Category: Paparazzi

Splash News & Picture Agency, a prominent paparazzi group, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy stating that the global pandemic that has kept celebrities indoors is partially to blame, but also fighting a privacy lawsuit by Meghan Markle has caused the group to default on a nearly $1M loan.

“Magazines in that era were driven by damsel-in-distress narratives,” said Ramin Setoodeh, the executive editor at Variety and the author of “Ladies Who Punch.” “It was almost like a sport to watch a woman self-destruct.”

A report by AFP published on Yahoo! News pointed out that the paparazzi industry in Hollywood has been “decimated by the lockdown,” even as demand for celebrity photography skyrockets. The only chance to snap a photo of a celebrity is if and when they leave their homes to walk their dog or grab groceries, at which point they’re probably wearing a mask and sunglasses—assuming they’re even doing these chores themselves.

A tweet on the Women’s Wear Daily blog stated, “Lindsay Lohan just threw a full drink at a boy at V magazine party who dared to snap her pic,” while Rischen himself added, “Wow. Lindsay Lohan is as trashy as they always say. She threw drinks and glasses to me as we tried to take a shot for V magazine.”

In the end, the paparazzi machine that came to dominate the early 2000s was no match for the Great Recession, celebrity revolt, and the rise of social media.

“You’re going to get your face punched,” Mendoza says. “You’re going to get your camera broken. People do bad things for money.” (Mendoza once got “high five figures” for a photo of Zsa Zsa Gabor inside an ambulance.)

The letter was addressed to “leaders of media industry bodies and standards organizations” around the world. It argues that tactics being used to photograph Prince George are becoming “increasingly dangerous” and have become distressing.

There is an anti-aesthetic to paparazzi photographs that rejects the “official,” glamorous views of the rich and famous. The best paparazzi photographs emphasize fleeting, stolen moments, ideally produced without the subject knowing he or she is being photographed

Video and still images show the b-baller grabbing cameras, lenses and other gear (like a large wheeled camera gear case) from a  photographer’s car, throwing them in street, smacking another car with a piece of metal pipe and then throwing some of the gear in the trunk of his car before finally tossing it back in the street.