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I'm no prude, but...
Yesterday I was queuing to pay for some posh biscuits when the magazine stand beside the tills caught my eye.
I'VE ABORTED MARK WRIGHT'S BABY screamed the front cover of a glossy mag.
"What the what?" I muttered aloud, dropping my biscuits and thanking my lucky stars that my four year old can't yet read.
I'm not a fan of the TV show ‘The Only Way Is Essex' (or, ‘TOWIE') - I watched it once and just can't wrap my head around the fact that it's neither one thing or another - not quite a reality TV show but definitely not a documentary. The ‘cast' play out their real lives in front of the cameras, unscripted, but the scenarios portrayed seem staged. Anyway, I'm obviously in a minority on this. It's been billed as Britain's answer to ‘Jersey Shore' and ‘The Hills', and its stars frequently grace the pages of national newspapers and magazines.
So, to rewind to that cover-story, TOWIE star Lauren Goodger and Mark Wright apparently broke up recently after a decade together, whereupon Lauren let it slip in a magazine interview that she'd aborted Mark's baby when she was 20. Mark was apparently incensed and did what all modern celebrities do in such circumstances: he took to his Twitter page and engaged in a very public war of words with his ex.
Now I'm no prude. I write for a living, sometimes candidly about my personal life, and I've repeatedly had to weigh the merits of a juicy commission against the pitfalls of putting myself and my family in the spotlight. It's not something I do lightly, and for every piece that offers up elements of our private lives for public consumption there are scores of other potential stories that will never see the light of day. There are subjects that are off limits, and I adhere to a strict personal code, if you like, about what and who I will and won't write about. Those are the boundaries I quickly learned I couldn't live without if I was going to write the stuff that pays the rent. It's the yardstick by which I measure my choices when it comes to pitching ideas and turning real-life events into the pages of a magazine.
So I'm baffled by the concept of someone talking about something as private as an abortion in a national magazine, on the tail-end of a relationship break-up. Seriously, when did over-sharing become ok? Why don't people scream ‘Too much information' when celebrities feel the need to spill their guts? And don't they get enough retail therapy to warrant keeping back some details of what remains of their private lives?
With celebrities baring all - from what they look like naked to what's inside their fridge - and the world and its mother Tweeting, blogging and Facebooking about the minutiae of their lives and relationships, I've had enough of all this over-sharing.
Please, for one day only, could everyone just shut up?
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Comments (7)
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Tue Dec 6, 2011 - 9:26 am
Its a marketing machine - anything to stay in the limelight and keep the pennies rolling in....and if there is nothing noteworthy to drive a headline ( such as talent, god forbid) then the minutia or sensationalist confessions are all that is left. As a last resort - stage a high profile relationship, promote the hell out of yourself & follow it up with a public break up just as the interest begins to fade!!Reply -
Report Fri Oct 7, 2011 - 9:39 amThe sad fact is people keep talking and writing about these little people perpetuating the self-made myth that they are important and interesting.Reply -
1 reply, Last reply by HeidiScrimg on Fri Oct 14, 2011 at 9:59 pm
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Fri Oct 7, 2011 - 1:00 pm
Like many celebs, these people are pretty much a different breed. Many of them are one short of a six pack so it's impossible to judge them by "normal" peoples' standards. They will do everything and anything to gain notoriety and again to stay in the spotlight.Reply -
1 reply, Last reply by HeidiScrimg on Fri Oct 14, 2011 at 9:59 pm
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Report Sat Oct 8, 2011 - 2:19 amThe thing is, though, 'standards' are relative. Maybe the yardstick others have set for themselves (cause celebres or not) are higher or lower than ours, but that's the beauty of the mad world we live in - that not everyone thinks alike. And it does, of course, provide great fodder for brilliant 'WTF?' blog posts!Reply
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1 reply, Last reply by HeidiScrimg on Fri Oct 14, 2011 at 9:58 pm
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