JFK’s killer, Michael Jackson’s ghost, and Meghan Markle’s halibut, in this week’s tabloids
“This Cop Killed Kennedy!” screams the National Enquirer cover, boasting a photo of a gun-wielding assassin. “Killer posed as Dallas cop,” says the report. His real job? A Dallas cop. Note to Enquirer: If you’re a real cop, you can’t really pose as one.
British secret agents are erasing Royal bride-to-be Meghan Markle’s “wild past,” claims the Enquirer, aiming to “bury scandals before the wedding.”
What scandals? As a student at Northwestern University, Markle “got a fake ID to go drinking,” and gained 15 pounds “binge eating,” the Enquirer reveals. Apparently an unidentified British man was asking questions of Markle’s old friends. I don’t suppose that could be what’s known in the spy trade as a “British tabloid reporter”?
Michael Jackson is haunting Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s New York home, reports the Enquirer. After all, if you had an after-life, who wouldn’t want to be a spirit in Nicole and Keith’s home? It sounds like the culmination of Jackson's lifelong ambition to be as white as a ghost. His only disappointment: the couple have two young girls, not boys.
The Enquirer digs into “sleazy” NBC host Matt Lauer’s sex harassment scandal, warning: “It’s worse than you think!” But how does the Enquirer know what I think? What if I’m thinking: bestiality? Is it really worse than that?
America’s C-List actress-turned-Royal bride-to-be Meghan Markle gets the full-court press from this week’s tabloids. “Camilla Attacks Harry’s Bride!” yells the Globe cover, claiming that Prince Charles’ “evil . . . wicked” wife is waging a “vicious whispering campaign” against the Los Angeles-born interloper. Oh sure, that’ll derail the marriage. Vicious whispers.
Us magazine’s cover foretells “Meghan’s Christmas With The Queen!” with the revelation that they’ll probably eat halibut in champagne sauce for Christmas Eve dinner and flaming Christmas pudding for Christmas Day lunch. Shocking. That will set the tumbrils rolling.
People magazine devotes its cover to Markle’s “Real-Life Fairy Tale!” Did her fairy godmother appear and turn a pumpkin and mice into a coach and horses? No such luck. “She really does have star quality,” says a British photographer. That’s your modern-day fairy tale: the seal of approval from paparazzi.
If you didn’t marry, divorce or die in the past year, you’re probably not in People mag’s “Year in Pictures.” If it’s not been photographed, it probably never happened. Pictures are worth a thousand words, after all – but sometimes they just run their mouth off.
Either actress Goldie Hawn has a “breast cancer crisis” as the Globe claims, or she has a Band-Aid on her upper chest, which is what its photo actually shows. The Globe ran the same story three months ago, when Hawn sported a similar Band-Aid, and enlisted a doctor to speculate that he was “certain” she’d undergone a “breast biopsy,” which seems like a waste of time when you can diagnose patients perfectly well based on paparazzi photos.
And what are we to make of the photo of former Dallas police officer Roscoe White pointing a rifle, beneath the Enquirer headline: “This Cop Killed Kennedy”? “Explosive proof found in document release,” the mag claims. But nothing in the recent government release of JFK files included such proof. The “document” in question turns out to be a supposedly incriminating diary penned by White, who died in 1971. Where’s that diary now? White’s son claims it was seized by the FBI in 1982. So what new documents suggest White’s involvement? Nothing that White’s son hasn’t had for 35 years – just three cryptic and unverifiable telex cables, as vague as any horoscope prediction, and about as useful.
The Enquirer Guess Your Weight police are out in force, as ever. Melissa McCarthy “packs on the pounds again” and now tips the scales at 230 pounds, John Cleese at 300 pounds is “digging own grave – with a knife and fork,” and Beth Chapman, wife of “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” has “lost at least 50 pounds” and “is really sick.” For good measure, Charlie Sheen is looking “gaunt and haggard.”
Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us mag to tell us that Margot Robbie wore it best (Melania Trump never stood a chance), that Lisa Vanderpump will “never be caught dead wearing Spandex” (though she didn’t say anything about wearing Spandex while she’s alive), that actress Kelli Giddish carries chewing gum, earphones and earrings in her Brooklyn Industries tote bag, and that the stars are just like us: they grab Starbucks coffees, browse shops, and feed parking meters. Insightful, as ever.
Shockingly, no mention in the Enquirer, Globe or Us "of the sex harassment allegations against Dylan Howard, chief content officer of parent company American Media, Inc., whose 'self-proclaimed nickname was Dildo,'” according to a former employee, as reported by AP. I wonder what’s in his bag? Celebrity sex tapes? JFK’s assassin’s diary? Enquiring minds want to know.
Onwards and downwards . . .