At long last, we have an official answer to the eternal, often rhetorical question “How low can you go?” And perhaps not surprisingly, it comes from the staff of The National Enquirer.
According to Brooke Shields — herself no stranger to controversy — a reporter for the tawdry tabloid checked the celeb’s mother — who suffers from dementia — out of a clinic. Teri Shields was later found, unharmed, lunching at a nearby restaurant with the freelance “journalist” — and I use the term loosely, and although at this time no charges have been filed, people.com reports the miffed actress as saying, “I intend to take every lawful action against all who were involved or who authorized this dispicable act.”
Here, Brooke gets ready for a little old-fashioned butt-kicking.
Although the tab claims that the aging woman and the reporter were “friends”, Shields is having none of it. And given the tabloids record — let’s not forget they were successfully sued by Carol Burnett after wrongly claiming the actress, daughter of two alcoholics, had been intoxicated in public; or that the rag ran a false story claiming that two male members of kidnapped teen Elizabeth Smart’s family were involved in a “gay-sex ring” – I’m going to side with Shields (despite that God-awful Lipstick Jungle debacle).
Now I’ve long believed that having crap made up about you in the press is a byproduct of celebrity. (Someday, perhaps my own name will be linked to sex scandals, at which point I can only hope they photoshop me into a pic with porn star Travis Wade or someone equally attractive). But there is a line, and I have to think when you smuggle someone’s dementia-addled mom out of a nursing home, it’s been crossed.
"Sure, O, Brooke and I have had problems in the past. But let's join forces to help her bring those suckers down!"
So the time has come to draw a line in the sand. Want to make the world a better place — and save yourself a little money at the same time? Stop buying The National Enquirer. Listen, if you still feel the need to read salacious gossip about celebs, there are a million other sources out there, including a dozen websites you can cruise for free (and without feeling embarassed when you’re caught paging through a trashy tabloid in the checkout aisle of the Piggly-Wiggly). You’ll thank me later… and so will those whose reputations have been trashed by those laboring for the tabloid and mistakenly believing themselves to be working journalists.
