Wasting our life on pop culture blogs and gossip sites, so you don't have to.
Christmas is a time when our minds habitually turn to that rosy-cheeked little baby in the swaddling cloth, born in Bethlehem, whose birth we celebrate each year. And since we're all thinking about babies, the US edition of OK! magazine decided this would be an opportune moment to run a festive cover splash about Teen Mom, the headline blaring "WHO'S LOSING THEIR BABY?" and the subhead promising "Exclusive details on the most painful moment the show has ever seen!" Merry Christmas, y'all! Weirder still, the "baby special" continues with rumours/lies about Kim Kardashian's "secret baby", aka Kim Kardashian's secret wish to have a baby with her ex. Oh, and "Angie confirms baby #7", apparently. There's a whole lotta baby action this cover.
Over my years in the industry, I've noticed that the baby-related-headline count spikes at Christmas. Is it a sentimentality thing? Is it a Baby Jesus thing? Who knows. It's creepy, anyhow.
The Christmas baby epidemic meant that it wasn't enough for Britney Spears to get engaged to Jason Trawick, a Hollywood agent. The $92,000 engagement ring didn't cut it, either. Nope, Life & Style needed to give her a baby, too, and so their gleeful headline reads "A Wedding & A Baby!". Nah, she's not pregnant or anything, says the mag, inside. Whatcha going to do about it?
A Beatty Family Christmas
For anyone who finds Christmas a hotbed of tension, awkwardness and familial guilt, the Daily Mail have a lovely story - originally in the National Enquirer - about Warren Beatty's family party at the weekend. As you may or may not know, depending on your level of general nosiness (mine = high), Warren Beatty and Annette Bening's daughter Kathlyn changed her name to Stephen last year. The transgender 19-year-old had been living as a man for two years beforehand, but Beatty took it badly at the time. "It wasn't easy for Warren," says a source. "But he learned a lot about the transgender community over the past year." At the dinner, "Warren even made an emotional toast to Stephen during the dinner and said he was proud to have such a brave son." Cute!
The Swag Dance Strikes Again
In Royal news, Prince William and The Duchess (no, not Jimmy Savile's mum) visited a homeless shelter in South East London. The thoroughly Grinch-like Daily Mail called his routine "embarrassing". Bah, humbug! Over in America, full of festive cheer as they are, all bloody year round, Us Magazine called Wills' moves "super cute" and "charming". Ah, bless!
The Daily Mail better hope Santa doesn't read this column, or they'll get nothing but lumps of coal and superinjunctions for Christmas.