Credulity is stretched like a hamstring before a yoga class in this week’s eco-friendly tabloids, which do their bit for the environment by recycling old stories and passing them off as new again.
“Prince Harry names REAL DAD Godfather!” reports the National Enquirer. Harry has allegedly named as godfather to his unborn child his longtime mentor Mark Dyer: his “real father” according to the Enquirer. Dyer was a friend of Princess Diana, and he’s a redhead, so if that isn’t definitive proof he’s Harry’s father, what is? Enquirer sister website RadarOnline touted this same story on February 8, and it doesn’t look any more convincing a month later.
Prince Harry’s wife Duchess Meghan “Demands Panic Room!” proclaims another Enquirer story, claiming that British taxpayers are footing the $50,000 bill at “her hoity-toity new digs!” The plans are so secret that “only local politicians have seen them!” Presumably those “local politicians” are also known as the local council’s Building & Works Committee. It’s not only a story recycled from London’s Daily Mirror on November 28, 2018, but it also ran in the Enquirer on February 21 – but you can’t expect the editors to read what they write in past editions.
“CIA Helped Hitler Escape Germany!” screams the Globe, taking old stories to new limits. Would it be churlish to point out that the CIA was created in 1947, two years after they allegedly faked the Fuhrer’s death in a Berlin bunker and smuggled him to Colombia? The Globe offers readers a photograph of a former SS officer in Colombia after WWII seated with a man “whose mustache and haircut bear shocking similarities to the Nazi chief.” He has the same hair and whiskers as Hitler? That must be him! (Unless he had red hair, in which case he’s Prince Harry’s real dad.) In reality, declassified CIA files have previously revealed that a CIA informant claimed after the war that a man calling himself Adolf Schuttlemayer in Colombia was actually Hitler. The informant’s CIA handler sent a memo to his superiors, and that’s evidently as far as the CIA’s interest went. They certainly didn’t help Hitler escape. Oh, and the story went public with a release of declassified CIA files in October 2017, so the Globe is really up-to-the-minute with this news.
The Globe is even speedier with its story claiming that Elvis’s ex-wife Priscilla Presley’s face has been “ruined by cancer,” showing a photograph of her with a teeny-tiny flesh-colored band-aid across the tip of her nose. They somehow omit to mention that the photo was taken in July 2018.
“Freddie Mercury’s Secret Son Found!” cries the Enquirer. Except the alleged son in Munich, Germany, “has no idea” he’s Mercury’s son, and the mother “always claimed she didn’t know who fathered her child.” Okay, so it’s a man in Germany who kinda looks like Freddie, whose mother used to hang with the rocker. So it must be his kid, right? (Unless he has red hair, in which case he’s Prince Harry’s real dad.)
A “jailed sex fiend” expects to be charged with child beauty pageant cutie JonBenet Ramsey’s 1996 murder, reports the Enquirer. Unless you prefer the Enquirer story printed right next to this one, claiming that a “smoking-gun financial paper trail” leads to an entirely different suspect in the killing. Take your pick – both stories are almost certainly wrong.
The Globe continues its entirely fictional soap opera version of events behind closed doors in Kensington Palace with its surprisingly benign cover story: “Royal Peace Treaty – Kate Saves Meghan’s Marriage! Harry’s Wife Promises to Behave for sake of her new baby!” Before you breathe a sigh of relief at peace finally overtaking the embattled Royals, I fear that the Globe is almost certainly setting us up for another plot twist next week with sisters-in-law Kate and Meghan falling out in another exciting episode of As The Royals Turn.
Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us magazine to tell us that Lupita Nyongo wore it best, that TV’s Whiskey Cavalier co-star Lauren Cohan used to be called “Cohan the Barbarian at school,” that TV anchor Sheinelle Jones carries throat pastilles, sneakers and a “dirty toothbrush” (“for my hair edges”) in her Topshop tote, and that the stars are just like us: they try on makeup, get manicures, go fishing and get parking tickets. Riveting, as ever.
But while the eco-friendly tabloids may be happy recycling stories, evidently they are not so well-disposed towards vegans. A Globe opinion piece attacks “Vegan Hypocrites: A Pain in the Grass.” As the mag explains: “Vegans – and the rest of us – wouldn’t even be alive today if our ancestors didn’t kill animals. Cave dwellers killed critters for food and clothes and survived cruel winters by – are you listening, vegans? – wearing fur.”
The rant continues: “Why don’t vegans feel guilty about murdering and eating plants? After all, broccoli is a living thing.” And that’s news you can use.
Onwards and downwards . . .