What to do when another “Hollywood’s Best Dressed Ladies” piece would just be redundant and annoying?
OK! is quickly leaving behind the world of celebrity gossip to instead report exclusively on celebrity babies, as seen on the cover of the mag’s latest issue. After the horror of last week’s 80-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears feature, the admittedly beautiful Jessica Alba and baby Honor were a nice welcome this week — until Jess and her dim husband had to open their mouths.
The grossly outrageous sum of $20 million has been replaced by the moderately outrageous figure of $12 million — that's supposedly the latest asking price for the pictures of Angelina Jolie's new twins. While one might think People has a lock on the pics, because it's their nature to have a lock on these sort of things, OK!'s Richard Desmond has a trick up his sleeve: He gets to spread the cost around his 17 international editions of OK!. Or maybe Time Inc. will partner up with an international rag, like Hello, and find a clever way of splitting its costs, too.
The case could be made that we've already over-analyzed the over-analyzing of Brad and Angelina's baby twins as we tried to find the winners and the losers in previous nine months of baby speculation. But we did some digging through our tabloid archives and found a few shining stars among the blight, where some celebrity weeklies fared better in their guessing game — is she having a boy? a girl? twins? two girls? — than others.
It's not an exhaustive examination of every Brangelina-related baby cover of the past year, which would show that every tabloid got some info right and wrong at some point. But treat it as evidence that plenty of folks didn't really know what they were doing, and that "inside sources" could often be replaced by "magic 8-balls" or "Crazy Aunt Zelda." CONTINUED »
Sorry. No. Absolutely not.
The photos of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's new kids, Knox and Vivienne, will not be sold with a price tag as high as $20 million, as some outlets are reporting. Sure, "in the celebrity world, it seems to be the double-second coming," as Darryn Lyons, owner of paparazzi agency Big Pictures, tells it. But the fee that either People or OK! hands over, while enormous, will not even come close to the figures being reported. CONTINUED »
Jessica Alba and Cash Warren have reportedly joined Matthew McConaughey in selling her daughter Honor Marie's pics to OK!. While McConaughey supposedly scored a $3 million deal, which included his son's first photos plus his first Christmas, Alba secured just half that — $1.5 million for pics of the baby now and an upcoming holiday. Not that Alba's reduced fee should be any surprise.
While McConaughey is pulling in $12 million per movie, Alba's quote is a much more modest $2 million.
OK! has even more good news to celebrate. Not only did this week's issue feature their $1 million Jamie Lynn Spears' baby photo coup, and not only did they score Matthew McConaughey's baby pics in a $3 million multi-tier deal, but now editor-in-chief Sarah Ivens is getting married! We hear OK!'s chief, who's currently in London, just got engaged to a one Russell Moffett who she knew back when they studied at Kent together in the U.K. (He now lives in Kentucky.) A romance was rekindled this year — one source says as early as six weeks ago — and now word arrives from London that there's an engagement ring resting on her figure.
The endless race for the latest set of exclusive celebrity photos wraps another round, with OK! reportedly snapping up the first pictures of Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves' son Levi Alves, adding to this week's long-expected coup of Jamie Lynn Spears' new daughter Maddie. Of course, this is just a small battle compared to the People v. OK! bidding war for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's new bundle of paydays.
Update: The price for the pics? Three million dollars, says TMZ, with the deal including the baby's first Christmas pics too and the option to bid first on their weddings photos should they tie the knot.
Tom and Katie. Uh huh. Nicole and Keith. Uh huh, uh huh. Madonna and Guy. Yep, uh huh, but where's … ohh, there she is! It's Ms. Jamie Lynn Spears, American's latest teenager mother, at last popping out her daughter and making good on the $1 million deal she inked with OK! for the first exclusive photos and interview with the new mom and Maddie. That we are now celebrating and rewarding young, unwed women having children is an absolute delight to see on today's newsstand. On the plus side, the kid looks nothing like big sis Britney, so she's already got one leg up in the world. [OK!]
There's this rumor going around that OK! magazine owner Richard Desmond is hiring Bonnie Fuller, she being the former American Media editorial director and Star leader, to run his American exclamation point tabloid.
Fuller, who just left a $2 million-plus payday with David Pecker, is starting her own company, Bonnie Fuller Media, which by all accounts is some sort of digital (and maybe some TV) venture with backing from former Viacom exec Russ Pillar.
The rumor says there are "protracted talks" between Fuller in Desmond, who is said to be looking for a high-profile EIC to replace Sarah Ivens, who's been running the tabloid since it launched on American shores. The U.S. OK!, which Desmond reportedly sunk $100 million into (though, because he pays in British pounds, he gets everything half off), has seen circulation increase, but not enough to really compete with more established players like In Touch or Us Weekly. Which might explain why we're also told Desmond made overtures to Us editor Janice Min, who declined.
So is Fuller taking over at OK!? No, say well-placed informants. But it's true Desmond did reach out to her.
Which leaves only one real question: CONTINUED »
We're hearing Rob Shuter, the lying former Jessica Simpson publicist who just took over OK!'s executive editor post (since arriving as entertainment editor, then being named deputy ed), just named editorial manager Katie Caperton to the deputy editor slot, while nightspot staple Shauna Bass (of Life & Style) was installed as news editor. We're also told tabloid vet David Caplan, currently at People, was offered the exec ed slot by EIC Sarah Ivens about a month ago, but turned it down.
To escape the paparazzi after giving birth, Jamie Lynn Spears supposedly hired a body double to exit the Mississippi hospital from one door while making a sneaky dash from another.
This report comes from OK! magazine, which, you might recall, has a $1 million exclusive deal with the 17-year-old celebrity sister for the first pics of her baby and all the soundbites that go along with something like that. So perhaps it wasn't Spears who hired the body double, but OK! magazine, which is very keen on protecting its investment.
… are the people bidding $22 million on her baby photos? If Entertainment Tonight really wants to confirm its story, perhaps they should touch base with People and OK! and find out why a deal hasn't been wrapped up yet. Because if those kids are outside the womb, certain magazine editors are going to be eager to schedule the photo shoot for, like, this afternoon.
The week began with reports that bidding on Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's baby twin photos was skyrocketing past a $15 million mark; today brings word the final sum could hit $22 million, as the tabloids feed the human trafficking frenzy. (What's an ultrasound worth?)
No matter that the two magazines still in the bidding for the photos, People and OK!, claim those figures are wildly out of touch with the actual dollar amounts being tossed around.
But make no mistake: This sale is on track to break all previous records, including the estimated $7 million Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony scored for selling U.S. and European rights to their twins.
As for who's going to end up on top, the smart money is on CONTINUED »
Only People and OK! are the remaining contenders. And, joke of all jokes, the proceeds will supposedly go to charity. [TMZ] Time to, once again, revisit the economics of paying ridiculous sums for these type of photos.
OK! magazine, the Richard Desmond vehicle for American gossip domination, already has the Spears clan on the line, with an exclusive deal for Jamie Lynn's baby photos and story. Now, they're angling for Lohan coup, having reportedly made an offer to Lindsay to do a "coming out" cover story about her wo-mance with the DJ Samantha Ronson. The blood money? A cool $1 million. [P6] But Lohan's rep says they fielded the offer, and passed.
This leaves OK! now free to purchase photos of the duo smooching in public, and run the same coming out cover story, just with a question mark at the end of the cover headline.
OK! THX BI Following the dismissal of executive editor Juliet Heller two weeks ago, OK! magazine just dismissed two more senior staffers, we're hearing. Gone are the photo director and design director. Wonders a source: Is Sarah Ivens next?
In the winner's corner: Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer dominated the tabloids this week, with most publications declaring them the hot new couple. There's not much to be negative about, except for the fact that any relationship involving Jen is doomed to fail.
In the loser's corner: Jessica and Ashlee Simpson are competing to see who can make it to the altar first, because isn't that what romance is all about? We can't decide who's the bigger loser in this situation — the Simpsons or their poor significant others.
Also this week: Britney continues to get her act together, Lindsay gets mixed reviews and Angelina is possibly getting married. But don't hold your breath. CONTINUED »
OK! magazine's executive editor Juliet Heller was just shown the door by editor Sarah Ivens. (Keen masthead observers will notice her name is missing from this week's issue.)
We're told Ivens & Co. are eying "the usual suspects" at Us Weekly and People to replace her. Says one insider of Heller: "She's totally nice" but "she didn't bring much, if any, news to the magazine and just was an ill fitting position for her from the get-go. She's not a celeb weekly type of person." To be sure, Heller did arrive at OK! in '05, at the same time as co-exec ed Lori Berger, from Star.
We're switching things up a bit this week: Instead of simply summing up the tabloids, we're presenting the week's winners and losers in the eyes of the magazines. Which publications favor which celebrities? And does the relationship change from week to week?
This time around, Britney seems to have won back the love of the tabs, because not a single bad story was written about her. The mags are split on Lindsay — some say she's in a happy and stable lesbian relationship; others declare that she is off the wagon (again).
And congrats are in order to the biggest loser of the week, Jessica Simpson, who is apparently pathetic and in danger of losing boyfriend Tony Romo. When even the tabloids are pitying you, you know there's a problem. CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
