On Tabloids and Gossip Magazines: Are They Violating Stars' Privacies?

Gossip -- let's face it: ever since high school, it's been a trend. Who's going out with who, that girl from your Spanish class had a fling with the most popular guy in school..But admit it, you only spend four years in high school. When you go off to college, you start a fresh new life.

For our stars from Hollywood (or better yet, from all over the world), it's for life. Or sometimes, it depends on how long they stay famous. Sure, people will eventually forgive their mistakes, embarrassment, and gossip after some time has passed. But really, do we ever forget?

Who has forgotten that controversial photo of Demi Moore naked and pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair's August 1991 issue? Who will ever forget how High School Musical's Vanessa Hudgens's sixteen-year-old body looked like nude all over the internet? People forgive; But a lot don't forget.

Celebrities play big roles on screen. We love them, we hate them, and we want to know all about them. Reality check please! Stars are humans too! They make mistakes and make wrong decisions. When they do, the whole country (if not the every household with any kind of media) know about it.

Let's get back to the high school scene. How would you feel if you were overpopular and had a good reputation and then suddenly, somebody spreads a nasty rumor about you? You would possibly feel angry, devastated, upset, and you would do whatever it takes to crush the person who did such thing to you.

Exposes and the exploitation of celebrity lives (some of which are not real or true) may be considered libel and/or slander. According to the Media Law Resource Center website, "Libel and slander are legal claims for false statements of fact about a person that are printed, broadcast, spoken or otherwise communicated to others. Libel generally refers to statements or visual depictions in written or other permanent form, while slander refers to verbal statements and gestures. The term defamation is often used to encompass both libel and slander.

In order for the person about whom a statement is made to recover for libel, the false statement must be defamatory, meaning that it actually harms the reputation of the other person, as opposed to being merely insulting or offensive."

A good example of this is last year's $20M lawsuit pop star princess Britney Spears filed against Us Weekly, claiming that the celebrity magazine published a false story reporting that she and her [then-]husband, Kevin Federline, made a sex tape and were worried about its release. According to the lawsuit, the article was published Oct. 17 in the magazine's "Hot Stuff" column and claimed that Spears and her husband feared the release of a secret sex tape, which they had viewed with their estate planning lawyers. Source.

Other than libel and slander and all that stuff, isn't it obvious that these tabloids are violating a lot of famous people's privacies? Letting the whole world know a well-known actress is pregnant should be none of our business, right? We shouldn't care where Lindsay Lohan parties and obtains a drink when she was underage or which rehabilitation center Mary Kate Olsen went to for her recovery from anorexia. Those are simply none of our business. But the big question is, why can't we keep our hands off of those silly tabloid magazines?

Here are the nation's top 7 tabloids, just in case you want to check out the latest gossip:

1. National Enquirer
2. Star Magazine
3. Weekly World News
4. New York Post
5. The Mirror
6. New York Daily News
7. Tabloid