Exercises In Celebrity Libel

It quickly became clear that the European Super League wasn’t going to be long for this world, but we didn’t expect it to be dead, buried and disgraced before Thursday rolled around.

Still, investors needn’t be too dispirited about the gigantic clusterfuck they’ve just endured. There’s still an easy way for them to claw back a bit of money. They just need to turn to Fyre Fest for inspiration.

Ja Rule made $122K earlier this month by turning the disaster festival’s logo into an NFT and selling it. So whoever’s got access to that underwhelming Super League logo they unveiled is sitting on an irony goldmine.

There’s already a pretty hefty amount of sleaze and suspicion sloshing around Westminster at the minute, and it seems as though Fleet Street may have a new story to toss into the trough too. Lobby hacks were asking some rather pointed questions about rumoured ministerial use of a grace-and-favour flat in Admiralty Arch at a briefing this week.

Though details were sparse, it’s unlikely to relate to the Johnson/Arcuri affair that’s back in the news – because the shagging in that took place at their own residences. It’s unlikely to be connected to any of David Cameron’s recent lobbying efforts either – as he’s no longer a minister.

So who could it be? And could this have anything to do with the persistent Westminster rumour that there’s been a rift in the once unshakeable Gove-Vine union?

Which Premier League club has put together a helpful little handbook that they give out to new players – a blacklist of all the Instagram models and influencers who have been known to sell stories to the tabloids or attempt to blackmail players into giving them money and gifts to stop them from blabbing to their wives and girlfriends?

“Free speech. You throw meaningless and baseless insults at someone, you get a meaningless and baseless insult in return… People can call me whatever they want.”

That was Laurence Fox earlier this month, responding to news that three people were suing him for libel after he’d called them all “paedophiles” on Twitter. For a while it had been his go-to retort to tweeters accusing him of racism – which, as legal strategies go, is a pretty bold one. But if Elon Musk managed to escape damages with his classic “pedo doesn’t mean paedophile” defence, there’s every chance it might yet work.

The only thing is, Lozza appears to have changed his tune a bit in recent days. Last week, another Twitter user called him racist and he responded by threatening to stick his lawyers on her. Quite how he intends to square this all – trying to convince one judge that calling someone a paedophile is no worse than calling them racist; while simultaneously trying to convince another that being called racist is an outrageously defamatory slur – remains to be seen.

Luckily, he’ll soon have plenty of time to work out the logic. Despite a £5m mayoral campaign, Fox is currently polling at 1% – level with fellow novelty candidates Count Binface and UKIP’s Peter Gammons.

Speaking of media gobshites who have struggled to get a proper handle on UK libel law: we heard something interesting about Katie Hopkins this week. Apparently she once pitched a documentary that never got made, in which she essentially planned to fake her own death and then secretly observe the media/public fall-out.

Sadly, although it supposedly made it surprisingly far down the line, the project was ultimately nixed by nervous lawyers. (The pussies.)

Even if football fans hadn’t reacted badly to a bunch of billionaire vulture capitalists trying to tank the game they love in order to line their own pockets, it’s not entirely clear that a modern European Super League would have been the global box office dynamite the moneymen seemed to think.

In the last round of far-flung friendlies before Covid struck, Manchester United played Tottenham in Shanghai in 2019. The pop-up merch shop did a good trade in selling replica shirts to the 35,000-strong crowd and a helpful sales chart was compiled to show which players’ shirts had been the most popular.

The top seller? David Beckham. Who left Man Utd in 2003. Two years before the Glazers even took it over.

The Sunday Times’ political editor, Tim Shipman, has got himself a nickname around the office: “The Pub Bore” – earned because he never fails to have a piping hot take ready to deliver on any subject, no matter how wrong it might be.

He might be getting a bit of rebrand after the events of this week though. When Shippers took his Pub Bore bit to Twitter, loudly announcing he was fully in favour of a European Super League while wanging on about his extensive fan credentials – one of his followers replied: “How is it possible you are the worst Shipman?”

Colleagues have been sharing the reply among themselves approvingly. “The Worst Shipman” looks set to stick.

George Osborne isn’t the only one to have given a TV crew an unexpected eyeful with his green room pashing. When appearing on an episode of Richard & Judy’s old Channel 4 show, Tony Robinson (of Time Team/Blackadder fame) brought his new girlfriend along to the studio.

Anyone who assumed that the 35 year age gap meant their relationship would be one of sedate companionship was in for a very rude awakening. Shortly after the show, what has been described to us as a “huge and horrifying amount of tonsil hockey” took place in front of those gathered in the green room – with her taking the lead and Tony getting stuck in with the gusto of a man many years his junior.

Their non-stop snogging left them with no time to enjoy the canapés laid out. And everyone else with not much appetite…

Know of other celebs getting freaky in the green room? hello@popbitch.com

News that Kylie Minogue will be a judge on the upcoming series of Drag Race Down Under has sent the fandom into a frenzy. She’s a perfect choice for it: a celebrated gay icon who’s served hundreds of looks over the years, spawning many drag imitators. Not only that, her first video shoot played out almost exactly like a Drag Race Maxi Challenge.

Before she was picked up by Stock, Aitken & Waterman, Kylie’s Australian label was grimly convinced that her original cover of The Locomotion would bomb, so they struck up a contingency plan. They enlisted the deodorant brand Impulse to pay for the video, on the proviso that Kylie would feature a can of it on screen.

Not because they thought it would be good promotion for the brand, but because they figured when the single died a death they could re-cut the footage and use it as an ad.

The Times has been haemorrhaging top-level staff this last month. In the space of just a few weeks, several members of their product and digital teams have all moved on to pastures new – but editor John Witherow won’t mind. In fact, as we’ve mentioned before, trying to fill holes in his staff is a favourite pastime.

In fact, an editorial position opened up within the company recently, to which a female candidate applied. Witherow’s only question: “Is she attractive?”

When told that she was, he replied, “Give her the job.”

Simpsons Smut
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Otters have tested positive for coronavirus
[Damn you, Covid!]

Predator credits x Grange Hill theme
[Watch on YouTube]

Björn from ABBA weighs in on the streaming debate
[Read on The Guardian]

Why are McDonald’s McFlurry machines always broken?
[A Wired investigation]

A retrosepctive on Bjork’s swan dress
[Read on BBC]

Miki from Lush’s childhood letter to the Dandy
[See on Twitter]

The London Art Car Boot Fair is back for 2021 – 15th-17th May
[Tickets and info]

Still Bored?
Sadly, Jim Steinman never got to see his Batman musical get made (a show he described as “Guys And Dolls on mescaline”) – but the demos are still on his site.
[Listen here]