Has Angelina Jolie's face collapsed or is it preternaturally super-smooth? Have Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell split or are they living together? Does Hillary Clinton tell all in her new memoir, or reveal nothing?
It's an Alice Through the Looking Glass kind of week in the tabloids, where little is as it seems, and we're all plunging down a rabbit hole where logic disappears.
Let's start with Angelina. The 'National Enquirer' reports that "Angie's face collapses" as the magazine "learns" she is suffering from Bell's palsy. They're discovering this rather late, however, since Jolie publicly announced her medical condition back in July, but perhaps the 'Enquirer' has only now belatedly looked up "Bell's palsy" in a medical dictionary.
In the mirror world of stable-mate the 'Globe,' however, Jolie is on a "botox binge" making her face "smooth," while a cosmetic surgeon comments on every aspect of her facial features without once mentioning its collapse. If a cosmetic surgeon can't spot a disfiguring case of Bell's palsy, how bad can it really be?
"Goldie Hawn & Kurt Russell Split!" screams the 'Enquirer' cover, repeating a story it's told for months. But the report inside explains that the couple are actually still living in the same home – a new house they recently built and moved into. That's an unusual split, to be sure.
And the tabloids can't agree on what Hillary Clinton reveals in her coming new memoir, 'What Happened.' The 'Enquirer,' having obtained an advance copy of her book, reports that Hillary believes that she was the best candidate for the presidency, that the email scandal was "not her fault," and that FBI director James Comey stabbed her in the back. Nothing surprising there. But the 'Globe' devotes its cover to "Crooked Hillary's $25m Tell-All" and expounds at length about what's not in the book: her alleged "suicidal collapse following her loss," boozing to numb the pain, her "horndog hubby," and her supposed stint in rehab. The 'Enquirer' says that Hillary also fails to write about her feelings for Donald Trump, claiming "she secretly admires the business mogul and his incredible skills as a politician." Lewis Carroll would be impressed by such imaginative writing.
Prince Charles has finally confessed: "I killed Diana," reports the 'National Examiner,' evidently forced into this admission after a recent autopsy on the late princess. Except there has been no autopsy, no incriminating new evidence, and Prince Charles never "confessed he murdered Princess Diana." Details, details.
Meanwhile the 'Enquirer' writes that fatherhood is "killing" George Clooney (he's lost a few pounds, which qualifies him as a "withered husk of his former self"), and former Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart has new surgically-enhanced "chipmunk cheeks" (she looks the same as ever, just caught in unflattering lighting), while the 'Globe' reveals that the Queen survived a "murder plot" after police arrested a sword-wielding man outside Buckingham Palace, which doesn't amount to a plot so much as a quick way of getting yourself arrested.
'Us' magazine jumps down the rabbit hole with its cover story in which Melania Trump gives "my side of the story" and "faces her critics." Except she doesn't. 'Us' simply regurgitates bits of its interview with Melania from 2015, in a blatantly sycophantic attempt to curry favor and persuade Melania to sit down for a real interview in the future.
Aging pop queen Madonna dominates the cover of 'People' magazine, discussing "life with my kids," an enervating interview in which she reveals why she loves her brood, bans them from using cell phones, and hopes to save the nation of Malawi, a nation dedicated to producing children for Madonna to adopt.
Elsewhere in the magazine an ad for the singer's MDNA line of skincare features a photograph so heavily Photoshopped, airbrushed, retouched and digitally enhanced that you'd be forgiven for believing that Madonna was a 15-year-old with flawless skin.
Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at 'Us' to tell us that Jenna Dewan Tatum wore it best, model Tess Holliday's neighborhood ice-cream man knows her by her first name, chef and author Daphne Oz keeps sunglasses, lipstick and gum in her Louis Vuitton tote, and that the stars are just like us: they pump gas, shop at the drugstore, catch cabs and scoop dog poop. What glamorous lives they do lead.
As ever, it's the 'Examiner' that offers the most chilling headlines above a story that is alarmingly close to accurate: "America's Killer Volcano," focusing on Yellowstone's super volcano, and NASA's plan to build a five-mile hole into the beast to help defuse its destructive power. "Scientists scramble to relieve pressure and cool down lava bomb that could wipe out country," raves the 'Examiner,' with a cheery coda: "If there is a miscalculation and the drillers strike the magma area itself, it could trigger a doomsday blast through catastrophic human error!" That's a rabbit hole I'd rather not dive into.
Onwards and downwards . . .
Images for collage: Wikipedia
