Last week, two paparazzi guys got in a fight at LAX over positioning to shoot pictures of a singer from England named Pixie Lott. One ended up in the hospital and one ended up in jail (felony battery). So my question is, who the F__K is Pixie Lott?? Is a photo of her worth $50,000.00 in bail?
Googled her and found out that she seems to be an 18 year old British singer with two number one singles in England, making her first trip to the US. My guess is that she could walk down any street in America right now and nobody would recognize her!. Are these guys going to start killing each other over a real celebrity?
I found some old articles in a file last week that show that this has been going on for years. The only difference is that photographers (or as Kirstie Alley calls them on her new A&E reality show “The spawn of satan”) were stalking and harassing real celebrities.
From 1986: “Sean Penn marries Madonna, the most popular woman in the world” says Vinnie Zuffante, a 32 year old freepance photographewr. “Did he think he was going to be left alone?”
From 1989: Existential angst isn’t Russell Turiak’s shtick. Turiak is the guy who pioneered hanging out at the Betty Ford clinic. “I got some of the best fat-and-ugly shots of Elizabeth Taylor ever there,” he says proudly. When Michael J. Fox tried to prevent press coverage of his wedding. Vinnie Zuffante hired a helicopter. When that effort yielded no pictures, “I told the pilot to go as low as he could and blow the tent up.” Zuffante laughs. “I put dirt on their wedding cake. That was my revenge.”
That was twenty years ago. It has gotten much worse now. So it is impossible for any famous or semi-famous person to hear the word photographer and not have a negative reaction. It is no wonder they don’t let anyone shoot their shows!!