The year in gossip

You pretended you didn't care about Paris, Star, Lindsay and Martha. And who did you think you were fooling?

By Amy Reiter

Dec 30, 2004 | Like everyone else, gossip lovers spent much of 2004 parsing the lives of politicians: Which formerly apolitical celebrity was backing which presidential candidate? Which candidate's offspring was partying maybe a bit too hard or wearing an altogether too revealing outfit? Which was too orange or had better hair? And which candidate's campaign will go down in history in part because of an unforgettable blundered headline in the New York Post?

But does that mean we had no time for Britney and Jessica, for Donald and Howard? For Lindsay and Star and Paris and Liza? Or even for Kobe and Michael and Scott Peterson? Perish the thought.

Nope. We dutifully kept up with news of Michael Jackson's hidden porn collection, the swabbing of his mouth for DNA, his courthouse car-top dance and the investigation into his allegations that police manhandled him and locked him in a feces-smeared bathroom.

We marveled at the "secret" transcripts of Kobe Bryant's interviews with Colorado police detectives, somehow leaked to the press, in which he told cops that grasping his sexual partners in a stranglehold from behind was his "thing" and that he regretted not doing "what Shaq does," which was to pay women he screwed around with "up to $1 million" to stay mum. And we weren't the least bit surprised when Shaquille O'Neal angrily denied Bryant's allegations.

We devoured every detail of the Peterson trial, particularly those transcripts of his conversations with Amber Frey: the phone call in which he expressed a deep desire to kill a dog barking outside his hotel room "in Brussels"; his confounding request that Frey rent and watch "Love Affair," starring Annette Bening and his "hero" Warren Beatty; his New Year's Eve call from "near the Eiffel Tower," where, he said, the celebration was "unreal."

But lest we forget, 2004 was a year that began with the media hoopla over Britney Spears' quickie, panty-free Vegas wedding to husband (no matter how briefly) No. 1, Jason Alexander, who later sold his story to a British tab, sharing that Britney "was an animal in bed" -- and a year that's wrapping up with rumors that she has a bun in the oven with husband (three months and counting) No. 2, Kevin Federline.

Yes, 2004 was a year particularly rich in celebrity shamelessness. And gossip lovers love nothing as shamelessly as rooting around in celebrity trash. So here, fresh from the gossip garbage heap of the past year, are a few steaming highlights:

Janet Jackson's right breast comes out of hiding, sets off a cultural revolution!
Let's face it, if you blinked, you probably missed Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction during her horrifying-for-other-reasons Super Bowl halftime number last January. But that one split-second mammary sighting has had the sort of long-term effects other celebrity body-part flashings (intentional or otherwise) can only dream of. After all, the Federal Communications Commission made a federal case out of the incident, using it to bolster its campaign against indecency on the airwaves, which only recently has been revealed to have been orchestrated by a single conservative group, the Parents Television Council.

Who can forget the FCC's Michael Powell expressing his shock and outrage that children -- yes, children! -- would be forced to see even a millisecond of the very thing that nourished most of them for months, in the midst of enjoying that wholesome American pastime in which humongous grown men hurl themselves at each other in a fashion calibrated to do as much damage to the other guy as possible? Or Jackson's subsequent banishment from the Grammys while her partner in malfunction crime, Justin Timberlake, was welcomed with open arms -- after a public apology?

Not Bono, or Howard Stern. Thanks to a single star-accessorized nip slip -- and, OK, a little oral/anal sex chatter of his own -- Stern is now set to turn the radio world on its head by abandoning the conventional airwaves for the uncharted territory of satellite radio. TV stations have seen the airing of Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" as pure perniciousness. And the pointer fingers of award show producers are doomed to spend eternity hovering anxiously over a delay button. Thank God for Fox, which really doesn't seem to be too bothered by the FCC's scold and slap for its airing of pixilated naked ladies on all fours during the show "Married by America." (Wait, did I just thank God for Fox? Janet's boob flash, the money shot heard 'round the world, continues to affect us all in startling, mysterious ways.)

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