Tmz

It was billed as a "shocking tell-all" and a "world exclusive," but the National Enquirer's March 26 cover story landed with a thud. TMZ, Page Six and other major players in celebrity gossip ignored the article in which a masseur claimed John Travolta offered money for sex. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this article used the term "masseuse"; it should have said "masseur. " Five weeks after the issue left the checkout aisle, a DUI attorney from Pasadena put the anonymous masseur's tawdry tale in a lawsuit and it became an overnight pop culture sensation, topping Google News, trending on Twitter and meriting a segment on "Good Morning America.

The appetite for celebrity gossip and video clips seems to show no bounds. And apparently celebrities are happy to oblige those who collect and distribute this stuff. Consider the TMZ Hollywood Tour, a special celebrity tour that was launched last year by Starline Tours, Los Angeles' largest tour bus company, with the help of the celebrity-stalking website and television show TMZ. Starline launched the special tour with one bus and four daily tours. The response has been so strong that Starline added a second bus last September and plans to add two more by July.

He is the Republican Dream Date, a smooth-speaking, polished product of Illinois, as comfortable with Facebook as a face-to-face. John McCain's daughter gushed over him as the future of the party. He blogs for the liberal webzine Huffington Post, which said he sports the best abs in Congress. TMZ trails him like a pop star. And he is two decades younger than Barack Obama. Aaron Schock, 27, hasn't wanted for attention since being elected to the House of Representatives last fall.

Harvey Levin has a TMZ-style plan to get the masses interested in Washington politics, one Beltway personality at a time. “It's gonna happen some day,” the founder of the celebrity gossip site told a gathering of reporters Monday at the National Press Club. Levin's vision - which has been in the works for years - is to create “a personality-based site, not because it's going to be the most important material, but it's going to introduce people to politics on a level that they can relate to, on a personality level,” he said.

Through the made-for-tabloid legal dramas of Paris, Britney, Rihanna and Lindsay, Allan Parachini, the spokesman for the Los Angeles County Superior Court, was a ubiquitous figure, his mop of white hair bobbing above a sea of cameras as he explained the latest procedural twists on the courthouse steps. But this week, Parachini was fired from the post he had held for eight years based on what he says are false accusations that he leaked information to the chief chronicler of celebrity scandal, TMZ.com.

A federal judge ordered the gossip site TMZ.com Friday to remove clips of a private sex tape actor Verne Troyer says was stolen from his residence. Troyer, best known for his portrayal of Mini Me in the "Austin Powers" films, filed suit Thursday seeking more than $20 million in damages for posting portions of a tape the actor made with a former girlfriend. U.S. District Judge Philip S.

Oscar De La Hoya, who moved from Olympic boxing gold medalist and world champion to become the face of his own promotional company in the sport, has checked himself into a rehabilitation facility, TMZ reports. De La Hoya, 38, was in an undisclosed substance abuse facility in California, according to the website. Several of his associates at Los Angeles-based Golden Boy Promotions either declined to comment or did not return messages seeking more information about De La Hoya's treatment.

Image has always been at the forefront for the McCourts , going through public relations directors Derrick Hall , John Olguin and Gary Miraneau , hiring media manipulation specialist Sitrick & Co., before turning to Tipper Gore's former press secretary and later Dr. Charles Stein berg . All that money spent, and a la John & Kate, we now await the next titillating TMZ revelation to top Frank's "Dear Jamie" letter....

Production at the mid-Wilshire-area house that TV's "Dr. Phil" had rigged with cameras to observe clients featured on his show has been shut down because of complaints from neighbors, it was reported Tuesday. The idea behind the setup was to give the popular psychologist an around-the-clock window on the lives of his clients. But next-door neighbor Tom Griep said "two crack addicts were yelling at each other for all to hear," according to the website TMZ.com.

KTTV-TV Channel 11 will introduce a new half-hour newscast on Monday, "Fox11 Morning News at 10," airing weekdays at 10 a.m. with anchors Tony McEwing and Jean Martirez. That will be followed at 10:30 a.m. by the tabloid show "TMZ." To make room for these programs, "The Morning Show With Mike and Juliet" will slide from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., with "The Tyra Banks Show" moving from 11 to noon. The reruns of "I Love Lucy" that had been running from noon to 1 p.m. will be aired in that time slot on KCOP-TV Channel 13. At 1 p.m. Monday, KTTV will premiere "The Wendy Williams Show," a talk show featuring the New York radio personality.

USC expects to receive a rowdy reception from Arizona State fans when the No. 23 Trojans visit Sun Devil Stadium on Saturday night. And what of Trojans tailback Marc Tyler ? The senior will start for the second time after rushing for a team-best 154 yards in two games, but the Sun Devils faithful might give him a hero's welcome in the wake of his comments this summer. Tyler was suspended by USC for the season opener — in part because of inappropriate remarks he made on camera to TMZ.com.

Can a nightclub grow up? After-dark venues tend to be short-lived, exploding onto the scene as the hot place to be and then soon shuttered once the gimmicks have run dry or rivals spring up. But Hyde, a night-life institution that saw a feverish intersection of celebrity, exclusivity and new media consumption in 2006, is getting a second chance. "When Hyde came around the first time, there was a market for a small place. Everything was hip-hop and I wanted to play rock music," recalls Brent Bolthouse, the night-life guru who teamed with SBE to conceive the venue.

He didn't break the law. He didn't even break a rule. When Marc Tyler walked out of a bar last week and said some stupid things to TMZ.com, he was just a college jock acting like a knucklehead. It was harmless, it was immature, it was nothing. Cheers to USC for realizing it was everything. Cheers to Lane Kiffin for rolling up his sleeves and scrubbing out this latest Trojans mess before it left a stain. If the coach is truly to keep USC's remodeled house clean, this is how it has to happen, quickly and decisively, with no concern for the sweat or the pain.

Police detectives investigating the assault on San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow after the Dodgers' home opener are now examining a video that shows the man being confronted by a spectator inside Dodger Stadium while he is watching the game. The short, grainy video posted on the website TMZ.com was purportedly taken during the March 31 Dodgers-Giants game. Stow, a Santa Clara County paramedic, suffered brain damage when he was later attacked in a stadium parking lot by two men, authorities said.

Oscar De La Hoya, who moved from Olympic boxing gold medalist and world champion to become the face of his own promotional company in the sport, has checked himself into a rehabilitation facility, TMZ reports. De La Hoya, 38, was in an undisclosed substance abuse facility in California, according to the website. Several of his associates at Los Angeles-based Golden Boy Promotions either declined to comment or did not return messages seeking more information about De La Hoya's treatment.

At the newsstand this month, the usual slew of tabloid staples appeared on various magazine covers: Angelina Jolie, at least one Kardashian and the most recent couple to come out of "The Bachelor. " But also featured was a new class of tabloid star: a handful of young teenage girls whose biggest claim to fame is being on a reality television show about getting pregnant at age 16. "Teen Moms Addicted to Surgery," read a recent In Touch Weekly headline, which went on to purport that three of the stars of MTV's series "16 and Pregnant" — who later graduated to the show's spinoff, "Teen Mom" — are thinking of getting breast implants, liposuction and nose jobs.

With the paparazzi ever on the lookout for new places to corner celebrities, Los Angeles International Airport is becoming their new feeding trough. Photographers have free rein in the main terminal and parking lot areas of LAX, and weary celebrities are increasingly running the gantlet when they are at their least glamorous: dressed down and lugging luggage, usually after a long flight. Airport officials said they had noticed a significant increase in the number of paparazzi at the terminals in the last two years, sometimes as many as 60 when word gets around about a big name landing.

In a bid for a slice of the lucrative celebrity news business, Microsoft's MSN and production firm BermanBraun today plan to roll out the latest star-obsessed website. The ad-supported venture called Wonderwall, which has been in development for a year, seeks to grab viewers from established media outlets such as People and Us magazines and TV programs including "Extra" and "Entertainment Tonight," as well as the more rough-and-tumble gossip websites TMZ and Perez Hilton. "There is a lot of room in the middle for a more balanced approach," said Rob Bennett, MSN general manager.

Through the made-for-tabloid legal dramas of Paris, Britney, Rihanna and Lindsay, Allan Parachini, the spokesman for the Los Angeles County Superior Court, was a ubiquitous figure, his mop of white hair bobbing above a sea of cameras as he explained the latest procedural twists on the courthouse steps. But this week, Parachini was fired from the post he had held for eight years based on what he says are false accusations that he leaked information to the chief chronicler of celebrity scandal, TMZ.com.

David Perel's celebrity news and gossip website, RadarOnline.com, was so overrun with Internet traffic Friday morning that it temporarily crashed. "It was the longest 20 minutes of my life. The tech people were telling me not to pull my own Mel Gibson," joked Perel, the site's executive vice president. He was, of course, referring to Gibson's angry language in a series of audio tapes released by Radar, in which the actor loudly berates his former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva and spews racial slurs.