Intro for August 23, 2012

Dear Gossips,

Canadians, and especially the Canadian media, we are generally pretty soft about our celebrities. You’re...really not supposed to say anything sh-tty about them even if it’s true. Hypothetically, if one of our beloved hockey heroes were to behave badly at a bar or something, falling over and grabbing titties, and we reported it, the way TMZ might report on an NFL player, the outlet would probably get criticised more than the player.

But it surprised me yesterday how the Canadian media covered the Avril Lavigne-Chad Kroeger engagement: cheeky with more than a hint of derision and certainly far from fawny, which should tell you everything about how their brands are perceived.

Anyway, here’s my favourite detail about this story -- according to HELLO! Canada Avril was scrapbooking when Chad proposed. He slipped an extra page in there that read “WILL YOU MARRY ME”. Go ahead and process that. It’s amazing.

But the best part is that as big of a national deal as it was up here in Canada, still so many people couldn’t get his name right, not even the national radio programs. Like, he’s supposed to be this country’s rock god and half the media can’t be bothered to learn how to properly say his name. It’s CREW-GUR as opposed to CROW-GUR.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

PS. skinnygrape wants us to get together in Vancouver or Toronto for dinner and a wine tasting and several hours of gossip. We can talk about how gossipy George Clooney can be. Like totally one of us. I apologise in advance for how much I eat. Click here for the details!