touch doesn't actually know. So, you know, whatever. Talk amongst yourselves. As you nod off gently, you may notice that Kirstie Alley lost weight, Jessica and Nick split up, and Angelina had a baby. Gripping stuff.

Star looks unlikely to halt its circulation plunge with the horrendous looking, and totally irrelevant cover proclaiming that Reese Witherspoon (who?) and Julia Roberts are both knocked up. Even if it were true, why on earth do they think anyone gives a flying toss? They have pics of pregnant Anna Nicole Smith, topless and covered in grease. Don't eat at least an hour before looking at them. Star also has EXCLUSIVE blurry pics of Nick Lachey and whatever blow-up doll he's spilling his seed into this week. And for about the 20th time, they have a stab at Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro splitting up. Expect a glowing piece about how happy they are together next week, after Carmen's publicist's head spins round and vomits green slime over Bonnie Fuller.

With typical lack of savvy, OK! has exlusive first pics of the baby that no-one particularly cares about or wants to see - Gwen and Gavin's son Kingston. And Nick Lachey disembowelled a small child and smeared its blood all over his chest, in a Satanic ritual at Koi. Not really. He's dating a portable vagina, but there's no pics because Star beat them to it. Oh, and Jennifer and Vince are going out with each other and you just wasted a tiny little bit of your life reading that non-story. Next time just poke out your eyeballs and be done with it.

People Magazine is its usual deluded self. Britney's happy and everything's fine, Jennifer's happy and everything's fine, and Jessica is happy and everything is fine and the earth is flat and the moon is made of cheese. They crown their hottest bachelor of 2006 - Taylor Hicks, which shows such a lapse of taste there's no point in going any further down the list. Who's number 10? David Fucking Gest? The only page of any interest whatsoever is p140, where they chronicle the 20 - yes - 20 men who have crawled up Lindsay Lohan's firecrotch in the one year she's been legal. A few even made it back out again.

This week's prime candidate for euthanasia is US Weekly, with an edition so bland, its lifeless pages almost disintegrate in your hand - or is that just wishful thinking? The cover promises the inside details of Brangelina's first days home, and goes on to deliver exactly the same bland, catch-all, 'a source says' crap all the others vomit up this week in about half the space. And Britney isn't happy and Jen and Vince are dating and there does not appear to be one original thought that went into this magazine and frankly it should crawl into a corner and die.

Is Conde Nast secretly pining for beleagured Star editor Bonnie Fuller?

This month's Glamour magazine runs a curious little poll all about former Glamour ed Bonnie's book, 'The Joys of Much Too Much and Making Your Employees Cry'. They ask readers whether, like Bonnie, they'd rather be 'over-commited and frazzled', or like the rest of us losers, 'under-commited and not'.

The result?

54% of Glamour readers prefer the Tao of Bonnie. Seeing as how Star's circulation is plunging, maybe Bonnie should ditch the burger-munching tabloid fattie audience, and head back to the aspirational anorexics she knows so well.