Did you know Prince Williams and his wife, Kate, are planning a palace coup? Or that the “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo house” is about to be demolished? Or that Chris “Breezy” Brown is “striking back — hard” against Australia’s Minister for Women?
But if you believed any of those revelations Tuesday, you missed the memo from The Onion, which launched StarWipe on Sept. 21 to capitalize on (and monetize) the public’s insatiable hunger for Hollywood celebrity news.
“StarWipe is the most trusted source in the completely untrustworthy realm of celebrity gossip, supplying a constant stream of scurrilous, invasive information on the lives of famous people, so that its readers can feel better about not being famous themselves,” says the About page.
“StarWipe also does the important work of supporting America’s teeming underclass of paparazzi, human parasites who would otherwise be forced to find a place in a job market that doesn’t value their skills of taking unflattering photographs or asking presumptuously personal questions.”
The comedic confessional concludes: “StarWipe’s readership numbers in the millions and definitely includes George Clooney, because he is a huge narcissist. Hi, George.”
StarWipe Editor Sean O’Neal said in a statement: “The world of celebrity reporting is currently a garish cacophony of carefully presented artifice, publicist spin, empty innuendo, and outright lies. We thought we’d add to that.”
Esquire quoted O’Neal as saying: “The thrust of the site is the sort of news reporting I’ve been doing for about eight years now over at The A.V. Club—with ‘news’ and ‘reporting’ in scare quotes, probably — but we’ll also appropriate the tabloid tropes of your Peoples, your Us Weeklys, your TMZs, then approach them the same way The Onion and ClickHole look at world events and viral content.
“The difference is we don’t have to make anything up, because gossip culture is already fake and ridiculous.”
10 years from now, Onion, Inc.’s media empire will be the only one left standing http://t.co/sZVaVhuqXb
— Sarah Grieco (@sarahgrieco) September 24, 2015
‘StarWipe’ Is The Onion’s Answer to Soulless Celebrity Gossip http://t.co/OHjOOXZtiC pic.twitter.com/z99w1C6JPm
— Esquire Magazine (@esquire) September 22, 2015