A History of Pop Stars Who Pushed Back at the Tabloids

Since the release of Wicked in early November, the press has smothered Ariana Grande with praise for her scene-stealing portrayal of the bubbly and popular Galinda. It’s a complete 180 from the “hellish” treatment the pop star and actress received from the media just a year ago.

“Homewrecker”… “sloppy”… “unrecognizable.” Plucked straight from the headlines, these quotes are just a few of the milder scarlet letters Grande was publicly branded with in 2023 and early 2024 — the chaotic months during which she filmed a huge movie overseas, got a divorce, began a controversial new romance and put the finishing touches on her seventh album.

As both the public and press conjectured mercilessly about her personal life, from her body to her co-star-turned-beau, Grande turned to the studio to let out steam on a new single, which she released at the very top of 2024.

“Yes, And?” – a house-tinged ode to the early ‘90s dance-pop bangers of Madonna and Paula Abdul – appeared to draw even more outrage and speculation upon release, with some accusing Grande of being defiant as she waved off the rumors instead of addressing them head-on or apologizing for her supposed sins. But the pop star’s flippant brush-off was precisely the point, and it sent a strong message: “I’m so done with caring.”

Pop music has long had a tense relationship with entertainment media – specifically tabloids and paparazzi – and many artists have taken square aim at the nastier side of celebrity coverage in their music over the years.

Michael Jackson famously snapped back at the tabloids in the mid-’90s following years of intense media scrutiny. Jaded by salacious headlines that dubbed him “Wacko Jacko,” as well as highly publicized allegations of child sexual abuse, a fed-up Jackson retaliated on his 1995 song “Tabloid Junkie,” singing: “Speculate to break the one you hate / Circulate the lie you confiscate / … Just because you read it in a magazine / Or see it on the TV screen / Don’t make it factual…”

That same year, Janet Jackson, a victim of media crucifixion and misogynoir over the course of her own career, teamed up with her brother on the Grammy-winning “Scream,” on which the siblings lashed out at the press for pushing them past their respective breaking points.

But Janet and Michael weren’t the only ‘80s pop icons who had grown increasingly agitated with their relationship with the media. On her 2002 single “Whatchulookinat,” Whitney Houston chastised the press for placing negative attention on her personal life and tumultuous relationship with Bobby Brown, a topic the late pop legend even tensely sparred with Oprah about on her talk show in 1995. “Same spotlight that once gave me fame / Tryin’ to dirty up Whitney’s name, no no,” Houston sang on the Brown-produced R&B track.

The following year Madonna, one of the tabloids’ favorite, most resistant targets – “Calm down grandma!” an ageist Smash Hits headline declared in 1993, when Madonna was only 35 – released American Life, an album with themes spanning capitalism and fame. On the song “Nobody Knows Me,” the queen of pop sang about rejecting the “social disease” of tabloid culture and slammed the “lies” spread in magazines.

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While the circulation of celebrity rumors and scandals has been popular since the influx of contemporary Hollywood gossip columns in the ‘30s and ‘40s, the rise of online gossip blogs and tabloid TV such as TMZ made the 2000s a particularly prickly time for overexposed pop artists in the press.

At the time, celebrity coverage was a lawless wild west, and reporting ethics were stretched thinner than the paper stars’ faces were splashed across at grocery counters. Desperate paparazzos dove under cars for crotch shots outside of nightclubs, biweekly magazines published career-tarnishing editorials and Hollywood bloggers doodled crudely on the faces of famous people – mostly successful young women – online. Accompanying headlines were just as icky and unempathetic (and totally horrifying in hindsight): “Jumbo Jessica Simpson: Packin’ on the Pounds in Photos”! “Christina Aguilera’s Private Hell: She’s a Wreck”! “Britney Shears: Shocking Pix as Superstar Teeters on Edge of a Breakdown”!

Indeed, no pop star was singled out more than Britney Spears, herself a devoted disciple of Madonna, Houston and the Jacksons’ influential pop legacies. Aside from having her body and relationships picked apart in the tabloids, at the time Spears was being relentlessly harassed by the paparazzi. (One incident in 2006 saw the young mother seek refuge in a cafe as she sobbed and held her baby, nearly 300 paps soullessly snapping away at her from outside the restaurant’s window.)

Spears dropped her culturally piercing electro-pop song “Piece of Me” in 2007, right at the height of the mid-aughties media frenzy surrounding the pop princess-turned-media punching bag, and just months after she suffered a highly public breakdown. The Bloodshy & Avant-produced Blackout track peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart and remains one of the most famous instances of a provoked pop star defending herself against an unforgiving press in song, with Spears pointedly singing: “I’m Mrs. ‘You want a piece of me?’ / Tryin’ and pissin’ me off / Well get in line with the paparazzi / Who’s flippin’ me off / Hopin’ I’ll resort to startin’ havoc / And end up settlin’ in court / Now are you sure you want a piece of me?”

Spears was hardly the only artist of the era who pushed back in her music, however. In 2004, Lindsay Lohan – another one-time Disney darling who, a few short years later, would share the infamous “Bimbo Summit” cover of the New York Post alongside Spears and Paris Hilton – released angsty lead single “Rumors” off her debut album Speak.

Despite having only just turned 18, Lohan’s every move, relationship and night out with friends was being heavily chronicled and criticized in the tabloids. The dance-pop song was her response to the sensationalized headlines as she declared she was “tired of rumors starting,” “sick of being followed” and “tired of people lying, saying what they want about me.” Similar to Spears’ “Piece of Me” music video, the video for “Rumors” featured Lohan being hounded by paparazzi at a nightclub before eventually escaping the frenzied camera flashes.

Hilary Duff, another popular 2000s Disney starlet, had also grown frustrated with the paparazzi. On her 2007 song “Dreamer,” the then-19-year-old lamented her inability to go out in public to run simple errands without being followed. (In later years, Duff publicly criticized the paparazzi for taking photos of her and other stars’ children without their consent, a controversial practice that sparked a California law in 2013.)

The following year, 16-year-old Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus slammed the paps on her single “Fly on the Wall,” the music video for which featured the singer running away from an obsessive date-turned-paparazzo. In 2008, Cyrus told Access Hollywood that the zippy pop-rock song was written about “the media” and her increasing run-ins with the paparazzi; encounters which would become even more intense in subsequent years as the pop star’s sexuality and public behavior became points of pop culture fascination.

No young music star was immune to the tabloids’ invasion of privacy in the 2000s and early 2010s. An angry Avril Lavigne declared “invasion’s not true photography” on her 2004 b-side “Take It,” while Ashlee Simpson was frantically chased by a horde of reporters and photographers in the surrealist music video for her 2007 single “Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya).” Elsewhere, K-pop group Girls’ Generation examined their own “hide and seek” relationship with the paparazzi and addressed celebrities being forced to develop public personas in the face of fame on their 2012 single “Paparazzi.”

While the paparazzi frenzy has died down somewhat since its “gold rush” era in the 2000s – the consumption of celebrity content has shifted due to cultural attitudes toward celebrity exploitation, as well as the rise of social media, wherein stars can simply deliver candid or personally curated glimpses of their lives straight to fans’ devices, and gossip accounts can publish the latest drama in real time – the trauma caused by the tabloids and the scrutinous lens of unfiltered fame is still a hot topic in pop music today.

In 2018, U.K. tabloid target Lily Allen kicked off her 2018 album No Shame by challenging the media (“Why do you scrutinize my every move?”) on “Come on Then,” while Billie Eilish hinted at the dark side of media attention in the wake of fame on her 2021 single “NDA” (“I can barely go outside, I think I hate it here…”). On her 2022 queer anthem “This Hell,” Rina Sawayama slammed the paparazzi for “what they did to Britney, to Lady Di’, and Whitney,” while Doja Cat snapped back at the “bad press” on her 2023 single “Attention.”

Of course, one of the most memorable examples of a pop star firing back in recent years is Taylor Swift, whose 2017 album was largely recorded in response to immense media scrutiny surrounding her character in the wake of her rise as a veritable pop megastar. Following a string of high-profile romantic relationships, a highly publicized feud with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West and backlash toward her infamous “girl squad,” which many criticized as being emblematic of performative white feminism, Swift swatted at her critics with Reputation, a record steeped in themes of vengeance and karmic payback.

Peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, lead single “Look What You Made Me Do” sarcastically skewered everyone who had gleefully celebrated Swift’s very public 2016 downfall. Meanwhile, the pop star mocked the media – and blew up the paparazzi – in the song’s satirical music video, which lampooned the very headlines and speculative reports that had been lobbed at her, from sexist gossip about her love life to rumors surrounding her one-time feud with fellow pop star Katy Perry.

Even as the nature of pop gossip continues to evolve and transform alongside technology and communication trends, it seems unlikely the rumor mill will ever stop churning altogether. After all, and even scientifically speaking, gossip is human nature. But so is clapping back – and we’ve got the hits to prove it.