This Week in Tabloids: Jaden Smith & the Jenner Sisters Join a Cult
CelebritiesWelcome back to Midweek Madness! Every Wednesday, Callie Beusman and I “read” the celebrity weeklies so that you don’t “have” to. Guess what? Not one single magazine had Beyoncé/Jay Z/Solange as the main cover story today. Instead? Unsolicited Uterus Updates for Angelina Jolie and Selena Gomez and cult activity from the Smiths and Jenners. Tabloids avoided the black people. Interesting.
Ok!
MY LIFE WITHOUT TOM
Katie Holmes divorced Tom Cruise two years ago, and now she’s doing great. That’s it. That’s the whole story. In other news, Will and Jada Smith are “under fire” as parents because of that photo of Willow lounging on a bed beside a shirtless 20-year-old who used to be in Hannah Montana. The mag points out that one time Willow wore socks with pot leaves on them, which means that this is part of a Dangerous Pattern (of the media scrutinizing a 13-year-old and making a bunch of big deals out of nothing). Elsewhere in the mag, Angelina Jolie told Elle that she never thought she’d fall in love or have children, which has been labeled a “shocking confession,” because every woman is supposed to obsess over her inevitable fairy tale ending, I guess. Whatever. Moving on: Taylor Swift won’t stop copying her friends. She calls Lorde all the time for advice on being alt, and she STOLE Karlie Kloss’ (very standard) haircut. It’s creepy, says a source, adding, “If she doesn’t stop, she’ll have no one left to copy.” Um. There are like 7 billion people on the planet. Don’t see her running out any time soon, if that’s what she’s doing. And, in the most stunningly made-up rumor in the entire issue: Gwyneth Paltrow, Cameron Diaz, Reese Witherspoon and Chelsea Handler — all of whom are around 40 years old — have formed a clique of mean girls bent on excluding Jennifer Garner. LOL OK. Each has their role in the Mean Squad (Fig. 1), and they victimize her because “they just think she’s so lame.” Sure.
GRADE: F (sitting through 48 hours of Scientology sermons)
In Touch
PREGNANT AND ALONE!
Selena Gomez has received the highest tabloid honor: that of the erroneous “pregnant and alone” cover story. How false is this story? Let us count the ways: first of all, the claim is that she was pregnant with Justin Bieber’s child in 2012, while they were dating, and suffered a miscarriage — so she wasn’t ever simultaneously “pregnant and alone.” Also, she wasn’t pregnant in the first place: her rep calls the story “completely false.” Oh well! In other news, Miley Cyrus was very drunk at a nightclub in London (Fig. 2), so the editors contacted a doctor who never treated the singer, who says that she should be resting. Ok, mom. Elsewhere in the mag, we’re treated to some Bachelorette predictions, as well as this fun lil tidbit: Bachelorette Andi Dorfman and whomever she chooses to wed after 4 weeks of dating are contractually obligated to profess their love to one another to placate the teeming masses. Romantic! Moving on: Kim and Kanye are going to make $21 million off their wedding and they’re getting tons of wedding-related stuff for free. I think we’re supposed to be outraged? (This story is literally filed under a section entitled “Greed News.”) But, like, this is Kim’s entire deal, so… Next, the magazine shamingly dubs Hilaria Baldwin “Social Media’s Biggest Show-Off” because she posts photos of herself doing yoga. SHE’S A YOGA INSTRUCTOR. LEAVE HER ALONE. (Fig. 3) And, finally, Bruce Jenner and Cher are maybe starting a hot romance. They’re “texting and talking nonstop,” says a source. This is the best rumor of the year, guys.
GRADE: F (“sitting” through a 24 hour rectal exam)
Life & Style
PLASTIC SURGERY SECRETS OF THE STARS
Here is a 6-page long spread of “plastic surgery secrets of the stars,” a feature in which plastic surgeons guess which stars have had work done. Their guesses are as good as yours! Here are some of them: Lindsay Lohan has had her lips and nose done; Kim Kardashian has as well; Simon Cowell gets Botox; oh my god this is so boring. Moving on: Taylor Swift is encouraging Selena Gomez to write songs about Justin for profit and revenge. This is something I’d like to hear and zealously over-analyze (they’re allegedly “slow, sad breakup songs”). In other news, Kim and Kanye are having a “war” over their prenup even though their wedding is like tomorrow. The reason this is taking so long is because they have SO MUCH MONEY and that’s a lot of math, I think. Anyway, elsewhere in the mag, Brad and Angelina’s relationship is “in trouble” because they went to a concert in Hollywood and didn’t fornicate on the floor: “They were not affectionate at all,” says a fellow concertgoer. “There was no PDA the entire evening.” Maybe because a concertgoer was staring at them eagerly??? Just spitballing here. Next: the Kardashian family hates Khloe’s new boyfriend French Montana because he raps about drugs and has been arrested, so they’re working in secret to tear their love apart while acting friendly (i.e., including him in selfies) on the surface. He and Khloe like to go to parties a lot, which is something we’re supposed to be worried about. Also, we guess the magazine closed before the Solange-Jay Z fight video footage came out? Because Life & Style examines Bey and Jay’s body language at two basketball games — one in November 2012 and one last week — and finds that they’re “much happier now.” (This is the same game at which some tabloids noticed that Beyoncé may have had her Jay Z tattoo removed. Oops!). Two pages later, there’s an article about how Beyoncé is taking style notes from Solange which states that the two are “best friends” and “more alike than ever before.” Double oops.
GRADE: F (sitting through 12 hours of dental surgery)
Star
PREGNANT AGAIN!
Yo, if Angelina is knocked up, it really would be a “miracle” — because Star is so rarely correct. FYI, this mag has used “Angelina pregnant again” several times. In 2009 it was a “world exclusive“; in 2012, she was “98 lbs, pregnant and headed to rehab“, and 2013 she was pregnant with boy. (Fig. 4) Star is the magazine who cried knocked up. Anyway, this report claims she has a “newly rounded physique” and “radiant, healthy glow” because she did IVF and is two months along. Congrats? Also inside: Dean “cheated” on Tori recently by “flirting” with a woman interviewing to be a nanny. The “flirting” involved him making a comment about how she’d have to change into workout clothes to keep up with the kids, which doesn’t sounds like flirting at all, but whatever. Next, there’s a cute anecdote about Amy Poehler giving up her first class seat for a mom in coach with an infant. Couples news: Robert Pattinson is dating British model Imogen Kerr; Jared Leto is dating Dutch model Dimphy Janse, and Anne Hathaway is a “food nazi” because she scolded her husband when he ate a treat after a workout. “She told him to throw it out,” a “spy” tells the mag,” and of course he did what she said.” Wince. Finally, the most delightful tale in this issue is the one titled “Hollywood’s Dangerous Kiddie Cult.” Moises Arias, Willow and Jaden Smith and Those Darn Jenner Sisters are all into Osho, apparently. Jaden, especially, is into the teachings of the “controversial cult leader” and the copy here actually reads “these ‘lost kids’ are starting a new Hollywood cult of their own.” (Fig. 5) Since Osho was addicted to Valium and nitrous and got deported in 1985 and members of his cult were convicted of a bioterror attack after infecting 751 people with salmonella, the editors believe these Hollywood kids are “headed down a very frightening road.” Everyone stop meditating and panic!
GRADE: D- (sitting through one hour of a cult leader’s rant)
Us
“THEIR UNTOLD LOVE STORY”
Ok, here’s something you might not know: When Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis met on the set of That 70s Show in 1998, he was 20 and she was 15. Even thought they kissed on the show, kept the relationship “strictly professional” until 2002, when they had a one-night fling. Then they decided they should just be friends. Six years after the show ended, in 2012, they ran into each other at a reunion taping at IT WAS ON. Adorable and romcommie. Let’s move on. Jessica Simpson and Eric Johnson will get married Fourth of July weekend, and — hang on to your pearls — she will NOT wear white. (Insert head explosion gif here.) While in Memphis earlier this month, Prince Harry hooked up with a woman from a “wealthy family in Tennessee.” Attention Callie Khouri: Please turn this into a Nashville plotline ASAP, thank you very much. Finally, according to a source in a piece about Angelina and Brad, the couple recently left the kids at home at their Los Feliz estate and checked into the Hotel Bel-Air, 12 miles away, and didn’t come out of the room all day. These two are, in the immortal words of LL Cool J, doin’ it, and doin’ it, and doin’ it well.
GRADE: D (sitting through a Two and a Half Men marathon)
Addendum
Fig. 1, from Ok!
Fig. 2, from In Touch
Fig. 3, from In Touch
Fig. 4: vintage issues of Star — 2009, 2012, 2013
Fig. 5, from Star