Leaking Anna Nicole

How much you wanna bet that somebody is going to leak the Anna Nicole death investigation findings before the press conference?  My money is going to be on Harvey Levin and TMZ getting the scoop.  In such a short time, Harvey and his team have earned a rep for getting it first AND getting it right. 

Heather Mills’ PR Prowess

Catching up on my TiVo, so I caught Heather Mills’ interview on Larry King and boy, has she had some good media training.  Non-defensive, states the facts calmly.  When she’s asked about all the ugly stuff that’s come out since she and Paul McCartney separated, she calmly states that it’s all rubbish and how she’s more concerned about saving baby seals and raising money for charity and converting everyone to veganism.  Of course, the British news reports through the past year have displayed quite a different message about Heather’s notorious past, with fellow call girls and former clients coming forward right and left.  But you have to hand it to Heather — she’s going on a dancing show with a prosthetic leg, for heaven’s sake.  Americans love redemption stories.  Heather is going to be a big hit on this side of the
Atlantic. She herself said it best when she told Larry “I could have been Mother Theresa and I would have been vilified” just like Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney were when they married their Beatles. 

She’s got a point.  And she’s smart enough to deliver it well.   And no denying it takes guts to dance with a fake leg.  Guts are so irresistable to us Americans.  Watch.  She’ll  bag a book deal and an endorsement contract while she’s here. 

Any guesses as to companies that would hire her for a spokesmodel?  What about Dove and their everyone-is-beautiful campaign? 

  

Britney Spears’ PR Rehab

Now that Britney Spears has checked out of her ritzy Malibu rehab center, all the celebrity tabloids will be tracking her every movement to see if her drug and alcohol rehab is real (and if she’s gone back to wearing panties).

I think she can rehab her image simply because in America, you’re never really a star until you make a comeback.  Look at Mariah Carey, who came back from a public breakdown.  Or look at John Travolta, whose career was a Trivial Pursuit question until he made a comeback in Pulp Fiction.  Even Richard Nixon made a comeback before he was elected president.  And he won in a landslide.  Comeback fame is always more potent that original fame.   

But a comeback is not guaranteed, even to blond It Girls.  Britney will have to work hard as hard at her PR rehab as her handlers say she did on her addictive behaviors.  And it can’t be all smoke and mirrors and pithy PR sayings.  There has to be some there there.  Her first step toward rehabbing her image is to get back into the recording studio and produce something people want to hear.  Simultaneously, she needs to show she’s a conscientious mom who wears panties and steers clear of hipster loser guys who are obvious users.  If she shows up at a Hollywood nightclub within the next week, the whole celeb media world will not only condemn her, but they will increase their surveillance so they can catch her falling off the wagon. 

Queen Latifah and the Finger

Why don’t celebs ever learn?  Queen Latifah is the latest celeb to be photographed by the paparazzi while giving the bird.  Real classy. 

I have a lot of empathy for celebs who are followed around by tabloid photographers — I don’t know what I’d do without my privacy — but the Queen has got to know that kind of photo only hurts her public image.  Hurt your public image enough and you hurt your earning potential.  (Britney Spears hasn’t signed any new endorsement deals lately, has she?)

It’s just like when a reporter asks the most obnoxious question.  The question never makes it into the story.  Just your response.  So if you are obnoxious right back, it isn’t going to hurt the reporter.  It’s just going to make for a more dramatic story. 

Get ready for more Anna Nicole

MSNBC is reporting that the Bahamian court hearing is now underway re: Larry Birkhead’s demand to get a DNA sample from Anna Nicole Smith’s (ANS) baby daughter.  Brace yourself for another round of breathless Anna Nicole news.  But I think it’s really funny when interviewers like Larry King devote hours and hours to the ANS story and then ask other, unrelated guests to comment on the ANS media storm because al those guests routinely condemn all the coverage as being unworthy of media attention.  Better to spend all that time covering important issues like the war in the Middle East, they say. 

But I take a contrarian view (of course).  In 100 years, I predict, sociologists will study our fascination with the ANS story precisely because it says a lot about our society:  Our fascination with celebrity, the sexual mores (or lack of them) in 21st Century single adults, the way so many medicate themselves with drugs.  Fascinating stuff. 

My view of The View

I never was a huge fan of Rosie O’Donnell — I never really bought her as “the Queen of Nice”.  That persona just never rang true to me and now, after Rosie’s court battle over her defunct magazine and her fueds with a certain comb-over afficionado, I think the Queen of Nice tag has been retired.  

But I have to say that The View is a more interesting show with Rosie at the helm.  Thanks to her, The View isn’t just recycling the same old guests pumping their latest movies or TV shows.  Now, you might tune in and find an unexpected guest host or a segment on a real issue (not just how some poor actress has to juggle family and work) that never would have found a place on the old The View.  

Good for Rosie.  And good for the rest of us.