This week, Lost in Showbiz comes to you with shame dwelling in its eyes, overwhelmed by an urge to unburden itself. It doubts that you have noticed, but there have been times in the past when it has been guilty of treating both the celebrity press and, indeed, the world of celebrity itself, with a certain dismissive attitude. It fears it may, on at least one occasion, have described reading OK!, Hello! et al as an experience that feels like having your brain slowly pulled out via your rectum. There have been weeks where the very prospect of poring over the Daily Mail’s entertainment site in preparation for writing this column has sent it scuttling first to the off-licence, to avail itself of whatever super-strength cider is on special, then to the GP’s surgery, bearing a made-up story about its fear of flying and an imminent trip to the Far East in the hope of conning the quack into doling out some diazepam pronto. Only after washing fistfuls of the latter down with the former can it cope.
But that was then and this is now. Given how the actual IRL news is panning out – the endless, interminable horror, the death, the 24/7 coverage of the Republican presidential candidate – LiS must confess that it currently finds the experience of reading the celebrity press more like receiving a warm and comforting hug from a dear old friend. It gazes upon the pages of the magazines it once derided and whispers, gratefully: “Yes, lavish upon me the full story of how Katie Price posted a ‘double-bum selfie’ on Instagram of her buttocks next to the buttocks of Dean Gaffney’s girlfriend” – a photograph, it later transpired, that wasn’t actually a selfie, but was taken by the delectable Gaffney himself.
Tell me more about Lindsay Lohan and her spilt from her fiance Egor Tarabasov, with particular reference to the Instagram posts where she poured her heart out in the kind of emotive, potent language that cuts through even the hardest heart: “You’re suits are As only as myself, Roman and tags ahi Wiggins v.” Dazzle me with details about the glittering parade of superstars on this year’s Celebrity Big Brother, and the multitude of spectacular attributes that made them incontrovertible household names. “James Whale, radio host: accused of racist abuse on Radio Kent” – he sounds nice. “Colin Newell, star of Storage Hunters UK: known for his intense rivalry with Sean Kelly while bidding for mystery items in lock-ups” – oh, come now, my friend, you surely jest: as if Colin Newell, star of Storage Hunters UK, really needs further introduction!
You can snipe, if you wish, that it’s all irrelevant, futile, worthless cack – and you’d have a point. But, frankly every word that isn’t about Trump or Isis or Brexit or the Labour leadership row feels like the sweetest music to LiS’s ears. Play on, it purrs: speak sweet words to me of the Kardashians. How spiteful, how needlessly cruel LiS has been about the Kardashians – with its sneering implications that reading about them was akin to submerging one’s head in a bucket of warm effluent – little knowing that the day would come when the latest news of their ghastly, vapid, pointless existences would feel like luxuriating awhile – appreciatively, cravenly – in a floatation tank of meaningless drivel.
For a mercy, this week the news comes thick and fast. First, Kris Jenner was spotted out walking into a restaurant in San Diego. Before you start with your moaning and bellyaching and your “that isn’t news”, consider the whole story. Jenner was not just walking – the Daily Mail writing a 300-word story on that would obviously be completely ridiculous – she was walking slightly in front of her partner Corey Gamble. I know, I know: it’s insanity, but that’s the devil-may-care world of celebrity for you, the madness never ends. Some days you walk beside your partner, others you just wake up in the mood to flip the script and walk slightly in front of them, with no thought of the consequences.
With the world still reeling from the mayhem of Walking Slightly In Front Of Her Partner-Gate, Jenner moved on. Next came the news she had declined to visit Cuba with the rest of her brood: Khloe, Kim, Kendall, Kanye, K-Hole and Kasabian. Her reason: “There’s no internet there. I have work to do.” Of course, then came the carping voices, pondering aloud what “work” this was that Kris Jenner claims to do, “work” that is, moreover, apparently so urgent and vital that it can’t be left unattended for a couple of days. To which LiS can only respond: who knows what the enigma that is Kris Jenner really gets up to? This is a woman who zealously guards her privacy, whose life is largely shrouded from the public gaze. She could be hunched over her computer day and night, frantically battling the Russian state-sponsored hackers trying to wreak havoc on democracy. She could be teetering on the brink of a breakthrough in the search to find a cure for Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, her only respite those few minutes a day when she finally kicks back by walking around San Diego slightly in front of her partner.
And then, finally, there came the mother lode: the action-packed saga of Khloe Kardashian and her vaginal oil. This came via an update to her app – no, me neither – which offered female subscribers the benefit of her legendary scientific knowledge: “No joke: vitamin E may strengthen vaginal lining!!! Moisturize your labia and vagina with vitamin E oil to combat dryness and soothe irritation.” Reaction was swift: “I did not even know this was a thing I needed to worry about!” wrote one shocked blogger, before striking a note of contrition: “When Khloe Kardashian tells me to put vitamin E on my vagina, I am absolutely going to do it.” Alas, this was followed by a medical rebuttal, from obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Jennifer Gunter, described as “the internet’s voice of reason during celebrity-driven genital crazes”: “I would not recommend this, nor is there any study that looks at this,” before noting that vitamin E oil could break down condoms and bring about skin inflammation and itching.
Lost in Showbiz can only look on, boggling, occasionally mouthing the words “who knew?”: the existence of an app that allows Khloe Kardashian to give women advice about their vaginas; the existence of “the internet’s voice of reason during celebrity-driven genital crazes”; the existence, indeed, of celebrity-driven genital crazes.
And, while boggling, it temporarily forgets the implausible ghastliness of real life in 2016, then salutes the Kardashians, their fellow celebrities and the media that reports on their actions for this vital public service. To paraphrase the great Stevie Wonder: soldiers keep on warrin’, world keep on turnin’, Kardashians keep on erroneously suggestin’ it’s a good idea to moisturise your vagina with vitamin E oil. Lost in Showbiz’s very sanity – and perhaps that of the planet – depends on it.
• This article was amended on 1 August 2016. An earlier version spelled “mother lode” as “motherload”.
