Celebrity Unofficial

Britney Spears can’t sue for defamation about her sex life. So says the judge in a case she and Kevin Freeloader brought against Us Weekly after the magazine published an article saying that there was a sex tape of the two which they feared would be broadcast on the internet.

I have to agree with the judge on this one. It was a rare common sense from the bench which said, in essence: Hey Britney. You’ve made your entire living from selling your sexuality. Your reputation can’t possibly be ruined if someone says you made a sex tape with your husband since your reputation is entirely based on sex.

I don’t think anyone has ever argued that Britney Spears is a great singing talent…at least not with a straight face, anyway. Her popularity is entirely based on guys that fantasize about her and the girls who want to have her level of sexuality.

Evidently, her lawsuit never claimed that there was no sex tape: only that she was upset that the article claimed that she acted “goofy” when they went to their lawyers to discuss their options. It was a moronic lawsuit to bring on the flimsiest possible grounds.

Based on this decision, I can only conclude that the sex tape does indeed exist, because Britney never contested this portion of the story. The judge correctly decided that, because Spears and Freeloader couldn’t refute that basic truth of the story, they tried to sneak in a lawsuit designed only to intimidate Us Weekly based on a claim which was essentially beside the point.

I’m all for celebrities having a remedy when lies are told about them, but I’m also glad the judge found for Us Weekly in this case. Using thelegal system and their vast financial resources to intimidate people into silence is an abuse of the law, and it’s great that the case was heard by a judge who recognized it for what it was…

Tags: Britney Spears, Celebrity Lawsuits, Tabloids

Popularity: 44%

Cameron Diaz has an important lesson for you the next time you hear about celebrity infidelity: don’t believe the hype. And it looks like the National Enquirer is about to fork over a whole lot of money for telling tales about her.

Long story short: Cameron Diaz kisses a friend goodbye, and the National Enquirer manufactures a whole story about a raging affair between her and the friend. They even went so far as to tell the friend’s wife that he was going to leave her for Diaz. And not a word of it was true, so she sued them.

The two parties appear to be close to a settlement, and I’m sure the amount of money the Enquirer is going to have to pony up won’t be splashed across their front page the way the original story was…but it should be…

I’m all about celebrity gossip (obviously!) but to me there’s a bright line between telling an inconvenient truth and just making up a story out of whole cloth and intentionally trying to break up someone’s marriage to sell a few issues. What the Enquirer did was mean-spirited and whatever they have to pay probably still won’t be enough to make up for it…

Tags: Cameron Diaz, Celebrity Lawsuits, Tabloids

Popularity: 5%