RadarOnline steals our Farrah Fawcett hair story-- without giving us credit-- and now the whole world is running our story-- with credit to Radar!

Anyone who doubts the wisdom of our extensive against-the-grain coverage of the untimely death of Las Vegas superstar Danny Gans and its aftermath, take note: the biggest names in the gossip and entertainment industry keep a close eye on Tabloid Baby, and are not shy about following our lead.

Case in point: our report yesterday that a collectors' website is selling what it purports to be a lock of Farrah Fawcett's hair. We got the tip from one of our readers. We posted it yesterday at 5:26 pm.


This morning, as our report caused a new fury among Farrahphiles, our pals at RadarOnline.com stole the story, labelled it "exclusive" and ran it without attribution (meaning they didn't credit us) at 10:55 am Pacific time.

The Radar writer even came perilously close to plagiarizing our report!

We wrote:

"An online celebrity sales site is offering what is purported to be a lock of Farrah Fawcett's hair...for one thousand dollars."

Radar ripped:

"Online celebrity sales site www.hunkwithjunk.com is offering what it purports to be a lock of Farrah’s famous golden hair -- for one thousand dollars."

Radar's steal was followed by our furry friend Perez Hilton, who unapologetically ran his own version of the purloined story at 12:30 pm-- with a link to Radar!

And the world followed suit. Just click here to see that lots of "mainstream" outlets-- including the LA Times phony alternative "Brand X" site-- are running the story, credited to Radar.

Coincidence? First off, the word "purported" gives it away. Second, that hair's been on sale since June 28th, 2009-- three days after Farrah's death. It's not like it popped up online yesterday. Someone happened to point it out to us and we followed up.


Now we don't mind if the big financed organizations lift our copy. We do think a tip of the hat would be in order. Perez? He oughta know better. And Radar, as part of the National Enquirer family should know what it's like to carry the water for the mainstream media, doing their dirty work so they can get the credit. That's what we'd expect from a corporate porn-pushing gossip site.

Better yet, go after the Danny Gans story.

How 20/20 landed La Toya without paying!

The network news organizations don't pay for interviews. When one of them lands a great "get"-- meaning an in-demand interview subject-- its because of their powers of persuasion and the confidence their integrity inspires. Yeah, right. If you believe that, we've got a great health care reform bill that will solve everything. Network news operations from the Today show to 60 Minutes pay for interviews-- although they use very creative methods to get around having to admit it. Our pal the Rumor Rat has the latest example as it looks at the "coincidence" of La Toya Jackson guest-hosting ABC's Barbara Walters show, The View, while agreeing to give "her first one-on-one" interview to Barbara Walters on ABC's 20/20-- and finds it's no coincidence at all.

In fact, it's what we've been telling you-- and what the networks have been denying-- for the past ten years.

They pay.

Writes The Rat:


"How's this for coincidence: LaToya Jackson is recruited to co-host ABC's The View for two days at almost exactly the same time she decides to give her first one-on-one U.S. television interview to "20/20" which airs on the same network.

"Not buying it? Neither are we...

"A source tells The Rat that ABC, which 'never pays for interviews,' has worked out a deal with Jackson whereby she's paid a much higher-than-normal fee for co-hosting The View.

"In exchange, she throws in a 'free' interview with 20/20..."

That's how they do things at the networks. And that's another reason Rumor Rat is becoming a go-to site for lots of influential people in the media. While Perez Hilton slips dangerously, posting a surprising number of day-old and older used stories and the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com becomes more irrelevant with its subliterate, crass childishness, Rumor Rat is having great fun taunting both of the mainstream-backed phonies while making great use of the sources it seems to have in every network newsroom and infotainment show studio office.

Read the rest of Rumor Rat's story here.

The sweet smell of Perez Hilton

Perez Hilton admits he doesn't even write his own column. He gets his kid sister Barbara to do the dirty work, without credit. Why does Perez all of a sudden remind us even more of JJ Hunsecker, the nasty, vindictive gossip columnist portrayed by Burt Lancaster in The Sweet Smell of Success? No, not because Lancaster was gay, but because of JJ's sick, inappropriately close relationship with his sister Barbara. Does Drudge have a sister?

The winner in the Perez Hilton-will.i.am feud is... Rumor Rat

We have no problem with Perez Hilton. We like the kid. When he's linked to our posts once or twice, it's given us a boost in traffic. And we don't think anybody should respond to the written words of any blogger, Internet writer or critic or journo with violence, as apparently happened (with a little help from Perez' bitchy mouth) in the case and of him and that supposedly cultured and political Obama guy from the Black Eyed Peas.

But the incident in Toronto that threw a spanner into young Mario's plans to become a kinder, gentler and more mainstream media personality has also marked a changing of the guard in Internet entertainment journalism.

When word got out that Perez got poked, Harvey Levin, the shaved bronzed midget frontman of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, ran himself silly trying to kiss every ass cheek thrust in his direction-- first siding with will.i.am after he sent a denial video to the sewer site, then jumping back under Perez's sheets when the blogging queen released an epic 11+ minute soliloquy-- only to hop back into the anti-Perez line after GLAAD tried to wash Perez's mouth with soap, then-- well, basically revealing TMZ as the amoral waterboy for whoever wants to splash it in watersports.

And as these instant dinosaurs stumble-- one literally punch drunk, the other high on hate-- comes the latest shift in Hollywood entertainment reporting as the Hollywood gossip site that's done the best play-by-play and kept up with every twist in the tiff is that upstart gossip site, Rumor Rat. The mysterious site that's broken onto the scene in recent weeks is just smart and clever and nasty enough to never fall into the jealous, antagonistic smut that circles the TMZ bowl.

While we at TabloidBaby.com are getting international attention and record traffic with our breaking coverage of the Danny Gans and Farrah Fawcett stories, upstart Rumor Rat, which first nibbled into the general awareness by skittering around Perez and leaving its droppings across the TMZ bow, is taking over the Hollywood rumor and celebrity news mantle.

We know Harvey storms around his office asking who this giant mouse and Big Cheese may be. We've gotten accusatory phone calls from his sister operations. We've also learned exclusively that Rumor Rat's experienced an 800% boost in "unique visitor" traffic over last week, and is growing by the day, in part thanks to its coverage of its rivals.

Just as TMZ's shameful launch capsized the bounding Defamer and sent its correspondents to the couch in their bunny slippers to transcribe episode of Oprah and The View, so is RumorRat.com turning into the Ratatouille chef of the stew of Hollywood gossip sites.

BTW, if you haven't noticed how our criticism of TMZ has led to its neutering, check out their announcement of the death of Ed McMahon. While in the past, Harvey and his boys would ridicule the passing of elderly celebs with tasteless puns, they now bow to the powers behind the ones they taunt: