Kim Devore
Oops! She’s back here again!
Malibuites may cringe, but at least the paparazzi are happy that Britney Spears and her meltdown are back in town. Sporting her new chrome dome and two fresh tattoos, the problem-plagued pop star wasn’t back in rehab long enough to remove her knickers before a flock of high-flying video vultures was hovering overhead.
As a longtime resident, I’ve noticed our town has been hit with an aggressive form of paparazzi-itis, which really took off when Spears moved in.
In the good old days, you’d bump into Cher at the supermarket or Jane Seymour at the local art fair. Sure they were stars, but they were also our neighbors and no one bothered them.
Ten years ago, you’d never encounter frantic in-your-face scandal sheet stalkers at the Country Mart. On the other hand, the well-known residents you were most likely to see, like Dick Van Dyke and Shirley MacLaine, weren’t exactly anorexic, bulimic, doped up, tormented, tortured tabloid darlings. As far as the tabs were concerned, Malibu just wasn’t big news.
All that changed with the arrival of Miss Brit. There was her doomed marriage to party-loving Kevin Federline, or K-Fed (now Fed-Ex), her shocking driving incident using her lap as a baby seat, not to mention a parade of panty-less exploits at those hip Hollywood hangs. Spears was a huge headline waiting to happen and she was here.
Throw in another crop of controversial cuties and all of a sudden Malibu is tabloid heaven. Soon, our lovely, low-key celebs like the Brosnans found themselves tripping over photographers who were on the prowl for that lucrative cover shot of “Brangelina” after the Pitt split from Jennifer Aniston (Ka-ching!), or Kate Hudson following her fling with Owen Wilson (Ka-ching!), or a skeleton-like Nicole Richie snapped jogging on a Malibu beach (Ka-ching! Ka-ching!).
David Arquette recently told me that stalkerazzis are the reason he and his wife are selling their beloved Carbon Beach home. Apparently Courteney and baby Coco can’t even go for a stroll without being tailed by the tabs.
The problem has become a big pain even for those of us who are not famous. My husband and I don’t live on the most star-studded beach in Malibu, but even we came across a paparazzo crouching under one of our neighbor’s homes after crawling over rocks at high tide and braving barbed wire. Why? Because Tori and Candy Spelling weren’t speaking.
At Cross Creek, it’s not unusual to see synchronized tabloid photographers in their black Escalades racing past pedestrians and children because Jessica shops at Madison. On one occasion, I nearly got mowed down at Ralphs because K-Fed was buying potato chips.
For the moment there is some good news. Spears’ one-time love nest is on the market and hopefully her stint in rehab will be successful and brief. But even when the songbird flies the coop, the paparazzi are probably here to stay. Whether they’re after Robert Downey Jr. or Ryan O’Neal or the Mel who owns Malibu, the whole thing has gotten completely out of hand.
We can’t control the paparazzi, but we can control ourselves. That’s why I am issuing a universal plea to all problem prone-celebrities and madcap muckety mucks currently residing in the ‘Bu: Please stay out of trouble! If we don’t give them what they want maybe they’ll give up and go away.
In the meantime, brace yourselves and pray the Beckhams don’t buy the Malibu Castle.