It was widely reported Saturday that mega celebrity Angelina Jolie had given birth to her twins at the Miraval estate in France. Angelina Jolie and her companion, and equally mega celebrity, Brad Pitt responded saying the babies had NOT been born. and on Monday Entertainment Tonight, the source of the story on Friday, say they are standing by their story for now until they “see how the story plays out.”
The popular TV show ran a story Friday that twin girls had been delivered by Angelina Jolie and identified their source as someone who was in the delivery room. They further quoted another website that gave the alleged names of the new babies.
Competing news sources quickly started to poke holes in the story however. The AP quoted Brad Pitt’s manager saying that the ET story wasn’t accurate. Why all the fuss? Because in the world of celebrity journalism (and I use that word loosely) this may just be the biggest story of the year.
We all love our favorite celebrities and we want to devour every little bit of news we can get about them. THIS is the sole driver for the fanatical following of photographers and trash writers most celebrities have to deal with. The truth is that celebrities are not like the rest of us. They are always in the public eye, either by choice on TV or in the movies, or in the lens of their much disdained publicity photographers. Its a popular argument to point out that the star doesn’t have a problem accepting $1 million for a single episode of a tv show but when you try to get a quick photo, they freak out. Whats up with that?
Celebrity privacy supporters say that the celebrities are entitled to an equal amount of privacy as the rest of us despite the fact that they have a job that puts them in prominently in the public eye. I mean lets face it, nobodys gonna follow a plumber around town all day trying to snap a quick pic, right?
Well what do we do? I say if we can legislate hate crimes, defined by the thoughts the accused had, why can’t we legislate some good protection for celebrity privacy? At least lets set forth some guidelines about what acceptable and unacceptable for cryin out loud.