In the world of celebrity, keeping on top of hook-ups,
break-ups, make-ups and everything in between can make a girl dizzy.
When celebrity couples are trading partners like a western hoe-down, it takes a special
kind of brain to elucidate exactly what they could be thinking. Luckily
enough for Canadian gossip fans our own smut interpreter has emerged on
the scene and released her “inner bitch.”
Elaine Lui, better
known to her gossip groupies as Lainey,
certainly did not plan a career in gossip for herself. In fact her
widely popular gossip blog and her
globe-trotting ETalk correspondent position were born out of something any daughter
can understand – temporary escape from her mother. While back in
her hometown of Toronto a couple of years ago to care for her mother
following surgery, Lainey kept in touch with
a couple of girlfriends via email, often including commentary on the
day’s celebrity gossip. “At the time, I was only ‘editorializing’ the gossip of the day,” Lui says. “I didn’t have my own
sources.” After nursing her mother, whom she often describes on
her site as an avid mahjong player with a “clucking
chicken” demeanor, a self deprecating jab at her Chinese-Canadian
heritage, Lui continued her gossipy emails.
Friends would forward them on to friends and soon her catty commentary
was so popular she made the next logical step and began posting on her
own website. Since launching three years ago, the site now receives
200,000 visitors per week (www.etalk.ca).
It’s hardly where Elaine imagined she
would be when she graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a degree in French and
History. “I certainly wasn’t the best student,” she
laughs into the phone, “probably because I didn’t apply
myself. I partied, I had fun. I mean, when you are 18 and you have to
choose a major, you find yourself really directionless.” After a
series of jobs and what she calls “crazy love” upon meeting
her husband in Vancouver, she decided to put down
roots out west. After returning home from caring for her mother, Lui took a job with Vancouver’s Covenant House and
kept up her smutty hobby on the side.
“It’s all about balance,” Lui says when questioned about her seemingly
contrasting pursuits. “Everybody needs balance. We were doing
heavy work at Covenant House and to keep things light I had the emails.”
She goes on to explain that since the success of the website
she’s had to leave her full-time job at Covenant House but stays
involved in order to keep things in perspective—for when it comes
to balance among the Hollywood elite that Lui
follows, the trend is more macrobiotic feng shui and much less real world mental harmony.
“They live in an alternate
world,” she says, where everlasting love is a choice and
celebrities often have to trade off on their personal life to create an
image for success. “That’s exactly what happened with Brad
and Jen,” Lui explains in her
matter-of-fact tone. “Their entire relationship was based on her
being everybody’s sweetheart, America’s Rachel
Green.” Lainey’s favourite couple of the moment? “It’s
got to be Brad and Angelina Jolie. They are
the celebrity couple of our time, the way they have captured the public
interest. Their sexual chemistry is just palpable, they’re
actors, they’re humanitarians and they live this life of
intrigue. They’re fucking sexy!” she exclaims, managing to
gush without compromising her smutty integrity. “I’ll be
honest with you,” she goes on, “that given the choice
between world peace and watching them making love, I would have a hard
time choosing.”
Lainey scoffs at the idea that
celebrity couples are felled by the spotlight. J-Lo and Marc Anthony
are an example she points to immediately. “If you chart the
progress of their marriage, they disappeared for awhile. She’s
not in your face anymore, the way she was during Bennifer.
Sure, she’s released a Spanish album, but who really
cares?” Celebrities choose to walk the fine line between
exploitation and reality, she explains, and that’s where she
comes in.
“My focus has always been on the
commentary,” Lui points out. “I want
it to be sharp, smart people’s gossip.” Since her launch on
the World Wide Web, she's been able to form a tight group of trusted
sources, allowing her to break stories before anyone else. However, the
fun for her still lies in the bitchy tone of the site, where the celebs of the day are skewered and roasted for Lainey’s adoring fellow gossips.
Before we hang up, in the romantic spirit of
the month, I ask, is there anything we can learn from these people and
their many, many mistakes? Lui laughs.
“God no!”
