BONES ARE BACK?! The perils of commenting on a person’s weight as a showbiz writer…

Is the power to comment, compare and dissect a celebrity with the media still? OR has the power transferred to YOU! Here's my take on it.

Willkomen. Bienvenue. Welcome. Firstly, thanks for reading – I had such a great response to my first newsletter last week. I’ve genuinely missed writing since I left the tabloid and magazine world just over 10 years ago. So it’s good to be back!

For me, it was a creative passion working in the silly world of showbiz. I got to give my opinion, interview celebrities and most importantly enjoy a cocktail whilst talking to Madonna. I won’t ever shut the FU about that one. Sorry.

But let’s face it being a showbiz columnist isn’t exactly rocket science and I was always very aware of that. Compared to some, my ego managed to be kept at bay (mostly).

I had the time of my life hitting the town and travelling the world to report on all things celebrity. Another thing to add – from the get-go I was always great at getting the story but I wasn’t the best writer. I knew what a story was. And that’s half the battle of being a celebrity journalist. Or it was then, nowadays you just need to look at what happened on social media and hey presto you have an easy page lead. YAWN.

As you’ll soon discover from my musings, leaving the world of celebrity journalism does rather strange things to a person. I have to hold my hands up, I went through a process of self-acceptance when I got out and it has taken years to get my head straight. It was definitely a cathartic process leaving that world for good and one I’m still working through to this day.  

As a showbiz columnist from the ‘golden’ years of gossip becoming prevalent, you have to accept you fed the devilish machine that is tabloid journalism and that you heightened the grotesque side of celebrity culture to where it is today. And I do.

The main thing I want to achieve here is I want to write the truth as I saw it as a celebrity writer, editor and columnist during my journalism career of over 20 years. I will reveal some of the crazy situations I witnessed and dealt with, give a unique insider view on the celebrity scandals we are all witnessing now and I want to lay my cards on the table as much as possible.

So I thought I’d start a conversation about the right to comment on a person’s weight as a journalist (and as human beings). Whether they’re a celebrity or not. But mostly – for the sake of this feature - if they’re a celebrity.

Let’s roll back the clock way back to the mid noughties when I was working at Closer Magazine – the UK’s number one women’s weekly back then…where I wrote a column called Mr Showbiz.

Each week I’d hit the parties, drink the bar dry, be the first at the party (and mostly last to leave) and then spend the latter part of the week writing about my adventures. It was obviously a lot of fun and during my years in celebrity land I would often turn up to work with raging hangovers, the same outfit from the night before and now and again come straight from the party :-/

I was in my mid-twenties and I proudly had the stamina to show for it…

One particular morning I came in wearing shades and marched my vodka-tinged breath into the daily news conference at Closer to go through the images of the night before as we started to map out the cover for the following week.

I vividly remember seeing pictures of Keira Knightley, Tori Spelling and Nicole Richie. All women looked, to be frank, tiny. I muttered in my hungover state, “Jeez, bones are back”.

I saw the editor’s ears prick up and knew immediately what I’d done. The cover of Closer ran that week with images of the three women emblazoned upon the front with the coverline “BONES ARE BACK”. The cover was one of the biggest sales of the year with over 750,000 people buying that issue with three young girls pictured vividly for the world to see. For readers to add opinions, start their comparison conversations and generally discuss their body shapes.

There are points to do with the editorial process you also need to remember. The picture editors would always show the full set but often the worst picture where the girl looked the worst/skinniest would be the chosen one and would be highlighted. The shock factor sold issues. Terrible lighting, you say? Chuck that into the mix and it shows off more bones. Watching the way the machine worked became a hideous part of the job and I actually decided after a couple of years to skip these ridiculous conferences altogether. In some ways it was a group of women sat there hating on other women and working out how to publicise their hatred for these women in a national title to sell more magazines.

Women’s bodies, private lives, trauma and generally where they were in life were all heavily scrutinized. Looking back it’s shocking it went on and that we sat there getting on with this process like it was normal. What the fuck was wrong with us all?

What feels even more shocking is these magazines STILL run with this hideous process to this very day. Once you consider the fact some of the girls being written about might not be well and could be dealing with terrible mental health as well as eating disorders it’s a really sad situation.

With the ‘Bones Are Back’ scenario, these were really young girls at the start of their careers mostly. Girls who were continually (on a daily basis) being ridiculed regarding their weight by everyone in the media. Girls who I – in my fleeting hungover comment – had unwittingly escalated to a cover of a magazine for more people to comment on their weight. Hell, I’d even met Keira that week at a party (see below) and she’d been LOVELY. I’d literally shat all over her in that conference. Albeit by accident with my hangy…

But it’s the next part of the editorial process that was seriously fucked up back then. Once the cover image had been chosen the editor would say “cool, get the story now”. And the newsdesk would have to call their contacts to get a story on Keira’s body. They’d have to tap their US contacts on Tori and Nicole and what was happening there. ALL obviously from “a source close to the star”. You know the drill. Back then sources were lolz for those magazines. Questionable at best. But as long as the story worked with the cover then it was a goer. TICK BOX. No questions asked. There was one freelancer who was notorious for making up any old shite to ensure your story got across the line. I was rather smug that I refused to speak to this witch – but a lot of them did and I would often get annoyed that bosses would resort to talking to her so their precious woman-beating story would work for the cover.

I guess we were lucky in a way that back then Instagram wasn’t a thing. We only had Perez Hilton’s septic articles to consider. It would have been the pits for the celebrity and for us to have had social media. The editors knew one thing on those celeb weeklies though - celebrity bodies and what we wrote about them equated to huge magazine sales. And for the next decade or so (and still to this day) stories involving surgery, a body changing size or weight or a fascinating new image sell big time. Not to mention a female celebrity going through a break up or marriage breakdown.

And obviously right now those images being online create one thing. Likes. Comments. Clicks. Interest.

Let’s face the truth – these weekly magazines are dying a death. It’s pretty obvious they won’t be here in five or so years. They’re already on skeleton staff with editors being across up to five titles. It’s hard work and the speed at which things move is wild. You can hardly keep up.

I’m going to write about this more each week but, in my opinion, right now there’s a real change of power when it comes to commenting on a celebrity’s weight. YOU are in control of this body shaming conundrum in 2023 and rather importantly you have the power to easily stop it. One reason I decided to write about body shaming and the celebrity world is selfishly because I felt like an utter twat for doing it…

But secondly, I was interested to see Fearne Cotton’s post recently in a nice dress (for a brand she works with) on social media become the subject of body shaming on her Instagram. Hundreds of women were commenting. Sabotaging. Questioning. Dragging her down. Comparing. Checking she was OK.

So much so that she had to comment on the post and the furore it had caused. I wasn’t surprised at all by this reaction and that’s the EXACT point I wanted to highlight here. One thing I feel has seriously changed is the way celebrities, politicians and the public continually blame the media for their opinion in 2023. I don’t believe this is true nowadays AT ALL.

There’s only one person to blame. You. The Public. I believe since my tawdry days on the celebrity circuit the power of making something into a story has moved away from the media in 99% of situations. Right now, it’s the public who have the power.

Let’s think about it. In the media can you remember the last time a celebrity interview genuinely enthralled you from a newspaper or publication? You know, a game changer of a conversation? I guess maybe Johnny Depp’s Rolling Stone profile years ago was the last thing I actually thought was a proper scoop.

Can you remember the last time there was a story that didn’t involve a social media post (whether it be Twitter or Instagram) that set the agenda of the news for the day? I can’t.

Truth be told the power to cancel, the power to engage and the power to make or break a celebrity right now lies with the general public. The power as to whether a conversation begins is also with the public.

Fearne posted a picture. The comments began. They really ramped up into their hundreds. Fearne was forced to speak out about it angrily. All the papers then followed up the story from THE PUBLIC making it an ongoing pile of shit for Fearne.

If the comments hadn’t flown in; the story wouldn’t have ended up being followed up in the media. The power, my dear friends, was all yours. And this theory will work with pretty much any celebrity story you read right now.

THE PUBLIC as users of social media are able to set the agenda. You hold the power.

So this is where we need to think about our relationship with what we choose to comment on, to read and to watch. And ultimately, what opinion we choose to reveal online. How we decide to express ourselves on social media is important.

Fuck the media moaning – it’s dead boring and the world has changed. The power is right here – on our keyboards…in YOUR capable human hands. So let’s all try not to fuck it up. Let’s try to be better humans. Every single day.

Until next time!