Wasting our life on pop culture blogs and gossip sites, so you don't have to.
Celebrities file for divorce about as often as we regular folk change our bedsheets, so it's hard to raise an eyebrow over the news that reality TV stalwart Kim Kardashian has split from her basketball star husband Kris Humphries, after just 72 days of wedded piss.
What we can't get enough of, however, are the gruesome financial goings-on within the Kardashian empire. The Kris'n'Kim nuptials were one of the most cynically business-oriented, publicity-centred and savvily stage-managed events of the century. (I know this is a pretty new century, but I'm praying fervently that we won't see this sort of thing once a decade.) Never mind the 100-plus media crew in attendance, prompting guests to complain that they were being bashed by cameras throughout the day.
The New York Post totted up the wedding revenue at $17.9 million, citing the $2.5 million exclusive photo rights with People magazine and the recently-aired two-part TV special on E! ("expected to pull in $12 million to $15 million for the Kardashian family franchise").
And before you start telling me how much a decent centrepiece costs these days, let me get onto the freebies. It's yet another one of life's charmless little ironies that the richer and more famous you get, the more free stuff you get given. So there was the complimentary $20,000 Vera Wang dresses (of which she wore three), the loaned Lorraine Schwartz jewels, the free $15,000 10-tiered wedding cake and the comped $10,000 Lehr & Black invitations. "Gee, thanks for making our special day so memorable, guys! Although in 72 days we'll be desperate to forget the whole tawdry debacle!)
Hey, here's some fun with numbers: the $17.9 million sum puts Kim's marital earnings at a whopping $250,000 a day, or $10,000 an hour. (This just about puts Kim beyond the budget of Silvio Berlusconi, which is something to be grateful for, at least.)
Anyway, money-raking as her marriage was, the word on the web is that Kim's divorce could be even more lucrative. As Forbes.com writer Dorothy Pomerantz points out, "Not only does a divorce goose story lines, it will also practically guarantee more magazine covers for Kim as she gives exclusives about her sad, sad divorce...And the more people who watch the show and read about Kim the more people who will likely buy clothes from the sisters' new line at Sears. And a single Kim is far sexier than a married Kim. That should help sales of products she endorses on her own like her fragrance, Love, and Midori liqueur."
World, welcome to Kim Kardashian's Big Fat Fairytale Divorce.
Backhanded Compliment Of The Week
As well as dead spiders and old elastoplasts, I also collect celebrity backhanded compliments. And this week George Clooney's ex, Elisabetta Canalis, threw us a corker. As People.com report, a new book, the 33-year-old Italian TV personality "praises" her former love in these choice terms: "between us there was more of a father-daughter relationship relationship. I was unable to clarify this up 'til now." Well played, Canalis. Translation: "I'm young and hot and look, he's OLD, so who cares that we broke up? Not me. No WAY!"
Miaow to the max.