There was a moment during 2007 when I suddenly thought, no, this is wrong, it has to stop.
It was during New York Fashion Week in September, I was sitting front row at the Calvin Klein show, and I could see Joanna Coles, the very clever, mature and by no means lowbrow British-born editor-in-chief of American Marie Claire (the thinking woman’s magazine, remember), scurrying along, positively bowing and scraping, in the wake of an Olsen twin. What’s that all about?
I didn’t know or care whether the blonde, diminutive pseudo-celebrity was Mary-Kate or Ashley (in case you have lived in a remote Mongolian retreat with no broadband these past 12 months and don’t know who these particular young American women are, they are former child stars who now "design" a ludicrously expensive range of clothing called Row).
But what I did care quite deeply about was the fact that a grown and quite powerful woman was being so ingratiating in the presence of someone who is merely famous for being famous.
Joanna Coles was obviously trying to get this young (and I won’t say "star;" let’s just call her a ball of gas) into the pages of her publication.
And then it dawned on me: 2007 was the year of the airhead, a 12-month period when no bit of female fluff was too fatuous to be brought to our attention.
So here’s a quick run down of some of the biggest airhead fluff media offenders.
THE FLUFF LEAGUE
PARIS HILTON
The ultimate vacuous celebrity, Paris Hilton, 26, is famous primarily for being a party-loving heiress, but last month that came tumbling down when Barron Hilton, head of the hotel dynasty, announced he was leaving 97 per cent of his fortune to charity.
Paris famously spent 22 days of last year in LA County jail after numerous driving offences. She lists her talents as singer, model, actress, author and TV personality but is most famous for partying with fellow celebs in tiny dresses.
AIRHEAD RATING 10/10
CHANTELLE
Twenty-four-year-old Chantelle Houghton – former topless model and Burger King worker – was divorced in 2007 from husband Samuel Preston of pop group The Ordinary Boys after an exhausting year-long marriage.
The couple met when Chantelle was the only non-celebrity on Celebrity Big Brother. Her autobiography Living The Dream shifted just five thousand copies. But she’s still said to have made more money (about £1 million) than her singer ex-husband.
AIRHEAD RATING 9/10
KERRY KATONA
Still only 27 (but doesn’t it seem longer). Former drug addict Kerry famously won I’m A Celebrity and since then not a weekend has passed without more tabloid revelations about her various addictions.
The former singer with Atomic Kitten was once an exotic dancer, and in 2004 married singer Brian McFadden, with whom she has two daughters, Molly and Lilly-Sue.
Last year she had another daughter, Heidi, with new husband, taxi driver Mark Croft, and in a breathless year was held hostage, fought Brian for custody of her girls and was admitted to the Priory suffering from the increasingly glamorous "bipolar disorder."
AIRHEAD RATING 9/10
JADE GOODY
Big Brother "star" Jade also saw her career hit potential meltdown as she appeared in Celebrity Big Brother last year and was vilified for making "racist" remarks about Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, calling her "Shilpa Poppadom."
Her celebrity fitness DVD was shown to be less than truthful when it was revealed she’d had liposuction. Famous for simply appearing on reality television, calling East Anglia "East Angular" and asking if Saddam Hussein was a boxer, she’s often portrayed as the unacceptable face of British talentless celebrity.
AIRHEAD RATING 8/10
COLEEN McLOUGHLIN
The 21-year-old daughter of a bricklayer and a cleaner from Liverpool has carved an entire six-million-pound career out of being engaged to a footballer with a face like a potato.
The rights to "the wedding of 2008" have already been sold for mega money – Wayne Rooney proposed on a BP forecourt. Coleen is raking in the dough without having any discernible talent.
AIRHEAD RATING 8/10
BRITNEY SPEARS
2007 was meltdown year for singer Britney. The former Mickey Mouse Club actress and singer of Hit Me Baby One More Time lost custody of her two sons to ex-husband Kevin Federline.
She famously shaved off all her hair earlier in the year, was frequently photographed drunk and was also arrested for drink driving.
AIRHEAD RATING 7/10
LINDSAY LOHAN
The once-successful 21-year-old child actress has made a name for herself last year primarily by being drunk, crashing cars, getting arrested and ending up in either rehab or hospital. Her wild sexual ways have also drawn attention, and last year she was arrested after cocaine was found in her car.
She has been in rehab twice and a Hollywood insider said that her acting career is now all but finished.
AIRHEAD RATING 6/10
JORDAN
JORDAN, aka Katie Price, is now, depressingly, one of Britain’s richest women with a fortune of £30 million. Last year she made even more money through publishing, as well as revealing literally everything in Katie And Peter: Unleashed on ITV2.
The couple have even been photographed on the toilet. There seems to be nothing deemed too tasteless for them to do in order to make yet more money.
AIRHEAD RATING 5/10
SIENNA MILLER
Shot to fame as the girlfriend of actor Jude Law after he split from his wife Sadie Frost. Educated at Heathfield School in Ascot, she’s rather blurred her "posh" credentials lately by taking up with wild Welsh actor Rhys Ifans, and was photographed wearing an extraordinary pair of big black pants.
She also posed topless for the magazine Vanity Fair and seems to be leading an increasingly wild lifestyle. Starred in Stardust with Michelle Pfeiffer, to very mixed reviews.
AIRHEAD RATING 5/10
HEATHER MILLS McCARTNEY
2007 was not a good year for Heather, to put it mildly. Public opinion over her divorce from Paul McCartney swung wildly in his favour after she appeared ranting in television in October.
The 39-year-old former glamour model who lost her leg in a car accident is looking increasingly less likely to win a substantial settlement from Sir Paul, with whom she has a four-year-old daughter, Beatrice. She’s also being sued for alleged non-payment of fees to her former divorce lawyers.
AIRHEAD RATING 4/10
VICTORIA BECKHAM
Thirty-three-year-old Posh Spice is currently on tour with the other Spice Girls, milking their former celebrity for all it is worth. Last year she appeared in Victoria Beckham: Coming To America, as her husband David joined an American football club. It was, to say the least, greeted with little enthusiasm by the critics.
The mother of three sons, she’s perhaps most famous for turning one of Britain’s most talented footballers into something of a joke, reduced to posing for an advert in skimpy underpants. Can you imagine Bobby Charlton doing that? You can’t imagine they need the money with an estimated fortune of £112 million.
AIRHEAD RATING 3/10
KATE MOSS
Her on/off romance with hopeless pop singer Pete Doherty bored the nation senseless in 2007 but they have thankfully now split. The waif-like supermodel from Croydon (who has just one C in her GCSEs) was famously photographed snorting cocaine which caused her modelling contracts to nosedive – but she has fought back and last year was Britain’s 99th richest woman with a fortune of £45 million.
Notorious for her wild party lifestyle, she’s more often photographed falling out of a club than spending time with her five-year-old daughter Lila Grace by Dazed And Confused editor Jefferson Hack. She now lives in North London and is dating The Kills guitarist Jamie Hince. Next year she’ll be the face of Donna Karan and YSL.
AIRHEAD RATING 2/10
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