Prince Charles fears he’s becoming a werewolf, the KGB tried to kill Lee Harvey Oswald, and Meryl Streep is going blind, according to this week’s reality-challenged tabloids.
It’s the rare week when the Trump-loving tabloids don’t indulge in paeans of praise for the president, but they still gleefully hurl incendiary allegations at the Clintons.
The feds’ probe into the Clinton Foundation “explodes,” claims the Globe cover, with the “secret arrest” of Bill Clinton's brother Roger. Is Roger Clinton’s 2016 DUI arrest truly “secret” when it was reported on at the time by The Washington Post, New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, TMZ . . and the National Enquirer?
Roger was sentenced to two days in jail, ordered to take an alcohol education program, and given three years probation. Yet the Globe claims that federal prosecutors are now threatening to revoke Roger Clinton’s probation if he doesn’t “turn stool pigeon and spill whatever he knows about any illegal actions” by the Clintons. Can somebody please explain to the Globe that the feds can’t revoke Roger Clinton's probation for saying he knows nothing about his brother’s charity. And why would he know anything anyway? Sheer wishful thinking.
The National Enquirer cover promises “never-before-seen crime scene photos inside California’s house of horrors!” The headline warns readers of a “chilling look inside putrid hellhole.” And what do the photos show? A scattering of brightly colored trash bags strewn across the family’s front yard (outside, not inside the “putrid hellhole”) and a shot taken through a glass door revealing an unremarkable table and some shelves. Shocking. Another Enquirer headline reminds readers: “13 innocent children secretly kept in chains!”
It’s worth noting that People magazine, which devotes this week's cover to the “House of Horrors,” refers to only “12 children chained & tortured for years.” Whatever happened to the 13th child? People notes the distinction that the Turpin Family’s two-year-old “appears to have escaped abuse." So she was a happy, well-adjusted baby among the foul-smelling trash while her 12 siblings were chained and tortured around her? Seriously?
Jane Fonda is battling “lip cancer horror” claims the Globe, showing the actress wearing a Band-Aid on the left side of her chin. “Emergency surgery to save her looks!” reports the Enquirer, showing Fonda with a Band-Aid on the right side of her chin. Did she undergo two surgeries? No – it’s the same photo, flipped into reverse by one of the rags, because what do they care what side she’s been operated on? If she’s wearing a Band-Aid, it must be cancer, right?
It makes as much sense as the Globe claim that Prince Charles is becoming the “Werewolf of London!” Charles is supposedly concerned that he inherited from “mad” King George III the genetic disease porphyria, which some have proposed may have led to werewolf legends in extreme cases of the affliction. As an unnamed source helpfully explains: “Now everyone – including his wife, Camilla - is convinced he’s going insane.” Maybe that explains the Enquirer report that Charles has not been invited to son Prince Harry’s coming bachelor party in Switzerland? Is Harry worried that his dad might howl at the moon over the Alps? Or perhaps he simply doesn’t want the 69-year-old heir to the throne making it rain for Swiss strippers?
It’s illuminating to read the Enquirer cover story revealing that the “KGB tried to kill Oswald” to prevent him assassinating President Kennedy, since it was only in November that sister publication the Globe ran a report claiming “Secret KGB Files Reveal Russian Spy Killed JFK!” and the Enquirer claimed that Oswald “worked for CIA!” Are they making this stuff up as they go along? Russian spies probably know the answer to that one.
“Meryl Streep going blind!” claims the Enquirer. How do they know that? Because she needs spectacles to read a menu. And everyone knows that wearing glasses is the first step toward blindness.
Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us magazine to tell us that Alessandra Ambrosio wore it best, that Jordan Fisher (champion of Dancing With The Stars, which has become a star-free zone) would “never be caught dead in wicker loafers,” that Fifty Shades Free actress Arielle Kebbel carries an amethyst to calm her and a carnelian stone “for strength and courage” in her Chanel tote, and that the stars are just like us: they read magazines, eat avocado toast, tote luggage and pump petrol in their cars. Riveting.
Us mag devotes its cover to Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel revealing “How We Make It Work!” Says Biel: “We like to have fun.” Reveals a friend: "They love spending time together.” And that’s how they make it work, apparently.
In what couldn’t possibly be misinterpreted as a conflict of interest, People mag devotes almost half a page to Kim Kardashian and her sisters taking on a new modeling gig as spokeswomen for Calvin Klein underwear, in the same issue that Calvin Klein runs a two-page ad showing the quintet of women in their skivvies, demonstrating how to make five beautiful women as unsexy as possible in tighty-whities.
“Disease, disaster, miracle cures and vampires coming,” predicts the Council of Native American Seers, according to the National Examiner. An Egyptian pyramid will become a time travel portal, a fish with human arms will be found in the Great Lakes, a factory worker will discover “the secret of eternal youth,” and a maximum security prison will be built orbiting Earth, the seers forecast. But an online search for the “revered” Council of Native American Seers produces zero hits. I should have seen that coming. Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa, among six prophets named by the mag, died in 1836, so his prediction that “aliens broadcast from a TV station in Springfield, Ill.” is a true feat of foresight – or journalistic imagination.
Onwards and downwards . . .
