Tabloid Melodrama
When you're a celebrity, or become one overnight, tabloid stories will turn your personal life into a trashy melodrama. Try not to take it too seriously, even if they are pronouncing nuptials for you and some celebrity you merely had a friendly conversation with.
Truth in Television (but not in tabloids), especially applied to Hollywood actresses and actors.
Anime and Manga
- The manga/OVA Boys Love series Haru wo Daiteita is based on two actors and their relationship with each other, surrounded by paparazzi and gossips, including tabloids and talk shows.
Comic Books
- In The Castafiore Emerald, Paris-Flash's cover promises the wedding of Castafiore to Captain Haddock (who can't stand her voice), and she tells him not to take it too seriously, as she's been linked to hundreds of other men in the past. She later gets upset about the Tempo di Roma's unauthorized expose on "La diva ed il pappagallo".
Film
- The movie Paparazzi did this as the whole excuse for the film's plot.
- A lot of Notting Hill revolves around trying to keep things from the tabloids.
Literature
- Rita Skeeter's job description in the Harry Potter series.
- In Rewind, the Rewound Children become instant celebrities and are hit full-force by this, the unwilling center of a media circus. At one point, a tabloid prints nude photographs taken of all seventeen by the government. This does not go over well, to say the least. Rewind generally takes a very dim view of the media.
Live Action TV
- One episode of Absolutely Fabulous had Patsy locked in a steamy affair with an important man (possibly a cabinet minister), leading the tabloids to hound her and refer to her as a "flash fash slag."
- An two-part episode of Dream On reversed the gender roles when Martin Tupper began an affair with a woman who turned out to be the wife (Teri Garr) of a prominent politician (George Hamilton). In the ensuing tabloid uproar, cameo roles went to people like Rita Jenrette, Gennifer Flowers and Jessica Hahn, all of whom had experience with the phenomenon in real life.
- I am almost ashamed to add this Real Life example, but Jon and Kate Plus Eight is a tragic classic version.
- The HBO miniseries John Adams shows that this sort of thing is Older Than They Think. There is this scene between the title protagonist and his rather upset wife, who is reading The Federalist Papers, which has printed some rather absurd exaggerations and lies:
Abigail Adams: (reading) "The reign of Mr. Adams has hitherto been one continued tempest of malignant passions. As president, he has never opened his lips without threatening or scolding. He is a repulsive pedant, a gross hypocrite, one of the most egregious fools upon the continent, a hideous, hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." |
Western Animation
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic; not even Celestia is immune to this, as in the episode "Ponyville Confidential", she was photographed pigging out on cake, the photo appearing in Gabby Gump's column in the newspaper. While the plot in general was portraying Gabby as being in the wrong for not valuing anyone's privacy, this episode did mark a point where Celestia started being less introverted and more social, not to mention her Sweet Tooth becoming a Running Gag.