The seemingly unquenchable thirst for celeb news has generated a boom in the fastest-growing magazine category: the celeb weekly. At a time when many publications are suffering, circulation at US Weekly is up 17%, while In Touch's circ rose 77%. The Star’s editorial director Bonnie Fuller says her magazine has sold 118,000 new subscriptions since the relaunch went national in April. And far from its perceived trailer-park origins, the median income for US Weekly's female readers is close to $85,000, according to market research firm, MRI.
The increasing number of glossies devoted to the rich and famous is the most significant trend in today's magazine market and is not showing any signs of burn out. In fact, some weeks, as a group, People, Star, Us and In Touch can sell 5 million copies on the newsstand, all of them with Britney Spears on the cover.
And celebs and newsmakers are happily cashing in on the phenomenon. Monica Lewinsky has racked in an untold amount of cash from TV shows and newspapers who pay to hear her side of the story. “You’d be an idiot not to get the money… Your story is a commodity,' she recently explained.
Lewinsky began making the interview rounds again after Clinton released his autobiography in June. In it, Clinton said he had the affair 'because I could.'
Lewinsky shot back during numerous TV and newspaper interviews: 'He talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking — I was the buffet and he just couldn't resist the dessert.' Despite all her heartache, Monica was reportedly paid more than $700,000 for an interview with Britain's Channel 4.
But there are still those celebs that still can’t understand the media's obsession. Take Gwyneth Paltrow, for example. From her marriage to Coldplay’s Chris Martin, to her Chinese detoxifying treatments, to the recent birth of her daughter, photographers can’t seem to get enough of her and often chase her down city streets.
'It's really frustrating,' she says. 'I wish people would just let us get on with it once in a while and let us have a normal day together. It worries me more when my daughter is more aware of what's going on.'
Paltrow says she has tried everything - from taking a year, not discussing her marriage, avoiding any red-carpet events to rarely being spotted with her husband in public. But the focus on her never seems to end. 'You can't win, no matter which way you do it. I don't know why there's this insatiable interest. In one way, it's incredibly flattering. Wow, people actually are interested in me and my life, or what I wear, or what I think, or what I say, and you think: That's amazing. But then at the same time, I just think the tabloid media goes too far sometimes.”
Which is why Paltrow has started keeping tabs and taking names of the paparazzi who don't let up. “In London, they chase you in cars. I will start pressing charges because they're endangering me by the way they drive. It's really scary,” she lamented.
