Another was the son of the assistant sheriff in Orange CountyMike Walters, now the head of TMZs news desk. After a deal was made for the Bieber clip, Justin Kaplanthe former production associate who had received the limo lists at the gas stationwas sent to Levins house. He was 79. We started working on it at 4 a.m., Rosenblum said, in a Los Angeles Daily News article. The fierce advocate for the AAPI community was 89. Thats what makes the world go roundcash. He soon obtained photographs taken in Houstons room, including one of her service cart, which had an open can of Heineken on it. Due to his success in a multitude of areas involving media and law, Harvey has gone on to amass a net worth of $20 million! More than a hundred tips arrive every day. She was 78. Well hire kids, and well train them, he has said. Id tell them, Were not going to reveal our sources, because we want you to be a source for us again. Photographing celebrities going in and coming out was like fishing an overstocked pond. . But when Citron reviewed the traffic data one thing became undeniably clear: The tabloid material was what people wanted. button. He was 34. She handed me a laptop, and a disk, and I gave her the check. 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. Im into it.. . In February, 1987, to commemorate the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, he set out to book a Supreme Court Justice. Blatt waved his fork and declared, This is off the hook. Then, across the restaurant, he spotted Alexis and Jim Bellino, the co-stars of The Real Housewives of Orange County. Blatt said that he contacts TMZ whenever he sees someone famous. In 2012, the site published a video showing four marines in Afghanistan urinating on dead insurgents, which prompted a criminal investigation and disciplinary action against the marines. In November, 2014, according to a leaked e-mail, Jonathan Stinson, a publicist from Relevant Relations PR, submitted gossip about a former child star, backed up with legal/hospital documents left in a backpack of her former roommate. Mike Walters, TMZs news director, told his colleagues, We dont want to be involved with hospital records. (When reached by phone, Stinson claimed that he had been trying to sell the records on behalf of an acquaintance.). Gillian Sheldon told me, I cant tell you how many times we got calls from Britney Spears, or her people, who called to say, Shes going to get a tan., In 2006, Levin told the Times, What I love is the business of creating and preserving celebrity. His proudest moment, he said, during a talk in 2010, at the University of Chicago Law School, was when Levine captured footage of the actress Tara Reid standing behind the velvet rope outside of Hyde, a Los Angeles night club, while Paris HiltonReids former best friendwalked right in with a new friend, a previously unknown woman named Kim Kardashian. Then, one day, a Telepictures executive suggested Thirty Mile Zone. It was an old movie-industry phrase, dating back to the mid-twentieth century, which designated the industrys boundaries in Los Angeles. Levin called a Telepictures executive and said, of DeGeneres, Shes ruining the brand! DeGeneres phoned Levin to apologize, according to three former TMZ employees, but he refused to take her call. Practice. The journalsit picked up the house way back in 1998 for $950,000 and almost immediately added his longtime man-friend, chiropractor Andy Maurer. The veteran character actor and regular on New York City stages was 69. In 2012, Ellen DeGeneres, whose show is produced by Telepictures, implied on the air that TMZ outed gay people. He was 74. By February, 2007, TMZ was drawing more Web traffic than the sites of People and Entertainment Tonight combined. Levin assumes the role of semi-hip unclecool for his age but amusingly out of step with his younger colleagues fads and jokes. According to the Los Angeles Times, the sheriffs department examined his cell-phone records and discovered two calls from the home of James Mee, the deputy who arrested Gibson, to Levin in the hours after Gibsons arrest, and an additional eight calls from Levin to Mees home in the following days. At first, most of his earnings resulted from his connections in the porn industry, but he had begun diversifying. (Sources connected to the Biebs tell us. It showed Shakur receiving oral sex. It was a coup for Levin, even though, he conceded, Blackmuns appearance turned out to be terrible television., In 1990, Superior Court was cancelled, and Levin took a reporting job with NBCs Los Angeles affiliate. I cant give you a rigid principle on where the line of privacy is. He claimed that he struggled with this dilemma all the time., Twenty-four hours after the Bieber video came in, the newsroom learned that Levin had decided not to run the story. She didnt wanna say how she knew, but told me Hope Solos husband Jerramy Stevens was arrested in Manhattan beach 2 nights ago for DUI. (Solo is a top soccer player.) The resulting piece left Richardss career in ruins. Los Angeles was, as he put it, a very Kevin Bacon-like city, and he wanted reporters who either had celebrity connections or showed an eagerness to build them. But Levin taught us what else to look for, Angela Laughlin, one of the early hires at TMZ, said. Action Crime Drama A car hits Harm; Mac takes him to a hospital, where an Israeli official undergoes a heart transplant. ), And in 2006, after Levin broke the story about Mel Gibsons anti-Semitic tirade, the Los Angeles County sheriffs department launched an investigation to identify Levins source. The Devastating New History of the January 6th Insurrection. Paris Jackson, the daughter of late pop legend Michael Jackson, was hospitalized Wednesday after an apparent suicide attempt, according to reports. Currently, TMZ has three reporters stationed full-time at the courthouse; the Los Angeles Times has one court reporter. TMZ resembles an intelligence agency as much as a news organization. But she didnt want to chat. If you see a dollar on the road, you pick it up, he said. The rest was like organ rejectionit just didnt work.. I do. Five months after the Northern Trust story, Michael Jackson died. TMZ's brand has since expanded beyond its website with TMZ on TV, TMZ Live, TMZ Sports, and the TMZ Celebrity Tour. Good stories dont come easy, Levin said. * It felt like bedroom police to me, he said at the time. Levin attempted to give Superior Court more credibility. When the elevator arrived in the lobby, Palmer was lying unconscious, face down, on the floor. He used to say, to all of us, My fucking dogs are smarter than you! You become like a battered child. The issue is, did somebody else do something that might have gotten them in trouble? Without naming Mee, he likened him to Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers to the Times and other publications. It often aired late at night, and it struggled to find viewers. The next week, Stone confronted his student. It was the middle of the night in Los Angeles, where TMZ is based, so a message was left on the tip line. Laura Wasser, a divorce attorney, was the Disso-Queen. Most read in Entertainment. Literally, that video made Kim.. He was 82. Oslin, died Dec. 21. The Brian Eno and Cocteau Twins collaborator was 84 years old. TMZ personality Harvey Levin interviews big name celebrities and newsmakers in this new Sunday night series. (The Web site is wholly owned by Warner Bros., but Levin is an executive producer of TMZs TV shows. The comic posted a 17 . Palmer and Rice, a running back for the Baltimore Ravens, were arguing as the doors slid shut. On the website, we are posting more stories than we have in years. Telepictures offered Levin the opportunity to run the site. There was silence across the office. Rosenblum later said that the Gibson story put us on the map, but the Richards video made us what we are.. Josh Levine, TMZs first cameraman, told me that, once the site became successful, many publicists changed their strategy. TMZ resembles an intelligence agency as much as a news organization. Harvey Robert Levin [1] (born September 2, 1950) is an American television producer, legal analyst, celebrity reporter, and former lawyer. ), Dozens of current and former employees characterized the TMZ offices as an uncomfortable workplace. At least one employee of Delta Airlines supplies TMZ with the names and itineraries of celebrity passengers travelling through Los Angeles and New York. 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. If there were gaps in your stories, if you didnt have enough detail, if he wanted another question answered, he would fly off the handle, a former news-desk reporter told me. She also sent Blatt text messages she had exchanged with Odom: My manager said she would personally pick you up in a unmarked car back to a closed off room so no one will see you or know youre here. (Odom replied, Im ready for that car! Simmons was hospitalized for indigestion and said that he felt under the weather. Scanning the menu, Blatt recalled coming to Craigs one night with his fiance, a model in the adult-entertainment business, and spotting Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, dining with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. In 2014, Taryn Hillin, a former TMZ writer, took legal action, alleging sexual discrimination and unlawful termination. He wrote on social media of his diagnosis on April 6, but he did not recover. Our mission was to be aspirationalsomething that was pretty, shot in a certain kind of light, people looking good. Grammy-winning country singer K.T. producer Joel Rogosin died of coronavirus at the MPTF nursing home. ), The attention that Levin receives is not always so adulatory. There is so much material. I was on my motorcycle and there were, like, twenty-five other cars, all paps, weaving in and out of traffic, running red lights. The stories that were being told werent real, he said, in a 2009 interview. (The tours are managed by Andy Mauer, Levins chiropractor partner.) did not seem especially determined to find out. Some stars call ahead with their location, and then act surprised when the bus drives by. and is being treated for an aneurysm that was located near his heart . The station issued what the Los Angeles Times called an extraordinary public apology., Levin went on the air and said, We made a mistake, we know how it was made, weve corrected it, and it is something that will not happen again. He added, I stand on my record and the stories that Ive broken.