The journalsit picked up the house way back in 1998 for $950,000 and almost immediately added his longtime man-friend, chiropractor Andy Maurer. (She declined repeated requests for comment.) officers were reprimanded in 2009 for purportedly selling TMZ the photograph of Rihannas bruised face; one was later fired. If you see a dollar on the road, you pick it up, he said. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, the dark genius of William dAlton Mann, the publisher of Town Topics, was his realization that stories that came into his possession were perhaps worth more untold than told. In the nineteen-fifties, Confidential gained access to the head of Columbia Studios by leveraging tapes of Rock Hudson that referred to his homosexuality. They were at police precincts, doing real beat reporting, and getting things like surveillance video. In terms of photography, he said, they were coming up with things that we would never touch: cell-phone pictures, video grabs, things that wouldnt hold up in print. The Los Angeles Times has followed his attempts to sell his house in Hollywood Hills West, for which he is asking almost four million dollars. "Knight Rider" and "Magnum P.I." She was 89. For the TV appearance, he was wearing a tight black T-shirt, which showed off his physiquehe works out every weekday before dawn, prior to going to the office. Kevin Blatt, a source for TMZ who also worked in the pornography industry, got a call a few hours later from an adult-film director. Honestly, I go to a black barbershop now. But Levin taught us what else to look for, Angela Laughlin, one of the early hires at TMZ, said. In May, 2012, the judge overseeing the case of a man who allegedly extorted Stevie Wonder caught a TMZ cameraman illicitly taping the courtroom proceedings. (On the day the Fox interview aired, TMZs home page featured an exclusive about Iggy Azalea, the Australian rapper, who was threatening to sue an adult-film company over the release of a sex tape.) We roll through a lot of people, Levin conceded, in a speech last year. He beats you down, but the second youre about to say, Screw this place, he gives you a compliment, and you live for that. The former TMZ photographer recounted that Levin once screamed, I could get a monkey to do your job! and, on another occasion, Do you want me to draw this out in crayons for you fucking idiots? The former news reporter said that, on one occasion, Levin compared his staff to a roomful of handicapped people. Rory Waltzer, another former cameraman, told me, Harvey Levin would have been a great dictator: he is charming enough so that you want to follow him, but terrifying enough so that you dont want to fail., Some of Levins subordinates, such as Evan Rosenblum, the TMZ deputy, mimic his style. A middle-aged woman at the talk encouraged Levin to dedicate more coverage to national politics. These are the people who call me with stuff, he said. He was 61 years old. Harvey Levin, the managing editor of TMZ who co-founded the company in 2005, will stay on board and report up to Fox's management. Gossip sites have published paparazzi shots of Levin drinking iced coffee with his partner, Andy Mauer, a chiropractor. We started working on it at 4 a.m., Rosenblum said, in a Los Angeles Daily News article. Levin claims to live by a code that precludes him from crossing certain lines, such as targeting minors or policing bedroom affairs. (Unbeknownst to Levin, the seller had continued to shop around copies of the footage. On a recent episode of TMZ Live, he said, There are a group of renegade photogs out there that are dangerous and act like criminalswhere they run people off the road, where they chase people, where they go after peoples kids, where they incite people. Blatt, who has thinning hair and a goatee, made small talk with the bartender and the cocktail waitress. But theres nothing like selling celebrity fucking dirt. Both Gavin and Schroeder told me that they remained skeptical that TMZ could ever reproduce its tipster regime in Washington. (Time Warner, the corporate parent of Warner Bros., had recently merged with AOL.) . When people have choices, you cant sell that gray coat anymore., From the start, Levins crusader mentality at TMZ caused some consternation, Lewis DVorkin, a former senior vice-president of AOL, told me. Italian actress Lucia Bos, who starred in such films as Michelangelo Antonionis "Story of a Love Affair" (1950) and Juan Antonio Bardems "Death of a Cyclist" (1955), died on March 23 of pneumonia after contracting COVID-19, according to the Guardian. And if theres a cease-and-desist that comes after that, thats another story.. Its part of the machineyou own every angle related to the original story, another former production assistant told me. We get it, a colleague retorted. A source close to the situation told me that when Bieber was informed of the leak he broke down, confessing that he had made the video a while back, as a joke, and that he thought he had deleted it from his laptop, which was later stolen. He and other members of Biebers team stayed up all night crafting a statement. Instead of taking a corner office, he placed his desk on a riser in the center of the newsroom, creating an editorial panopticon. But Loretta Pickus, the former general counsel at the casino, told me that it could not be determined with certainty which employee had recorded the footage with a phone. Thirty-five hundred years ago, Mesopotamian scribes used cuneiform to record the impeachment hearings of a mayor who had been accused of corruption, kidnapping, adultery, and the theft of manure. Several paparazzi stood outside, fiddling with their cameras. The stories that were being told werent real, he said, in a 2009 interview. . Deedswhere Adam Sandler surprises Winona Ryder with a date at Madison Square Garden.) Bieber also made some appearances on TMZ Live., In June, 2014, the Sun published a copy of the scandalous One Less Lonely video. Levin's absence was discussed at the start of the nationally syndicated show, which pre-tapes and airs at 4 p.m. PT. He mapped out a new site, TMZDC, and interviewed several local gossip reporters, including Patrick Gavin, who produced a 2015 documentary about the White House Correspondents Dinner, titled Nerd Prom, and Anne Schroeder, who was working at Politico at the time. He rented a car and headed to an apartment building on the outskirts of the city. Please call me for price. Fifty-nine minutes after a producer forwarded the tip to colleagues, TMZ posted a clip showing the rapper accidentally dropping thousands of dollars outside a Washington strip club. Locations. Compassion!" (The first episodes of the game show, South of Wilshire, recently aired.) He and Alexis finished their meal, then stepped outside, into a battery of camera flashes. Allen Garfield, who appeared in such films as The Conversation, Nashville and Irreconcilable Differences, died April 7 due to coronavirus complications, according to his sister. Gabe Ginsberg via Getty Images TMZ big shot Harvey Levin is known for exposing the secrets of Hollywood's biggest stars, but now he's revealing a few of his own. In 2013, TMZ broke a series of stories about hackers swatting celebrities: calling 911, falsely claiming to be the celebrity victim of a home invasion, and then watching as a swat team descended on the celebritys house. Producers knew that they werent real, but they played ball to get interviews with the stars. Most journalism about stars, he said, was built on a lie. He set out to infuse celebrity coverage with an investigative ethos by tracking legal filings and court cases. Stills featuring Shakur were posted as evidence for non-believers. The tape itself was never made public. Harvey Levin House. One early hire was the daughter of Paris Hiltons attorney. He was told that his account was absolutely untrue. But later that day he secured a copy of the original police report, which contained four pages, excised from the version on file, detailing Gibsons anti-Semitic rant. The site needed a name, and Feed the Beast, Frenzie, and Buzz Feed were all considered, according to Rowes notes. His office accepts new patients. into a crisis. . In the early aughts, he successfully pitched an idea to Telepictures, a division of Warner Bros.: a weekday newscast dedicated to celebrity court cases. ), David Perel, the former editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer, and a founder of Radar Online, recalls, Everything that was hitting the window in the courthouse, they were getting instantly. To Perels frustration, Levin consistently secured documents before others had access to them. On TV, Levin always appears congenial, but, according to numerous accounts, when the cameras switch off he often turns abrasive and domineering. (Older gossip publications followed this strategy as well. After Braun and Levin had their phone conversation, numerous flattering Bieber-related exclusives appeared on the site: a photograph of Bieber backstage during a commercial shoot; pictures of him getting a haircut; a video of him and his girlfriend Selena Gomez performing karaoke; a story about how he bought every single flower at a florists and sent the flowers to Gomezs house; video from a trip that Bieber took to Liverpool; and others, including a report of him watching Titanic one night, with Gomez, inside an otherwise vacant Staples Center. At the start, Levin had only a dozen or so employees. He wanted a site that created a sense of urgency.. Almost anything. Levin attempted to give Superior Court more credibility. Jack was 76. Broadway star Nick Cordero passed away on July 5 due to complications from coronavirus. Two years later, Blatt learned that V. Stiviano, Donald Sterlings mistress, was taping an interview with Barbara Walters at the Four Seasons, in Beverly Hills. Im not putting the video up. Braun broke down in tears. Id tell them, Were not going to reveal our sources, because we want you to be a source for us again. (In a message to a TMZ staff member, the source asked to be paid five thousand dollars.) As they dispersed, I stepped forward to introduce myself. Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza who sought the Republican nomination for president in 2012, died July 30 from complications of the coronavirus. The world continues to be upended by the coronavirus pandemic, with more people contracting COVID-19 as the days pass. The domain name tmz.com, however, was owned by a man who built robotsthe sites initials stood for Team Minus Zeroand he showed little interest in selling. In February, 2009, a private bank, Northern Trust, which had just received $1.6 billion in federal bailout funds, hosted a golf tournament and party in the Los Angeles area. And its terrible, and Im the first one to say those guys should be dealt with very strongly, thrown in jail, when they do it. Josh Levine, TMZs original photographer, questions this statement: We dont follow people or do car chases? The video is still the video. In 2013, the co-founder, owner, and managing editor at TMZ, Harvey hoisted his long-time home in West Hollywood, CA on the market with a celebrity-style $5,300,000 asking price. The medium arrived in America in the late nineteenth century, when a weekly named Town Topics began publishing blind items, in a section called Saunterings. (In 1905, the sections editor attempted to blackmail Emily Posts husband after learning of his infidelity.)