Kelly Ripa's Shocking Weight Loss!

Back at the A&P today I had another opportunity to contemplate the world of tabloid newspapers. Unlike the Weekly World News, the Enquirer focuses on cheesy celebrity stories, kind of like an unauthorized version of People magazine.

(Years ago--I forget why--someone from Time Warner came into the book publishing company where I worked with a secret advance copy of something called Picture Week, which they hoped would become a successful new magazine. It had almost no verbal content, just photos of celebrities and captions. When the meeting was over, one of my colleagues remarked, "Well, it's easy to see who the audience for Picture Week would be--folks who consider People magazine too intellectual." Time Warner must've ultimately jettisoned the project, since I never did see a copy on any newsstand.)

Anyway, it's interesting that papers like the Enquirer seem to consider it equally newsworthy when female celebrities gain weight (Kirstie Alley, Elizabeth Taylor, three-time-winner Oprah Winfrey) and when they lose weight (Kelly Ripa, Winona Ryder, the Olsen twins). Apparently the only sure way to stay out of the headlines is to make sure you keep your weight exactly the same. Yet another burden we ask our celebrities to bear.