Chaunce Hayden, the Steppin' Out editor whose name regularly appeared in Page Six until he found himself embroiled in a false report about a Bam Margera and Lynsi Smigo sex tape, is the center of this Radar profile, which lists his various past careers: male stripper, car washer, failed punk rocker, bartender, swimming pool digger. Hayden acknowledges that nobody actually reads his publication, which is littered around New York and New Jersey, which might be a growing concern because until lately, it's been his single entry into getting his gossip items, and his name, in the press. Then the Post banned him (Smigo has since filed a $10 million defamation suit against him and the paper); MSNBC blacklisted him after a he caused a commotion on Joe Scarborough's show; he's persona non grata at ABC, when he went on-air to report Diane Sawyer had just shushed him; and Howard Stern would like to see him dead after Hayden said, on ABC, that Stern should be looked at for insider trading for allegedly leaking details of his then-impending move to Sirius. Interesting, though, that Radar is reporting all of this. Not because the gossip industry isn't the pub's territory — it is — but because paragraphs like this:

"Chaunce certainly knows what a gossip item is, but sound journalistic method is not his strong suit," says Portfolio's Lloyd Grove, who used to work with Hayden when he wrote the Lowdown column for the Daily News. "He was one of the many self-promoting fame junkies that a gossip columnist deals with every day."

Another former reporter who dealt extensively with Hayden agrees: "He wasn't always reliable—he would push whatever thing he had that was the most gossip-worthy. But he was always friendly."

only draw attention to Radar's notorious — or at least notoriously gossiped-about — policy of paying its own sources under the guise of "contributors." Not that they're the only ones in this game with such murky accounting practices.