I'll acknowledge that sometimes its out of control, but you've got to acknowledge that at least some of the time its some handy free publicity.

I think doing interviews about your relationship (or going to The Palm, because you know there are photographers outside) is handy free publicity. Having people follow you around is just creepy.

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I think people care because the pictures don't just appear--photographers have to be there and following you and trying to get close. This is just annoying and sometimes scary if you are an adult, but for celebs with kids, it must be really difficult. Having strangers follow you donw the street every time you step out of the house with a stroller can't be pleasant.

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You can work in LA without doing the whole "scene". Without hiring a publicist. Without having press releases every time you burp.

Mayyyyybe Brad and Angelina never could have had a discrete (which would be unique in her career for sure) relationship etc., but Heather Locklear could. Lance Armstrong could. Just logistically a break up would be easier to not be hounded by-- what's the incriminating photo? Someone by themselves? Just don't say anything and after four hundred solo red carpet pictures people will catch on.

Send an assistant to buy the tampons if you've been in the paper enough that week (and if you haven't, buy them yourself). If an actual celebrity claims to not like it check when their next project is coming out before you take it at gospel. Do you not see the game at all?

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Gronk. I went back to bed with a vengeance this morning (but yay, now it has stopped raining).

To do today:
Select 2 loads of laundry out of the 100 or so I could do (that's all the quarters I have)
Do the laundry
Put together a Target/Marshall's/Old Navy/Macy's if I have to shopping list
Budget stuff
Buinches of work
Dinner at Shiok!

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I can see putting out a press realease to avoid questions and rumors. People yelling at you every time you go out "Where's Lance?" I mean, jeez, when my marriage broke up *I* would have loved to have been able to announce it, rather than face the same questions and wrong assumptions over and over--and that was from friends.

Also, Armstrong has kids, so I assume he wants to forestall as much public wondering about affairs, etc, as possible.

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but Heather Locklear could. Lance Armstrong could. Just logistically a break up would be easier to not be hounded by-- what's the incriminating photo? Someone by themselves? Just don't say anything and after four hundred solo red carpet pictures people will catch on.

Lance Armstrong could, but I don't know about Locklear. Filing for divorce is a public act, and people working for the courts, etc., phone in news items to gossip columnists.

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Even with the press release you'd still get it from friends.

I'm sure its a drag. Its also self-perpetuated and a whole lot of crocodile tears.

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Putting out a relationship-status press release is clearly part of the game, but it doesn't make the actual breakup any easier.

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Filing for divorce is a public act, and people working for the courts, etc., phone in news items to gossip columnists.

So the item runs, everyone knows, you never had a press conference.

Michael J. Fox talks in his book about how celebrities (particularly young and quickly famous ones) begin to belive that their shit actually matters to the larger world. It's a little narcissistic and kooky.

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Send an assistant to buy the tampons if you've been in the paper enough that week (and if you haven't, buy them yourself).

But I think that famous people who DON'T want to play the game--who want to do their own shopping and live like a person and who DON'T want to be photographed--are screwed. Sure there are plenty who live to feed the publicity machine and then pretend they don't (and I have NO sympathy for them), but there are also plenty who just want to do their work and do their errands and date and whatever.

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