With a couple of notable exceptions (think In Touch's disastrous Virginia Tech cover) the tabloids tend to steer clear of anything even resembling actual news. Instead, they manage to fabricate loosely sourced (and often contradictory) vignettes about the supposed secret lives of prominent public figures largely irrelevant celebrity has-beens.

And so it stands to reason that, when given the chance to sink their collective chompers into a legitimate celebrity scandal, the glossies would (metaphorically) jump at the chance. Which is why we were kinda surprised to see that out of the five covers, only one (Us Weekly, natch) was devoted to famous-person Owen Wilson's shocking true-life struggle with drugs and depression.

But why? How? And, more importantly, why?

When pondering the "Mystery Of The Missing Owen Wilson Covers," we came up with a couple of equally implausible theories. Our inexpert and largely incomplete analysis, after the jump.

Could it be, we wondered, that the other four mags (In Touch, Life & Style, OK! and Star) had a pang of conscience and decided to actually respect Wilson's ill-fated plea that the media elite—and trashy celebrity weeklies—respect his privacy during this difficult time?

Or is it possible, we conjectured, that news of Wilson's near-fatal suicide attempt failed to make it across the GW bridge and reach the inconveniently-located offices of the Bauer publications?

As it turned out, however, we were just fooling ourselves.

Despite disarming us with a somewhat unpredictable barrage of recycled Brangelina covers, the remaining weeklies nevertheless succeed in blatantly disregarding the Wilson family's plaintive plea for privacy with a veritable arsenal of unsubstantiated claims about the actor's purported heroin addiction, conflicting accounts of the events leading up to his hospitalization and the unwavering conclusion that, above all, Kate Hudson is entirely to blame.

So why go with the preplanned "OMG, Angelina Jolie Disappearing Faster Than Pauly Shore's Career" cover stories and stick Owen Wilson midway through the mags (buried behind sleep-inducing six-page spreads on The Hills' Lauren Conrad's groundbreaking new line of wide headbands?)

The best we can come up with is: they got scooped, pure and simple.

Because, try as they might, nobody juxtaposes two unrelated images of Kate Hudson (poignantly sulky in a beige-colored trenchcoat) and Owen Wilson (pensively contemplating his next bong hit) slaps an alarmist headline on top (i.e. "KATE'S NIGHTMARE") and tops it all off with the incoherent ramblings of guilt-stricken trainswreck Courtney Love ("I tried to warn Owen. I tried to warn his friends!") quite like Us Weekly.

Congratulations, Janice.

It's comforting to know that even in Bonnie Fuller's absence, Us still the industry leader when it comes to schadenfreude, reactionary gossip-mongering and unrelenting celebrity exploitation.