{"id":1407232,"date":"2025-10-01T16:12:50","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T16:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/?p=1407232"},"modified":"2025-10-01T16:12:50","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T16:12:50","slug":"snark-attack-tmz-turns-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/snark-attack-tmz-turns-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Snark Attack: TMZ Turns 20"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
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Just as the <\/strong>dark hallway outside the newsroom of TMZ gives way to the bustling chaos inside, the last thing you see is a self-portrait of Paris Hilton framed on the wall. The pencil drawing is cute and girly, like something scrawled in an eighth-grade yearbook, complete with hearts dotting the \u201ci\u201ds. It depicts the actress locked up at the L.A. County Jail with TMZ\u2019s Harvey Levin on the jailhouse TV. The artwork is on a greeting card sent to the entertainment news show in 2007, thanking Levin for his fair coverage of her case.<\/p>\n

The lanky blond heiress is the star who inadvertently jump-started the celebrity news empire two decades ago. On Nov. 8, 2005, the beta version of tmz.com launched, and a day later, the site posted a video showing Hilton\u2019s Bentley, driven by her boyfriend, Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos III, crashing into a parked vehicle to escape paparazzi, then later being stopped by police, who let the couple go. TMZ\u2019s caption notes the car \u201cslams into a truck with a hit and run,\u201d and then, \u201cParis makes things right by blowing a kiss to the cops.\u201d<\/p>\n

The TMZ formula of snark, sexy babes, exclusive footage and a wink back at the audience was born. Today, the TMZ brand reaches 70 million visitors each month and operates an integrated ecosystem with TV shows and websites dedicated to entertainment news, sports and hip-hop. A sister site, TooFab, focuses on fashion and red carpets. The brand also operates an array of podcasts (including one featuring Los Angeles<\/em> magazine co-owner Mark Geragos), has a kiosk at LAX and boasts a documentary film division. Famous faces (think: JoJo Siwa, Ray J and Bill Maher) can sometimes be seen on TMZ\u2019s battalion of branded Hollywood bus tours. An \u201cAfter Dark\u201d tour shuttles fans to bars to pound shots, ride a mechanical bull and hear candid tales of debauchery.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a different voice,\u201d says Charles Latibeaudiere, an executive producer who has been with founder Harvey Levin since the beginning of the show. \u201cIt was a voice that made [reporting about celebrities] palatable, I would say, to a male audience. Yes, we\u2019re covering entertainment news, but we\u2019re gonna say it kind of in a mocking, snarky and, at times, funny way. It was done more for \u2018let\u2019s have a laugh.\u2019 It\u2019s how guys sit around stereotypically in a group and just take shots at each other. We stumbled into presenting the show that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TMZ
TMZ\u2019s Charles
\nLatibeaudiere, Harvey Levin
\nand Liza Ovsianniko
\n<\/figcaption>Credit: Irvin Rivera<\/span><\/figure>\n

Executive producer Ryan Regan thinks the show\u2019s speed, agility and point of view put it in a unique position. \u201cHarvey prioritizes movement,\u201d he says. \u201cWe need to be making 100 calls. We\u2019re good storytellers. We\u2019re very cost-efficient and we can do things faster than anybody.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are to celebrity journalism,\u201d says Michael Babcock, head of TMZ Sports, \u201cwhat the New York Times<\/em> is to hard news.\u201d Staffers report occasionally pulling all-nighters, leaving the newsroom just as the morning shift checks in. The New Yorker<\/em> once quipped that \u201cTMZ resembles an intelligence agency as much as a news organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scroll to continue reading<\/p>\n

During the first two years of the site \u2014 before the launch of the TV show that would bring celebrity chaos into American living rooms \u2014 tmz.com<\/a> broke news about Mel Gibson\u2019s DUI arrest, ensuing antisemitic rant and possible police cover-up; a bald-headed Britney Spears attacking a paparazzo\u2019s car with an umbrella; and Seinfeld\u2019s<\/em> Michael Richards screaming the N-word at Laugh Factory hecklers. Levin was fascinated by the way law enforcement sometimes treated celebrities differently, and grew his network of informants in courthouses, law offices and police stations. He connected with the legions of omnipresent paparazzi roaming the streets of L.A. and built a newsroom of reporters doggedly chasing down leads. In short, TMZ reinvented the entire concept of Hollywood news.<\/p>\n

\"TMZ
TMZ offices in Marina Del Rey<\/figcaption>Credit: Irvin Rivera<\/span><\/figure>\n

In the decades that followed the probing celebrity columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, entertainment coverage was filled with fawning fans like Johnny Grant, who emceed Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremonies, and softball-slinging oddballs like Skip E. Lowe, the inspiration for Martin Short\u2019s Jiminy Glick. Levin\u2019s plan was to subvert the sway of celebrity publicists by avoiding scheduled interviews in controlled environments and go looking for stories at the places they were unfolding.<\/p>\n

The first version of TMZ\u2019s TV show was similar to the competition, with glamorous anchors reading scripted news. Latibeaudiere thinks their early shows were terrible. \u201cOur producer said these [episodes] should be in the library,\u201d he remembers. \u201cI said, \u2018Please don\u2019t ever play them.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Producers hit on the idea of inviting the entire newsroom to pitch their stories on the air. \u201cThey wanted everyone who is in the office to kind of be involved in the TV show,\u201d says Brian Particelli, a supervising editor, who adds that anyone with a story that day is in the mix. Pitches go into a central email and get filtered through producers. \u201cHarvey\u2019s always been very \u2018best idea wins\u2019 no matter who it comes from,\u201d says Particelli. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of his motto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actor David Arquette, who\u2019s been a staple of TMZ stories from the beginning, sees the show\u2019s interest as double-edged. \u201cIt\u2019s typically pretty awful if they\u2019re covering you. It\u2019s usually for something embarrassing,\u201d he says \u201cThe flip side is that when you have a big movie coming out, they\u2019ll cover it. It\u2019s the old Hollywood thing where it\u2019s good they\u2019re talking about you even if it\u2019s negative. It means that you\u2019re part of the culture and interesting enough that they\u2019re paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TMZ
Shevonne Sullivan and
\nCourtney Doucette
\n<\/figcaption>Credit: Irvin Rivera<\/span><\/figure>\n

Cast your mind back to the beginning of 2005 and a world before iPhones, YouTube and streaming Netflix. Dial-up internet was most often accessed on home computers connected to the same clunky cathode ray tubes that had powered televisions since they were invented. Most offices still had fax machines, and online video was rare. If you wanted to know who Orlando Bloom was dating back then, you might tune in to Extra<\/em> or Entertainment Tonight<\/em> or Access Hollywood<\/em> around dinnertime and hope for red-carpet footage. You might have to wait until the next issue of People<\/em> or the National Enquirer<\/em> hit the stands.<\/p>\n

TMZ gave the world scandal at the speed of light, pushing out story after story about celebrity shenanigans and beating the competition with the help of a huge newsroom that today sprawls over two-thirds of an acre inside a converted postal facility in Playa Vista, backed up by a New York office that filters the news overnight. At the helm is the indefatigable Levin, who his staff reports is approving stories at 3 a.m. before hitting the gym and commanding the office. The 75-year-old attorney and high-energy TV veteran has been a staple of L.A. news for almost five decades.<\/p>\n

Levin started in media offering legal advice on the radio as \u201cDr. Law,\u201d which led to regular columns in the Los Angeles Times<\/em> and Herald Examiner<\/em> in the 1970s before branching into long stints in TV news. Levin spent 26 years doling out legal analysis and interviewing bystanders on The People\u2019s Court<\/em>. \u201cHarvey was always a legend for changing the game on breaking news,\u201d says Christina McClarty Arquette, David Arquette\u2019s wife and a former reporter for Entertainment Tonight<\/em>. \u201cBefore TMZ existed, there was no source like it for breaking news. He also changed the game by making things a lot more salacious. People wanted to get the craziest stuff to compete with TMZ.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levin had been producing the slick syndicated TV entertainment news show Celebrity Justice<\/em> when Jim Paratore, head of Warner Bros.\u2019 Telepictures, canceled the show and offered to move Levin to a website. The company had merged with AOL and was in the market for new online content. Paratore imagined a celebrity news site with familiar coverage of TV, movies and red carpet fashion. But Levin wasn\u2019t interested and left town. \u201cI went to Mexico and was in this kind of margarita haze and it just hit me,\u201d Levin says. \u201cBy the time they aired Celebrity Justice<\/em>, it was old news. If you can break stories where you have producers and research and lawyers to vet everything and you don\u2019t have a time period like a TV show, then you get it up and you beat everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TMZ
Harvey Levin plans the show.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>Credit: Irvin Rivera<\/span><\/figure>\n

Harvey Levin grew up in the San Fernando Valley. Meadowlark Park in Reseda was an instant neighborhood that popped up in the early 1950s, filled with quintessentially suburban midcentury tract houses that originally sold for about $10,000. A few feet from the family\u2019s butterfly-roof home was his dad\u2019s liquor store. Harvey remembers being fascinated by the blue and red lights outside his bedroom window as a kid\u2014 they weren\u2019t from the store\u2019s neon sign across the alley but from the LAPD squad cars that would show up when the store was being robbed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[He] would open the store at 7 in the morning and run it until 2 the next morning,\u201d Levin remembers. \u201c[The family was] in that store all the time. I ended up working there. My dad taught me how to be a salesman. I would learn all these terms like calling it a heady<\/em> bottle of wine so I could sell a more expensive bottle. That whole experience taught me a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levin became interested in politics at Grover Cleveland High School, where he served on multiple debate teams and became president of the Boys\u2019 League. That\u2019s the group that planned special events for the class of 1968, which included a performance by psychedelic band Strawberry Alarm Clock, an Arab-Israeli debate and a special assembly conducted by a skeptic of the official story of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. That one had Levin\u2019s fingerprints all over it.<\/p>\n

The teenager had long been fascinated by the case, and even camped out at the Reseda library to read the 888-page Warren Commission report. He repeatedly called New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (played by Kevin Costner in Oliver Stone\u2019s JFK<\/em>) from an anonymous pay phone after reviewing stills from the Zapruder film, to offer a new angle on the case.<\/p>\n

As a high school senior, Levin won a mock debate where he acted as Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in a battle against Richard Nixon. He dressed up the auditorium with fans, polls and friends costumed as a donkey and an elephant. \u201cI started calling all the stations in town and they all came,\u201d Levin remembers. \u201cI was thinking, well, this is interesting how the media gets attracted to something because it was just different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levin volunteered for RFK\u2019s presidential campaign and was at the Ambassador Hotel the night he was shot. He soon left L.A. to study political science at UC-Santa Barbara and received his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School.<\/p>\n

\"TMZ
The TMZ team in the bullpen.<\/figcaption>Credit: Irvin Rivera<\/span><\/figure>\n

Levin\u2019s interest in the Kennedys is at the root of one of TMZ\u2019s greatest flubs. In 2009, the website published a crumpled snapshot of a man who resembled JFK partying on a yacht with naked women. It turned out to have been a Playboy<\/em> magazine photo, taken years after the president\u2019s death. \u201cWe screwed that up,\u201d Levin says. \u201cThat one was on me. I spent the last two weeks of the year bringing in Kennedy experts, machines to analyze this thing, going to the Marina del Rey boatyards. We spent so much time on it, and we got it wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do what everybody is supposed to do,\u201d Levin says. \u201cYou get a tip, you chase it down, you accept the fact that you\u2019re going to hit 100 dead ends and, you know, you find ways around the dead ends.\u201d Levin says that plenty of stories consume resources yet never make it on air. \u201cIf we find out that something\u2019s unfair or untrue,\u201d he says, \u201cit\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show has been accused of paying informants, but producers deny the claim. \u201cPeople do sometimes look for money,\u201d Particelli says. \u201cBut we only pay for photos.\u201d Sometimes an unrelated news story has such shocking video that it rises to the top. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be celebrity-driven,\u201d says director of audience development Cameron Lazerine. \u201cIt can be a crazy viral moment of a huge tidal wave crushing a ship.\u201d<\/p>\n

With some 200 contributors, the show boasts veterans of celebrity.land, Extra<\/em> and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.<\/em> Many of the crew come from less conventional backgrounds but all share a dogged determination to tell the show\u2019s stories. Producer Charlie Neff started out as a fashion model; TMZ Sports producer Michael Babcock was a restaurant manager in New Jersey before he sent in a winning audition tape. \u201cOne of our most successful guys Harvey met while pumping gas,\u201d says Latibeaudiere. \u201cThis guy was at another pump and selling speakers out of his trunk, just hustling. He worked with us for at least 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

TMZ staffers enjoy the niceties that once enticed tech workers into the office. There\u2019s a volleyball court filled with sand, and replicas of vintage military bombs stenciled with the TMZ logo hang near a ping-pong table across from the complimentary Starbucks station. Clear tubes of Frosted Flakes and Cinnamon Toast Crunch beckon hungry employees, as does a free convenience store stocked with Kraft Mac & Cheese and Pop-Tarts. Pizza Hut delivers on Mondays. Fox purchased TMZ for roughly $50 million in 2021.<\/p>\n

\"TMZ
Derek Kaufman speaks at a
\nmorning meeting.
\n<\/figcaption>Credit: Irvin Rivera<\/span><\/figure>\n

One of the newest staffers met his future at a scoop shop in Brentwood. Twenty-one-year-old London native Jakson Buhaj started filming skits and live streams for YouTube as a tween. He learned Python and JavaScript as he was finishing high school and faced a \u201cwhat am I going to do with my life\u201d moment before a TMZ field producer wearing a camera over his shoulder walked into his Salt & Straw location. \u201cI made this pitch to him,\u201d Buhaj says. \u201c\u2018Please take my information,\u2019 and to sweeten the deal I gave [him] free ice cream and sent [him] out the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduating Santa Monica College, Buhaj had offers from several schools but instead took a spot at the TMZ intern desk. \u201cI made this software\u2014 this bot,\u201d he says, \u201cthat surfaces a thousand different media outlets and celebrities the moment they posted something, so we would be the first to get to it. That put me on Harvey\u2019s radar.\u201d Buhaj\u2019s efforts have made TMZ on YouTube a major destination that may one day eclipse the brand\u2019s TV efforts. \u201cJakson is being very humble,\u201d Latibeaudiere says of the channel\u2019s explosive growth since the eager Gen Zer showed up. \u201cOnce he was here \u2026 Thank the ice cream gods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levin isn\u2019t afraid to predict the future. \u201cThe reality is, YouTube is totally dominating,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s going to be television in five or six years. You\u2019ve got to pivot to where the audience is going.\u201d In today\u2019s age of infinite customization of personal livestreams, everyone can be a celebrity to somebody.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want authenticity,\u201d Neff explains. \u201cThe new generation wants to see relatable people. Alix Earle, who is a very famous TikTok\u2019er, is just a regular college girl who would post makeup videos. But she wasn\u2019t fixing up the background of her bedroom. She had her tampons out, she had, you know, bloody panties in the corner, she had a Plan B package in the background. People are watching and they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my gosh! She\u2019s so relatable!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TMZ
Charlie Neff on the job<\/figcaption>Credit: Irvin Rivera<\/span><\/figure>\n

But is being an internet streamer as significant in the culture today as singers, actors and comedians used to be? Kai Cenat posted skits on YouTube before turning the camera on himself all day and all night. By the time he reached 19 million followers on Twitch, more-established stars like Kim Kardashian and Mariah Carey were showing up on his livestream. \u201cStreaming your life can be performance art. That\u2019s what an actor is doing, right?\u201d says Buhaj. \u201cNothing like that has been done in the history of entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

History buff Levin, whose life has long been colored by the promise and tragedy of the Kennedys, can relate. He has a favorite quote of RFK\u2019s \u2014 words engraved on the late politician\u2019s tomb: \u201cSome men see things as they are and ask \u2018Why?\u2019 I dream things that never were and ask, \u2018Why not?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source lamag.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 O artigo anterior foi obtido e traduzido do site internacional da celebrity.land \u2019 Source Link <\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just as the dark hallway outside the newsroom of TMZ gives way to the bustling chaos inside, the last thing you see is a self-portrait of Paris Hilton framed on the wall. The pencil drawing is cute and girly, like something scrawled in an eighth-grade yearbook, complete with hearts dotting the \u201ci\u201ds. It depicts the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1407233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1407232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entretenimento"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1407232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1407233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1407232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1407232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1407232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}