“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.” Winston Churchill
Working in the weekly magazine industry has totally ruined gossip for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I love compiling HouseGoesHollywood. I’ve been followed the minutiae of celebrity lives since 2002, so trawling the internet for “news” feels like reading about the exploits of acquaintances on Facebook.
But it also means I’m REALLY cynical when celebrities “reportedly” do stuff, especially when it doesn’t rate a mention on the more reputable websites.
In a previous life I’d have lapped that stuff up like a heat-exhausted labrador. Now I roll my eyes and say “pffft”.
The girls at work thought they’d got one up on me yesterday when they excitedly relayed the news that Jennifer Aniston had chosen her bridesmaids and Courtney Cox wasn’t one of them. I stared at them incredulously.
“Did this just happen in the last hour?” I questioned, since I’d only recently finished visiting my favourite celebrity sites.
No! Last night! They replied, while secretly thinking nah-nah-ne-nah-nah we know a piece of celebrity gossip you don’t!
So I researched the source of this fascinating piece of news and discovered it originated from Heat magazine in the UK. Not a whisper of it anywhere else, other than the Hindu Times. Which is kind of odd in my opinion – why would Heat magazine know something about a Hollywood star that the entire American press had missed?
And then news.com.au thought wacko! and published it with a “reportedly” to get them out of trouble. I’m still shaking my head.
Mind you, I often get a good cackle at the newsstand. Like when Famous magazine reported Katie Holmes had adopted a baby boy a few weeks ago. They even had the audacity to give the fictious kid a name. NOT. EVEN. REMOTELY. TRUE.
Now, I know there’s nothing honorable about blogging Hollywood gossip, but my aim with HouseGoesHollywood is to keep it real. I use actual quotes from stars and their reps, or tweets and photos they’ve posted themselves.
If something really juicy comes up and the celeb isn’t commenting, I might include it in my daily rundown if I think the source is accurate.
As for Jen having bridesmaids at her second wedding … at the ripe old age of 44 … surely she’s past that sort of malarkey.
Then again, I’d never put anything past a celebrity.
housegoeshome 
I enjoy the way you do gossip on House Goes Hollywood. It’s tedious reading other publications with those long and involved stories supposedly told to a reporter by ‘a friend’. I’ll pick up a novel when I want complete fiction! It’s all fluff, at the end of the day, but a bit of vicarious living (gossiping?) is a nice break from the real world. Keep up your honourable approach 🙂
Thank you Ms Charming. Glad you’re enjoying it. Not exactly “honorable” but at least I believe the stuff I’m typing!