Gawker Slammed For Outing Exec

Via USA Today:

Gawker drew heavy criticism Friday from online readers after the news and gossip site ran a story about the CFO of Conde Nast allegedly soliciting sex from a gay porn star. David Geithner, a married father of three and brother of former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, denied the allegations. Gawker nevertheless reported that Geithner planned to go to Chicago to meet a gay porn star and escort and was prepared to pay $2,500 for the encounter. David Geithner cancelled the meet-up after the escort tried to get him to use his political connections to help with a housing dispute. Previously, the anonymous escort had asked Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for help with his housing dispute, the online article said.

I read the entire Gawker piece early this morning and I'm with Greenwald on this one.

UPDATE: Gawker founder Nick Denton says the post is coming down.

This Week's National Enquirer

Details.

Make It Stop

If you can bear it.

TMZ Headline Of The Day

Probably like many of you, I don't find the ugly details of celebrity relationship squabbles to be very interesting, but what is interesting is that gossip sites and tabloids are treating gay celebrity spats with the same vicious panting that they exhibit when reporting on straight feuds. And mostly they are doing so without leering speculation about bedroom habits or denouncements of sexual orientation. We wouldn't have seen that not too long ago.

Tweet Of The Day - Dustin Lance Black

New York Times Slams Gawker For Hunting Down Shepard Smith's Boyfriend

David Carr writes at the New York Times:

What if Gawker tried to out an anchor at Fox News and no one cared? Cue the innuendo, the salacious follow-ups and the specter of mainstream media outlets picking up the item with a pair of tweezers. Except after the post was published, there was nothing but crickets, other than a piece in Slate wondering aloud why Gawker had bothered. Otherwise, there was no significant pickup, and no broad expression of outrage. We know why: The culture has moved on. People see other people who happen to be gay at their workplaces, in their schools and on their televisions. Somewhere along the way, what was once a scarlet letter became just another consonant in the personal résumé. And now that gay marriage is a fact of life, a person’s sexual orientation is not only not news, it’s not very interesting.

Carr continues:

The frisson of the Gawker tidbit was supposed to derive from the contextual equation — Fox News + gay = hypocrisy — but the channel has hardly been of one voice on the issue and there is no indication that it has any special obsession with sexual orientation, like, say, Gawker. From what I can tell, Fox News has done a decent job of representing the broad range of conservative views on same-sex marriage and seems to have, along with the rest of the country, evolved. Bill O’Reilly, who once suggested that gay marriage could lead to nuptials between humans and turtles, has come around to the point that in March, he said he had been convinced that the government should not decide who should marry.

While Carr is correct in that Gawker's piece has generated relatively little attention in the teabag-o-sphere, I'd chalk that up to those sites providing cover for their holy news channel. And Fox's "decent job" of covering same-sex marriage usually involves giving air time to vile hate group leaders. (Something CNN is guilty of as well, not incidentally.) Otherwise, I agree that I can't see the point in hounding some kid who has done nothing worse than taking a low level job at Fox News.

Calvin Klein's Ex: He Hooked Me Up To A Lie Detector To Prove I Wasn't Cheating

Today Page Six Magazine published a lengthy interview with Calvin Klein's former boytoy, Nick Gruber, who is about to publish a tell-all account of their relationship.  An excerpt:

Gruber claims, Klein's jealousy started to sour the affair. That spring, the designer left town, and Gruber invited a male friend to sleep over at Klein's Perry Street residence for, he says, entirely innocent reasons. When Klein returned, the housekeeper tattled about his lover's overnight guest. Despite Gruber's denials, the designer assumed the worst-and that's when things got ugly, he says. "[Calvin] picked me up in his car, drove me down to the Holiday Inn in Chelsea, and we went downstairs in the basement of the hotel," he says, furrowing his brow. According to Gruber, another man was waiting there with a lie detector. He said he was an ex-detective, and presented a business card bearing the name "Dr. Love." Gruber, indignant that Klein was accusing him of cheating, says he agreed to be hooked up to the machine and interrogated for about two hours. "He made me take a lie-detector test," Gruber says in disbelief. "I passed it. And then, you know, things were much better. But I mean, what kind of partner would make you take a lie detector test? I was like, 'Did you ever cheat on me, Calvin?' I never cheated on him."

Gruber also complains that Klein took back his $250,000 Bentley after they broke up. His book is due early next year.

You May Commence Gossiping

Details.

Gossip Equality?

I suppose it's some kind of progress when the tabloids breathlessly gossip about the love lives of gay celebs, yeah?

Fork On The Left, Knife In The Back

Last night I attended the launch party for gossip legend Michael Musto's above-titled book, where hundreds of bold-face names collided with hipsters, scenesters, and queensters all vying to get their names into large print. Where else but a Musto party would you see F-Troop octogenerian Larry Storch chatting amiably next to drag star Flotilla Debarge while samba dancers spin around to live conga playing as a Sarah Palin impersonator does shots?

Just a short list of those I can recall seeing: Jerry Springer, Jackie Hoffman, Basil Twist, Robin Byrd, Murray Hill, Lisa Lampanelli, Dirty Martini, Robbyne Kaamil, Xavier, Mike Diamond, Boy Culture's Matthew Rettenmund, Kenneth (In The 212) Walsh, Gawker's Brian Moylan, SiriusXM host Michelangelo Signorile, and many many hookers, hustlers, porn stars, drag queens and basically every person who makes Manhattan what it is. Big props to promoter Chip Duckett (who did the JMG Pride party too) for another memorable event.

SLIDESHOW: Below are a dozen of my own photos from the evening, but you should check out Father Tony's much more glamorous sampling, as he is eternally drawn to anybody in a bizarre costume.

UPDATE: More photos are in from Wayne at World Of Wonder.

UPDATE II: Boy Culture's Matthew Rettenmund has posted many photos and videos of the evening, along with a pithy recap of the attendees.

Mike Tyson: Palin Met The Wombshifter

Former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson has an interesting take on the allegation that Sarah Palin once hooked up with NBA star Glen Rice, who reportedly has a monster-sized endowment.

Though Tyson was stoked that Palin was into black guys, he doesn’t think Rice is the kind of guy who would have given it to her the way he would want. “Glen Rice is a wonderful man. He’s a wonderful guy,” Tyson said, “But you want her to be with somebody like [Dennis] Rodman getting up in there. Pushing her guts up in the back of her head! Glen Rice is a nice, mellow, docile man, non-threatening black guy — you want someone like Rodman — yeah baby! Imagine Palin with a big old black stallion ripping — yeehaw! When you think of Glen Rice, you don’t think of him coming back from Georgia and just slamming. You don’t think of that stuff! Sarah Palin, she met the wombshifter.”

OK, then. Audio of Tyson's interview is at the link.

More Palin: Black Gossip Site Weighs In

The reliably sensational Media Take Out goes there.

Scandal Rumors Fly Around John Boehner

Rumors are flying that the ill-reputed National Enquirer, who actually did get it right about John Edwards, is about to publish a similar adultery scandal about GOP House Speaker John Boehner. Via Stark Reports:

Wonder how well Boehner’s zero-tolerance pledge regarding corruption will hold up when it comes out that several hundred paper-making jobs were lost in his district and he refused to do anything about it at the same time he was sleeping with a lobbyist for the printing industry that was very happy to get their cheap paper from China.

Boehner and his wife Debbie have been married for 37 years. If lightning strikes a second time for the National Enquirer, this could be the shortest speakership in history. On the other hand, that rag completely makes shit up all the time. Stand by.

Gossip Queens To Launch On Logo

After Elton reports that later this month Logo will launch The Gossip Queens, "a gay version of The View" starring Alex Mapa. Weeknights at 7pm.

ABC Pulls Ads From Perez Hilton Over Miley Cyrus Upskirt Post

ABC has yanked its banner ads from Perez Hilton's site after the gossip queen tweeted a photo of Miley Cyrus without underwear.

Perez Hilton, aka Mario Lavandeira, might not yet be facing legal action after tweeting a provocative picture of teen star Miley Cyrus, but he is facing repercussions from advertisers. A rep for ABC Daytime confirms that a rotating banner ad promoting “The View” was pulled from the celebrity blogger’s website, PerezHilton.com. At press time, earlier reports that MTV pulled ads for TV Land were confirmed to be untrue, but one well-placed source within ABC said that it’s not out of the realm of possibility that more advertisers could follow ABC’s lead.

Numerous Facebook groups have sprung up calling for a boycott of any company that advertises on Hilton's site.

Ladyfingers Musto On The Aughties

For his decade-end roundup, Village Voice gossip maven Michael Musto drags it up as Miss Ladyfingers USA, Susan Boyle, Lady Gaga, and Michael Jackson. From his column:

The Naughty Aughties are over, and I'm LMFAO. It will be remembered, if at all, as the decade of the TMI generation. The 15-second fame gang. The micromanaging maniacs. The attention-whoring-for-lunch bunch. The iPhone, iPod, iMac, IMAX, and eye-lift folks. The people who have already forgotten this paragraph. Breaking news about every possible global brain fart was instantly accessible, and you spent most of your time sneaking a peek down at your BlackBerry to read it during intimate dinner dates. Everyone was a star, a critic, and a victim, and—as traditional media dwindled and reshaped—they were journalists, too, from the guy who dressed like a pimp to entrap ACORN to the man with a camera who got tossed out of Gypsy when Patti LuPone screamed, "Who do you think you are?"

Also check out Musto's Ten Shadiest People, Ten Worst Couples, and Ten Worst Movies.

LA News Anchor Goes Off On Perez Hilton: You Talentless Dope!

Gossip queen Perez Hilton is warring with a local LA news channel over his walking out of a planned interview. Meow!

Is Carrie Prejean's Mother Gay?

Gossip rag Star Magazine is reporting that Carrie Prejean's mother was involved in a "steamy lesbian love affair" that lasted until the night of the Miss USA pageant.

Beauty queen Carrie Prejean has become the poster girl for opponents of gay marriage. But in a shocking exclusive, Star has learned that the reigning Miss California USA's own mother, Francine Coppola, was entangled in a steamy lesbian love affair right up until the night Carrie placed second in the Miss USA contest! During the April 19 pageant, Carrie told the judges and a TV audience of millions, "You know what... in my country, in my family, I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there." That statement didn't sit so well with her mom's new girlfriend. Openly gay sales rep Valerie Vetrano tells Star exclusively, "Yes, Francine and I dated." However, the affair was doomed, says a source. "Francine explained how she was a Christian and that her loved ones would never accept her if she were gay," the friend says. When Valerie asked her what would happen if she told her daughter Carrie about the two of them, Francine responded, “Carrie would never believe it!”

I'm not holding my breath for this story to be true, but it will be somewhat amusing to follow the wingnut reactions. Star Magazine promises "amazing photos of Carrie's mom on the night she seduced Valerie at a California bar’s lesbian night!"

Gossip Round-Up

Chris Brown and Rihanna. Jesus Luz. Lindsay and Sam. Alfie Patten. There, you're caught up.