21 December 2007
Many may have thought that after several years of uninterrupted post-millennial growth celebrity gossip would begin to wane in the public sphere in 2007. But nope, it's still part of the national fabric and thank heavens for that.
To quickly dispel any doubts that 2007 would be a sombre and serious year of intellectual rigour and reflection, Celebrity Big Brother arrived and got the year off to a storming, salacious start.
Big Brother's celebrity cousin is always good for a few tabloid headlines, but this year's series made Jack Dee's escapology in the first season look like a cat-stuck-up-a-tree story.
As a result names like Shilpa Shetty and Jo O'Meara were thrust into the news, questions were asked in parliament and worldwide media started reporting on the storm. Yikes.
The other big story in January was the announcement that Posh 'n' Becks were moving to LA because David had signed to LA Galaxy. How is Europe going to cope without them, we wondered? We needn't have worried, though, because they've been around just as much as ever.
David was injured for most of his first season and Victoria failed to win over a bemused USA, but 2008 may be better for them after the renewed interest in the Spice Girls reunion.
The Beckham's relationship looked as strong as ever, though, which is more than we can say for some other couples that have dominated the news this year.
Prince William and Kate Middleton split up and then got back together again. Then Prince Harry and Chelsy Davy also split up and got back together again (we think). Must be some kind of royal custom.
Other troubled relationships included that of Heather Mills and Paul McCartney, then there was Mel B's short-lived union with Eddie Murphy, which ended when he dumped her live on Dutch television and then refused to admit paternity of their child.
And the only celeb who's more unlucky with men than Mel B, Kylie Minogue, split up with Olivier Martinez, although there has been talk that they still see each other occasionally.
Also, at the beginning of the year, lest we forget, Kate Moss was going out with Pete Doherty and they used to spend romantic evenings at rehab together. Goodness, it seems like a lifetime ago.
For the romantics among us though, there were some blossoming new couples to emerge, including Sienna Miller and Rhys Ifans and lately, Cerys Matthews and Marc Bannerman.
However, both of these relationships were forged under the glare of some disapproval, the former being controversial among the 'Primrose Hill Set' and the latter causing more widespread consternation.
But the main, over-arching, undeniable, meta-narrative theme of the year though, is that of 'bad girls'. 2007 was the year when bad boys faded into the background (even Pete Doherty started to sort himself out) and some of the ladies took centre stage.
In LA the triumvirate of Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton partied and partied and partied some more. Paris spent some days in jail and LiLo had a couple of stints in rehab.
But these three were beaten hands down by one of the year's tabloid queens – Britney Spears. Back in 2006 Britney was a regular pop star whose fame was dwindling ever so slightly.
Nowadays she's firmly back in the megastar league, largely, it has to be said, on the back of negative publicity. Her annus horribilis began in February when she dramatically shaved off her hair.
Since then she's been involved in numerous incidents around LA, driving and otherwise. She staged a disastrous 'comeback' performance at the MTV Awards and lost custody of her children to ex-hubby Kevin Federline.
Back in Britain, we've managed to produce a celebrity who can easily match the likes of Britney, Lindsay and Co in terms of press mentions: Amy Winehouse. Amy has not had the best of years by any stretch of the imagination and we're sure we're not alone in wishing her a much improved 2008.
Other lesser but still notable themes this year include the sacking of Steve McClaren, the emergence of Lewis Hamilton and the craze for celebrities to release their own fashion ranges (Kate, Lily) and perfumes (just about everyone).
So it's been a year of mixed blessings for our celebrities but for seasoned 'daqqers the old adage remains true: all publicity is good publicity when it comes to dividends. Or something.
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