[My friend Peter Sheridan is a Los Angeles-based correspondent for British national newspapers. He has covered revolutions, civil wars, riots, wildfires, and Hollywood celebrity misdeeds for longer than he cares to remember. As part of his job, he must read all the weekly tabloids. For the past couple of years, he's been posting terrific weekly tabloid recaps on Facebook and has graciously given us permission to run them on Boing Boing. Enjoy! – Mark]
"Hollywood Death Mysteries Solved!"
Natalie Wood, Bruce Lee, Sonny Bono, and David Carradine were all murdered, and Richard Burton was beaten to death.
That's according to the expert forensic authority known in academic circles as Globe magazine.
Solved?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Those of us who thought Sonny Bono died after skiing at high speed into a tree were evidently fooled by brilliant "drug assassins" who beat him to death and planted his body on a ski slope. Because what could be easier than dragging a dead body up a mountain in deep snow?
Autopsy photos "could reveal Natalie Wood's death was a murder." Because even though medical examiners, police and prosecutors have viewed the photos, the truth won't be known until the Globe's pet attorney has seen the pictures. There you go – solved!
Richard Burton got into a bar brawl two days before he died. Though officials ruled that long-standing illnesses killed the actor, the Globe assures us it was the fight that killed him. Because Swiss medical experts who examined his body didn't have the imagination of Globe reporters. Solved!
Bruce Lee was poisoned and David Carradine hanged by the same serial killer "who targets celebrities and stages their deaths to look like accidents."
That all makes perfect sense now. I bet the same killer got to Bob Hope and Lucille Ball too. Solved!
"David Bowie died of Aids!" screams the National Enquirer, evidently based on the claims made by a former lover in 1987 – despite Bowie having twice taken court-ordered Aids tests and being proven Aids-free, and the lover also testing negative for the disease. Why let the facts get in the way of a good accusation?
O.J. Simpson was Bill Cosby's drug dealer supplying him with knock-out drugs, and Caitlyn Jenner loves Monica Lewinsky, according to the Enquirer. More mysteries – solved!
Deaths dominate this week's celebrity magazines as well. Celine Dion's "heart is in pieces" after the demise of both her husband and brother days apart. "There are no words," says "a friend." Which is true, since Celine didn't say a word to People mag.
David Bowie's death is Us magazine's cover story, telling of his wife "Iman's sad goodbye." Not that Iman spoke to Us mag either.
Who needs to interview the protagonists in a news story? Just talk to "insiders," "sources," and "friends." Reporters with no real quotes? Solved!
Fortunately, we have Us mag's crack reporting team to tell us that Rachel Platten (Who she, Ed?) wore it best, singer Monica carries two iPhones, a prayer card and a $2 bill in her purse, and the stars are just like us: they carry umbrellas, browse newsstands, and cheer for the team.
Tyga tells Us mag that he hates root beer and "could eat chicken wings nonstop," while Bernie Sanders invites People mag into his home to watch him do the laundry, and embraces his rumpled khaki pants saying: "We're appealing to the American men who have wrinkles in their pants."
There's the secret to Bernie's success – solved!
Onwards and downwards . . .
