“Suri Cruise Kidnap Nightmare!” screams the ‘National Enquirer’ cover story about Tom Cruise’s 13-year-old daughter. Was she the target of a kidnap attempt? Kidnap threats?
Much, much worse: Suri was spotted walking the streets of Manhattan without an adult or bodyguard in sight. Shock, horror.
The ‘Enquirer’ helpfully points out that she is “a prime million-dollar target for cruel kidnappers” – What – aren’t there any kind kidnappers? – even though it’s highly likely that she was being discreetly shadowed at a distance by a security team.
Also, wouldn’t Suri Cruise be one of the safest teenagers ever to wander the streets of New York, knowing that her every move is shadowed by an army of paparazzi, which should be enough to deter any potential kidnappers from getting their faces on the front page of the ‘Enquirer’?
There must be some paranoid new parents on the ‘Enquirer’ editorial team, as page 2 brings us yet another non-existent kidnapping scare, this time about Robert F Kennedy’s granddaughter who recently died of a drug overdose: “Tragic Saoirse Kennedy Carried Scars of Kidnap Trauma!”
The ‘Enquirer’ claims that a police report in Hyannis Port, Mass., in 2007 noted that two unidentified men were trying to lure young girls into their white van, and Saoirse Kennedy may have been among the girls approached. The police report suggests that no girls were alarmed by the offer of a ride, but that’s clearly enough for the ‘Enquirer’ to conclude that 22-year-old Saoirse was scarred for life by the experience.
The ‘Enquirer’ is also deeply concerned about the health of Brad Pitt, reportedly sober these past two years, wth its story: “New Brad Pitt Relapse Drama . . . He Worries Pals at Booze-Filled Premiere Party.”
Pitt was reportedly seen at a premiere party celebrating his new movie ‘Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood’ holding a “cocktail glass” containing an unidentified liquid.
Diet Coke? Tab? No – it was filled with Instant Paranoia.
Says a “worried pal” (who may bear a surprising resemblance to a an ‘Enquirer’ sub-editor) “One drink and he could be back to a full-blown drinking problem!” Couldn’t we all?
The ‘Globe’ sells us a pup with its cover story about the death of Saoirse Kennedy, promising “Saoirse’s fatal overdose – drug dealer tells all.”
But it’s not Saiorse’s drug dealer telling all – it’s “a drug dealer” who in true tabloid fashion has never met or spoken to Saoirse Kennedy. More bizarrely, this drug dealer tells us absolutely nothing about how wealthy young scions of American over-privilege and entitlement buy drugs illegally, but instead informs readers that celebrities “go through certain doctors if they want anything pharmaceutical or steroid-related.” And they needed a drug dealer to tell them that?
Singer Olivia Newton-John’s fight against cancer inspires the ‘Globe’ story: “Brave Olivia Won’t Give In To Killer Cancer!” Presumably she'd going to live forever, then?
It wouldn’t be the tabloids without a story catching up with the British Royal soap opera, though this week the ‘Globe’ goes back to 1993 for its story: “Camilla’s Dad Hated Charles!” The Duchess of Cornwall’s father, Bruce Shand, reportedly disapproved of his then-married daughter’s affair with Prince Charles, and 26 years ago told Charles to "leave her alone.” The ‘Globe’ – always first with the news.
‘Us’ magazine devotes its cover to the aging cast of TV’s ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ now reunited for a reboot series, under the headline: “Divorce, Cancer, Infighting – How They Beat The Odds.” But they didn’t really beat the odds – they struggled through a melée of reality TV dross, Sharknado movies and Hollywood obsolescence until uninspired TV executives ran out of old TV shows to revive and finally exhumed 90210 and its surviving cast. They “beat the odds” only by living long enough for the reboot. Except for Jason Perry, of course.
‘People’ magazine’s cover promises to tell readers "What It’s Really Like . . . Growing Up Royal. Inside the extraordinary lives of Louis, Charlotte, George & Archie.”
Their lives are apparently “extraordinary” because this generation of Royals make them live relatively ordinary lives: the kids go to schools with muggles rather than being home-schooled with inbred aristocrats, and run around playgrounds in public, unlike their cloistered forebears. The parents evidently dote on their kids, unlike the Queen and Prince Philip who left their children for months at a time while gallivanting around on Royal tours, and when in town saw their brood only twice a day on scheduled visits. That all changed when Princess Diana came along, of course, but ‘People’ mag is finally catching up with the program.
‘People’ is equally informative in unveiling “Cameron Diaz’s Private World,” with almost two pages revealing that ‘People’ has no idea what she’s up to, because she keeps her private life private.)
Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at ‘Us’ mag to tell us that Cindy Crawford’s daughter Kaia Gerber wore it best, that ‘Melrose Place’ alum Daphne Zuniga thinks “a child’s smile is literally gold” – literally! It tells us that model Nina Agdal carries dice, a hairbrush and keys in her camouflage bag, and that the stars are just like us: they shop at supermarkets and drug stores, buy frozen treats at food trucks, and take photos. Extraordinary.
Headline of the week goes to the ‘Globe’ for its photo-essay about “curvaceous Colombian” model Francia James, in what appears to be a deliberately stunted set of photos in which she is wearing a barely-there dental floss bikini while greeting a 9,000-pound elephant, which perhaps mistaking her breasts for over-ripe mangos grabbed at her mammaries with its trunk “and nearly tore off Francia’s top!" The story, which has no more to it than a series of flesh-baring photos of the pin-up and the pachyderm, arrives under the headline: “Trunk & Disorderly!”
Onwards and downwards . . .
