Star

Star is presented in the diaries as a prominent celebrity publication: its covers helped set the visible agenda of entertainment news, while its stories could turn private details into public gossip. The entries show its reach through both the nationwide attention around Rock Hudson and Cher’s dismay at a story about herself.

Covers and Celebrity News

In August 1985, Star was one of several major publications with Rock Hudson on its cover, alongside The National Enquirer, People, Newsweek, and Time. Andy Warhol remarked that Interview should have put Hudson on its own cover, imagining a deliberately phony interview that would play against the newsstand coverage. The observation presents Star as part of a crowded, highly visible field of celebrity reporting, while also revealing how Warhol measured Interview against its competitors.

A Story About Cher

At Cher’s home, a copy of Star became the focus of a group’s attention. Its story claimed that Cher never bathed and advertised a forthcoming account of her meeting with Jackie Kennedy. Cher was upset by the bathing claim; the diary records that everyone ended up reading the story, though no one asked her about the promised meeting. The episode shows a celebrity story moving from print into a social gathering, where the subject had to encounter its claims among friends and guests.

Publicity and Private Life

Star’s appearances in these entries connect celebrity coverage to both spectacle and discomfort. Rock Hudson’s cover presence was part of a broad newsstand event that Warhol considered an opportunity for Interview, while the article about Cher made gossip tangible in her own home. Together, the references suggest the magazine’s role in a media culture where celebrity visibility could be commercially useful, entertaining, and personally intrusive.