[1] It’s 2023, and Joe Jonas has filed for divorce from Sophie Turner after four years of marriage. Other personalities, including Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn, Ariana Grande and Dalton Gomez, as well as Hugh Jackman and Deborra Lee, have all split up. In fact, so many high-profile pairs have called it quits that some people have deemed 2023 ‘The Year of Celebrity Break-ups’.
[2] Logically speaking, we shouldn’t be interested in this kind of scandalous speculation—this celebrity gossip. The inner lives of celebrities have next to nothing to do with us, after all: we’re unlikely ever to meet them, and their romantic relationships have no bearing on how our own lives unravel down here in the ‘real’ world. “And yet we are interested, even if we’re reluctant to admit it,” says Dr Alice Leppert, a media and communications professor who focuses on stardom and celebrity culture.
[3] These public figures represent many of our highest goals, declares clinical psychologist and breakup coach Dr Andrea Liner. They tend to be attractive, wealthy, and considered successful, which many people assume makes them invulnerable to life’s problems. “So, when we find out that gorgeous, wealthy celebrities are getting cheated on or divorcing or breaking up, it humanises them and can validate us to see that they have problems too,” she says. “But it can also confuse us because we think they shouldn’t have problems like that if they’ve achieved such success. Part of the issue is that celebrities often perform an image or identity that doesn’t align with their authentic selves,” she adds. Their marital problems can shock the public if all that was seen was a happy family. Liner notes this is especially true because celebrities share so much of their lives online, creating an “almost artificial sense of intimacy” that obscures what’s happening behind the scenes.
[4] Gossip is so central to our cultural psyche that the American Psychological Association (APA) has its own definition. According to the APA, gossip consists of personal talk or communication about information that’s often not proven to be true, and it may be (but isn’t necessarily) scandalous in content or malicious in intention. Gossip impacts group bonding and has significant implications for the transmission and reinforcement of cultural norms.
[5] But why? What purpose does gossip serve? What function does it fulfil in our society? Put simply: why do we care?
[6] “There are people who try to classify gossip as negative or critical discussion about others, but really, gossip is just sharing social information,” says author and psychology professor Dr David Ludden. “Anytime you’re talking about people who aren’t present, it’s gossip,” he notes. “We’re social animals and need to know what’s happening in our social environments, so gossip is very helpful,” explains Ludden, who studies the psychology of language and its role in shaping—and being shaped by—our social world. Essentially, gossip helps us enter social encounters better prepared. “I don’t have to engage directly with someone to know what they’re like, because others are telling me about their experiences with them,” he adds.
[7] It can also be a way to build relationships: “Sharing gossip can bond people socially,” says Dr. Stephen Benning from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Benning published a study in 2019 which found that gossip provides a currency of private information that creates a shared sense of the community holding that information. So, gossip is particularly compelling for people who are seeking to connect with others.
[8] But it’s not all so innocent. Benning found that we’re also attracted to gossip for some other reasons: attacking people’s social standing and their position in social networks (what is called ‘negative influence’), merely elevating our own social status, or simply trying to be included in a social network that we previously weren’t. Similarly, Ludden says that “lots of the bad gossip is done in an attempt to make ourselves feel better than the person we’re talking about. That’s not a healthy approach to building a sense of self-esteem.”
[9] Negative influence (talking badly about someone or trying to cut them down) was a clear motive for some people on certain occasions. Yet, the study found that this was actually the weakest motivation that led people to gossip. Gathering and validating information about the person being gossiped about was the strongest.
[10] There’s also some evidence suggesting that negative gossip can have a positive impact on social groups and promote cooperation (though perhaps not in the most altruistic way). In an article published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers found that when people communicated reputational information about others (the researchers’ definition of “gossiped”), others tended to interact with people who were portrayed as cooperative and ostracise those who were portrayed as selfish. As a result, those who were ostracised tended to change their behaviour and act more cooperatively.
[11] What motivates us to gossip about A-listers we don’t socialise with?
[12] Ludden says that just because we’ve never met these celebrities doesn’t mean we don’t have relationships with them: “What we do is we create parasocial relationships – imaginary relationships with a singer or athlete whose successes we’ve followed and celebrated.” Like gossip itself, these parasocial relationships can be healthy or unhealthy depending on the circumstances. They can fill the gaps in our real-world relationships, and they’re a risk-free way to feel connected to others, since you can’t be rejected by someone who’s not actually in a relationship with you.
[13] Gossiping about these celebrities can be a similarly low-stakes way to feel connected, since the information you’re sharing doesn’t pose a risk to you or a member of your social circle. “It can feel uncomfortable and vulnerable to share information about your own worlds,” Benning says. “Gossiping about celebrities is a safer way to interact with a date, to ingratiate yourself to a group at parties, or to feel part of a new team at work.” It can also serve as a form of stress relief. “When life is overwhelming, focusing on celebrity gossip can be a way to numb out our feelings of dissatisfaction, unhappiness, or stress,” says Benning. “Scrolling through celebrity gossip puts us in a dissociated state where we can take breaks from difficult feelings.”
[14] But just like regular gossip, sometimes the motivation behind celebrity gossip is to make ourselves feel better than others. “Celebrity gossip is a safe way to snack on schadenfreude (the delight in the misfortune of others),” says Benning. “It feels a lot less shameful to admit we enjoy watching celebrity misfortunes than to admit we enjoy watching the misfortunes of family and friends.”