Kathlyn Beatty is a relative unknown, despite her celebrity parents Annette Bening and Warren Beatty. But a Perez Hilton-posted headline is causing a lot of stir for the young girl who, as speculation reads, supposedly wants to live life as a boy.
A post today on Perez Hilton played a guessing game as to the “celebu-spawn” who is reportedly transgendered and living under the name “Stephen”. The post, filed under “Not So Blind Item,” goes on to release enticing details about the teen being pulled out of Buckley School in Los Angeles in order to keep the alternate lifestyle under wraps, but goes no further with any concrete details.
The comment section on the post is filled with “Are you going to leave it with that?” and “WHO WHO?!?!” exclamations, as well as random guesses like Rumer Willis who has been knocked about voraciously on Perez’s site for her less-than-feminine appeal.
But so far, no confirmation has been given as to who the young teen actually is, which leads us to speculate that the whole thing is just intended to cause a fuss on a slow celebrity news day.
And it’s working.
For our part, and yes we’re aware we’re adding fuel to the fire, we see this story as an opportunity to look at how far the media can – or rather, should – go for the sake of a hot story. Is it right to conjure up a speculative story intended to entice readers? Sure. Is it right to do it when it could potentially cause a lot of pain and unwanted attention for the person involved? Definitely not.
In this case, we can’t say for sure whether Perez’s story has done any harm – after all, he didn’t name anyone in the post. But at the same time, he didn’t offer any goods to back up the supposed claim and failed to acknowledge that perhaps outing a transgendered teenager may not be the apex of integrity for celebrity journalism.
It smells a little fishy to us.
Commenter Leele on Perez’s post says, “what’s up w/ everyone outing people just b/c they’re famous? let the teen transition in peace! You know it’s already a sensitive time for whoever it is, perez.”
We’re inclined to agree. What do you think?
