Adnan Ghalib and Kathy Griffin went shopping at Victoria’s Secret on Rodeo Drive yesterday. If you can’t tell it’s a set-up, then you are beyond hope.
While Ashton Kutcher might think he’s punking the celebrity press with spam-happy Pop Fiction, most celebrity weekly editors say his stunts are fooling them.
After all, the tabloids have eyes and ears everywhere; you think J. Lo goes on vacation without her handlers first checking with Larry Hackett to see if it’s okay?
So while they might run photos of Paris Hilton and her “shaman,” they also report that the whole thing is a stunt. Luckily those celebrity blogs don’t have the resources of an always-accurate tabloid.
Is E!’s new Ashton Kutcher vehicle Pop Fiction so desperate for viewers its taken to spamming blogs? At least one victim, the fantastic Celebitchy, found someone with the same IP address posting not-so-transparent plugs for the new series in its comments section.
“Hahaha!! It was all a prank on the paparazzi!! Its that new show on E! Pop Fiction. Its freakn awsome. The celebrities play pranks on the pap. What a genies idea. Paris Hiltons one was great all the paparazzi bit right into it. Shes not religious come on people. I love this show. Heres the link you wanted. Tell me what you think.”
You see how misspelling “genius” and extra exclamation points make it seem like a real tween posted that? CONTINUED »
Might Ashton Kutcher’s latest punk’d project be a rip-off of an Anna Nicole Smith idea? Back in ‘04, the now-deceased Playmate and attorney Howard K. Stern pitched E! execs on Celebrities Bite Back, which carried the very premise of Kutcher’s Pop Fiction. This week, Ashton’s show aired, making it the perfect publicity opportunity for Stern to begin threatening legal action.
Yet-to-be notable Canadian blogger Zach Taylor – not to be confused with Perez sex chat scandal blogger Jonathan Jaxson – is pleased to report he totally got punk’d by Ashton Kutcher’s new show. Humiliation is the new flattery!
E!’s Pop Fiction, where Kutcher and his celeb friends get the press to publish their fake antics, told Taylor after the fact that they used him to push a story that fellow Canadian Avril Lavigne was pregnant. A friend of her fiance Deryck Whibley, of Sum 41, contacted Taylor with the faux story. He reported it, the grab-at-anything tabloid press picked it up, and Avril did her part to fuel speculation by denying the rumors and then go publicly shopping for baby clothes.
After the jump, a clip from the show featuring Paris Hilton and her fake spiritual adviser, punking the paparazzi. CONTINUED »
Ashton Kutcher’s job as Professional Boyfriend is to make Demi Moore swoon. Is it okay that he makes us swoon, too? More accurately, it’s his new Punk’d-esque project giving us the tingles.
His new 8-episode show on E!, Pop Fiction, punks the media who bend over backward, then forward and to the side, to participate in the celebrity machine. As is his M.O., Kutcher enlists fellow celebs to pull of his pranks: Tricking gullible media – eager for the slightest of C-list nuggets – into reporting their fabrications.
Most recently, Paris Hilton was spotted dining with a shaman who offered her spirtual advice. “”He’s really changed my life,” Hilton told a pack of paparazzi. TMZ, the New York Daily News, and even E!’s own website picked up the item as a legitimate news story. (Well, insomuch as a Paris Hilton spotting is considered legitimate news.) But it was all part of the new show; the “shaman” was bit part actor Maxie Santillan Jr.
All told, there are some 20 celebs in on the pranks, though Kutcher’s camp, of course, won’t name who, nor will they hint at which stories made it into the press that were completely made up.
Maybe it was Rumer Willis being named Miss Golden Globe? Or that everyone at Ashton’s birthday party at Socialista was potentially exposed to Hepatitis?
Editorial Director
