A New York Times writer heard Facebook's CEO doesn't believe in secrets; a Facebook flack disapproved of the writer's secrets; and Barry Diller's wife refused to give up her fur secrets. The Twitterati sought loose lips.
Every drag queen, club kid, and homosexual in New York (and in the media) came out to celebrate the silver anniversary of the downtown chronicler extraordinaire. It was like Area all over again!
In dark Internet corners, speculation simmers about a millionaire named Arturo Globenfeldt. Two years ago, the Daily News reported Brittany Murphy's husband owed Globenfeldt $16 million. Was Murphy's death somehow related to this debt? No, the Daily News was punked.
Tipsters report: the NY Daily News gossip' team's down one, as Laura Schreffler's out. Is the NYDN gossip desk growing rust? We know one person who turned the gig down. Update: Ben Widdicombe's on the move: TMZ!
Word is spreading around the office that layoffs are coming any moment. What should you wear for the big day? Ben Widdicombe, who found out in January that his "contract with a national magazine" (otherwise known as Star) was not being renewed, explains: "The perfect termination outfit should feature professionalism…
Ben Widdicombe wrote his last Gatecrasher column for the Daily News last April. Three months later, he replaced Julia Allison as Star's gossip maven. Is he already leaving? [UPDATED BELOW: Yes.]
The New York Daily News has trailed the Post's Page Six in the New York gossip wars for a long time. Now the paper is blowing up its gossip columns and starting over. Two major changes went down today. First, husband and wife gossip team Rush & Molloy announced this morning that they'll be moving from a daily column…
Among Julia Allison's many achievements, one stands out: the dating columnist landed a gig as editor-at-large of Star magazine, which consisted of reading the gossip blogs and then opining on television as if she knew the celebrities at the center of the week's scandal-and as if she had a job at Star. Her lucky…
Departing gossip columnist Ben Widdicombe's innuendo-laden items for the Gatecrasher column in the Daily News were always designed for two audiences: the tabloid's middlebrow readers, who weren't intended to get the joke; and the Australian gossip's counterparts, who could be expected to pick up on the camp subtext.
No, The New York Daily News' Aussie gossip maven Ben Widdicombe isn't dead. But the celebrity-party-booze beat is dead to him. After a recent vacation in his native land of 'roos and convicts, Widdicombe has decided to start enjoying life again. His farewell Gatecrasher column will run tomorrow, but he was good enough…
The story of former Page Six scribe Jared Paul Stern and creepy supermarket billionaire/attempted modelizer Ron Burkle is being ripped from the headlines of two years ago for an upcoming episode of Law & Order. Daily News gossiper Ben Widdicombe reports that The Daily Show's Mo Rocca will play Stern. In real life,…
Ben Widdicombe recently had a chat with former Village Person Randy Jones, mainly about the geigh singer's new memoir Macho Man. Jones recounted one story from the book, about Tom Cruise, that was eventually vagued-up after the Queen of Scientology's lawyers got involved. Though Jones had no problem talking about the…
Let's put aside any judgment on the literary qualities of Sloane Crosley's collection of essays, I Was Told There'd Be Cake. One talent is beyond dispute: the author, a book publicist in her day job, is one of publishing's most expert promoters. Crosley has secured interviews and profiles which must make writers with…
Just two blind items for you today, the first from Widdicombe: "Which single-ish A-list actor is back to his old ways since splitting with his wife? He was seen handing off a suspicious-looking vial to a hard-partying TV thesp who is about to hit the big screen." Racy. Are Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward still…
Not surprisingly, the phrase "Heath Ledger" was Google's fastest-rising search term yesterday. The second most buzzy? "Keith Ledger." Who is maybe a video game designer but definitely not a dead leading man. Even HuffPo couldn't get it straight, tagging many of their Ledger posts, including Bonnie Fuller's, with…
Was The Daily News brown-nosing just a bit with its wall-to-wall coverage of Hillary Clinton's 60th birthday party today? Not only was last night's Beacon Theater bash on their front page Wednesday, but the paper sent five of its editorial staff to cover last night's fiesta, including a gossip reporter, regular…
Tonight's arrival of the new television show Gossip Girl on the CW is at least the most important event of the week. It is a real-life doomsday scenario for us, in which the lives of 10 wealthy Upper East Side teenagers somehow become intangibly yet irrevocably ingrained into our consciousness. Last night I went into…
Yesterday the Daily News's resident Aussie-gossie Ben Widdicombe took a break from doing blind items about closeted actors and offered up this little gem: "Which struggling new glossy is so out of money that staffers are having to pay for photos on personal credit cards?" Hmm! The reader who sent this in suggested it…
We're still obsessing over that Ben Widdicombe blind item: "Which very senior Manhattan media executive looks like he might be about to go public with that office affair everyone has been talking about?" You know what we keep forgetting about? Conde Nast CEO Charles Townsend is in divorce proceedings in a Miami-Dade…
Very slight forward movement on a recent blind item: Remember gossipboy Ben Widdicombe's "Which very senior Manhattan media executive looks like he might be about to go public with that office affair everyone has been talking about?" Well, think Conde Nast. That's as far as we've gotten—but we're not letting this one…
