Herein lies the difference between the British and American press: While The Sun calls out Christina Aguilera’s boobs for having the audacity to get smaller after giving birth, the American press requires Christina to appear on Ellen for a more comfortable discussion about being top heavy.
Score one for a lady with no actual career! Nicole Richie’s baby photos in People are selling better than Christina Aguilera’s, with the tabloid on target to move 1.8 million copies of Harlow Madden.
Meanwhile, Larry Hackett & Co. paid upwards of $2 million for Xtina’s pics and sold 1.3 million copies, losing money on the issue; Nicole’s are said to have cost half that with a full half million more issues moving.
So what the reverse fiscal smarts? CONTINUED »
Christina Aguilera could give a crap that People magazine, which paid $1.5 million for exclusive rights to her baby photos, actually lost money on the transaction when newsstand sales didn’t spike enough. She wanted more cash, friends, and has little tolerance for the fact that, you know, she and her offspring are not as saleable as other celebrities’ babies, like Anna Nicole or J. Lo. Which is why she’s firing everyone around her.
Gone are her reps at PR giant BWR, her day-to-day manager, and one of her assistants. “She went crazy and had a massive tantrum. It was astonishing. She was absolutely furious and blamed her staff for the way everything had been handled.”
Wait, so is that what postpartum depression looks like?
We’re a long way off from having a child, but Christina Aguirela’s windfall from the birth of her son Max got us thinking. Babies are expensive. So when our little bundle of joy comes into the world, why not set up a PayPal account for friends and family to see pictures of him? There’s no reason to wait until little league to project our needs and insecurities onto an innocent child.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a great business model. People lost money on the Christina Aguilera spread. The magazine paid an estimated $1.5 million (though some say $2 million) for the exclusive U.S. rights to the pics, and sales have been tepid at best. Unless People sells 200,000 copies in the next few days, they’ll end up $1.1 mil short of their initial return on investment.
People says they’d “do the deal again in a minute.” Even they lose money off of this issue, they see the cover shoot as part of their overall strategy “to reaffirm that People is the place for major life events of A-list celebrities.” [Christina Aguilera is A-list?-Ed.]
That’s all well and good for Jennifer Lopez, whose babies/payday should come through soon. People is ready to spend up to an estimated $6 million for those little gifts from God.
But about what regular people who aren’t famous at all? Our PayPal plan is totally f’ed, and not in a good way.
Well done, Max. Once again, you’ve ruined everything.
People magazine is reportedly ready to spend $4 to $6 million for the first shots of Jennifer Lopez’s twins. That would make each baby worth about $2 to $3 million, less than Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, who went for four, but likely more than baby Max, Christina Aguilera’s son who sold for an estimated $1.5 or 2 mil.
On one hand, these babies are getting an early introduction into what their lives as celeb-spawn will be like. On the other hand, this industry is totally bizarre and twisted. And ultimately babies are too young for judgment, so what’s the point?
People paid $2 million for the right to slap Christina Aguilera’s baby, Max, on its cover. But that sum was for U.S. rights only; in the U.K., Hello! magazine got its own photoshoot. The issue, which hits European newsstands on Feb. 19, includes 13 pages of the new mama at home with her spawn. You’ll even get a peak at his nursery, where publicists are encouraged to send gifts.
• Avril Lavigne proves she can skank it up for the cover of Maxim just as well as anyone in the cool clique of B-list celebrities.
• Christina Aguilera got a c-section because she wanted to keep her vag tight. Those weren’t her words, but what she does say amounts to that.
• Tina Fey is hosting the first post-strike Saturday Night Live.
• Nicole Richie and Joel Madden hold onto to their outsider status by getting their coffee some place other than Starbucks.
• “Jamie Lynn Spears Is A Giant Whore” and other things her unborn child probably doesn’t want to know.
• Ironic imprisonment of former Prison Break star is less amusing for Lane Garrison than it is for us.
Just how much did People magazine pay for the first photos of Christina Aguilera’s baby Max? It depends who you ask — but we’ve got a very good hunch.
First, remember that no magazine wanted these photos — or wanted them enough. As Jossip relayed two week ago, Christina was looking for a bigger payday than any magazine was willing to offer. She felt her celebrity entitled her to a larger fee; tabloid editors, knowing how poor Xtina sells on the newsstand, couldn’t rationalize her demands. (Sales of her naked-pregnant Marie Claire cover weren’t so hot. Neither was her wedding in OK!.)
That meant no tabloid published the photos in the week of Max’s birth, which is when something like that is, uh, supposed to happen. (Um, Shiloh?)
OK!’s Sarah Ivens was said to be offering the biggest dowry, but then Aguilera’s camp insisted whoever bought the photos couldn’t run pics of Nicole Richie’s new baby at the same time. OK! was bidding for both when Christina dropped that bombshell and, rather than cave to her demands, we understand OK! left the bidding war.
So who’s pocketbooks were left? Turns out, just People’s; Christina and Max appear on this week’s cover, out today. (Somehow they got Page Six to play nice with the details.)
And just how much cash changed hands? CONTINUED »
• Barron Hilton gets arrested for DUI. And a proud tradition continues.
• OMG! Amy Smart has nipples.
• Jenny McCarthy isn’t pregnant. And the sun isn’t about to explode, either.
• Marilyn Manson’s new absinthe, “Mansinthe,” takes like “Manson jizz.” We’ve never tried Manson jizz, but as a rule absinthe is kind of gross.
• Christina Aguilera had a baby, now with pictures.
• Heidi and Spencer really believer her post-USSR “Higher” video was great art. This is what MTV does to the kids.
• The polls say that Jews don’t like Obama. How could that be? The media loves him. CONTINUED »
“Christina has an inflated sense of her own value and seems to expect an extortionate amount of money for these baby pictures,” says a bitter source, who might as well work at OK!, speaking to The Scoop. Negotiations between Aguilera and OK! crumbled when when the magazine wouldn’t guarantee a full-cover photo of Christina and her baby Max, who she just delivered, because of concerns over newsstand sales. (Supposedly her naked-and-pregnant Elle cover didn’t do as well as hoped.)
Which means Aguilera and Jordan Bratman’s newborn, after months of being tailed by the paparazzi, is worth less out of the womb than inside: They won’t be appearing on the cover of any celebrity tabloid this week.
Or is the real problem that Xtina’s photo contract forbids whoever buys her shots from running any pics of Nicole Richie and Joel Madden’s new baby girl Harlow Winter?
OH BABY Nicole Richie and Christina Aguilera, along with lesser celebrities Courtney Thorne-Smith and David Alan Grier, had babies over the weekend. Is it tacky to start a pool now about which spawn will enter rehab first? [NYP]
• Of the multitude of men Lindsay Lohan made out with in Italy, only one has sold his story to a British tabloid. (So far.)
• Victoria Beckham’s chest looks as fake on the outside as they are on the inside.
• 18-year-old Hayden Panettiere holds hands with her boyfriend at the mall. This would be adorable and all, except her boyfriend is her 30-year-old Heroes co-star, Milo Ventimiglia.
• Christina Aguilera’s belly button has popped.
• Britney Spears is crazy; friends have narrowed it down to bi-polar disorder.
Christina Aguilera pulls a Demi Moore in the January issue of Marie Claire. Now that she’s what feels like 15 months pregnant, she admits to being with child and says that the thing growing in her uterus was an accident:
We were planning on starting to try after the tour. And so I had gone off the pill to prepare my body, because I didn’t know how much time it would take … You’ve heard it takes some time — except with Power Egg and Super Sperm here. … I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, can you believe it just happened?’
We can believe the rhythm method failed you, but we can’t believe we how much we know about your birth control methods.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Triple threats don’t let themselves go.
Jennifer Lopez admitted last night that she was in a family way. (Note that the Us Weekly cover from last month was in third person.)
And MTV heralded it as the “second-worst-kept baby bump in music.” There was an elegant simplicity to Christina Aguilera’s empty promises that her expanding stomach contained only Doritos, but for our money J. Lo did a better job at promoting her uterus.
Consider the timeline: CONTINUED »
Finally satisfied that she milked her maybe-pregnancy for all it was worth (and even outlasted fellow obviously pregnant singer/album-promoter, Jennifer Lopez) Christina Aguilera has effectively ended months of definitive speculation by revealing that the giant, fetus-shaped protrusion in her uterus is, in fact, a fetus.
Next up for Aguilera: Landing an exclusive designer maternity wear contract, coming up with a suitably embarrassing celebrity baby name and paying her publicist to arm her with a steady string of (predictably) boring pregnancy/new mommy quotes, like “What am I craving the most? Sleep!” and “To tell you the truth, all I want is for my baby to be happy and healthy. And weigh at least 40 pounds.”
• Nicole Richie joins everyone over the age of 13 in making fun of Lizzy McGuire.
• As the FBI’s case against maybe-rapist David Copperfield grows stronger with every passing day, fellow illusionist Criss Angel is totally on the verge of conceding that his wand-toting rival just might be the Creepiest Magician Of Them All.
• Halle Berry attempts to divert attention away from her “Jewish people have funny noses” gaffe by waving her disconcertingly large boobs in everyone’s faces.
• Meanwhile, we keep hearing all this talk about Christina Aguilera’s “twins.” Come on, people. Is that really any way to refer to a pregnant lady’s funbags?
• Britney Spears may have taken time out of her busy fried-chicken eating schedule to drive herself into a parked car, she’s apparently too fat to model her own perfume. Curious!
• Also, Brit seduced a 21-year old college student in a hottub by making out with him during a game of Truth or Dare.
• A clearly unbiased New York Post wants you to know that Daily News owner (and “pipsqueak publisher”) Mortimer Zuckerman’s a shitty writer. Just, FYI.
• Catherine Zeta-Jones has finally had enough of Michael Douglas’ old-man semen.
• Christina Aguilera’s non-famous hubby takes ample precautions before venturing out into the frozen foods section of his local A&P.
• If you thought/hoped you’d seen the last of Carlton and Urkel, you’d better think again.
• Penelope Cruz’s sister steals the spotlight from her maybe-lesbian older sibling.
• Justin Timberlake gets back to his roots by opening his own white trash restaurant.
• Ironically, Christina Aguilera actually hates it when people fight “dirty.”
• Hairspray cast strikes a pose. Interestingly, half the cast is either balding or completely hairless.
• AC Slater running shirtless on the beach makes Jesse Spanow wish she were a little less of an uptight frigid bitch.
• More pics of Nick and Vanny enjoying a private moment in a very public hot tub.
• Katie Holmes has old lady hands.
• Christina Aguilera is officially preggers, unofficially bragging that her tiny, unborn fetus is “way cuter” than Nicole Richie’s tiny, unborn fetus.
• Lindsay Lohan does a “bend and snap” while losing her brother at a beach party.
• Orlando Bloom rocks the Hitler ’stache.
Editorial Director
