Now it can be told! Carlsbad writer reveals secrets of celebrity gossip hounds in 'Tabloid Prodigy'

By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer | Saturday, May 12, 2007 7:20 PM PDT ∞

Marlise Kast knows how to get the dirt.

For three years, the Carlsbad resident was a staff writer for the Globe tabloid, a job that saw her hiding in bushes, crashing weddings and repeatedly misrepresenting herself to sources, all to get the scoop on celebrity lives. In a short career that began in 1997 at age 21, Kast wrote about 200 celebrity stories, making her one of the Globe's most prolific undercover celebrity reporters.

The stories about how she got those stories, however, may be the most intriguing of all. Kast exposes the exposers in her book, "Tabloid Prodigy," ($24.95, Running Press).

"It's not so much a story of celebrities, but a story of redemption," she said.

Kast admits she was young and inexperienced when the Globe hired her. But in the wake of the death of Princess Diana, whose fatal car accident came as her driver was being pursued by paparazzi, tabloids were desperate for new writers and new sources, Kast said.

It also didn't hurt that Kast had briefly worked as a production assistant, putting her at least on the periphery of Hollywood. Fresh out of Santa Barbara's Westmont College with a double major in English and communications, Kast also was hungry and ambitious when she answered an ad the Globe had posted for a writing job.

At $200 a day, the money was good for a young writer, but not secure. Kast was on a day-by-day basis until she could prove she could find stories, and the Globe offered little training other than telling her to read up on gossip magazines.

After impressing her editor by turning a mundane animal feature into a story that painted a bear as a pampered Hollywood star, Kast landed an assignment as part of a team of reporters crashing William Shatner's wedding.

After the other Globe reporters failed to get in, Kast found her way into the reception by posing as a drunken guest squatting in the bushes. Hardly the most glamorous entrance into the celebrity world, but it worked.

When not trying to slip through the back door or taking grainy photos with a camera tucked up her sleeve, Kast got her leads in a more direct way: She paid off her sources. Sometimes, she found them lying in wait to take tabloid money.

Following a lead that actor Don Johnson had been frequenting pornography shops in San Francisco, Kast, the daughter of missionaries, visited about two dozen adult stores before meeting a clerk willing to talk. After she introduced herself as a reporter, he produced a shoebox with a video tape of Johnson shopping and receipts from his purchases of gay pornography, she wrote in her book.

"I was just wondering how long it would take before the tabloids finally came in," she quoted him as saying.

Kast staked out Leonardo DiCaprio at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood, where she moved in after hearing DiCaprio was staying there with a young man. Kast paid one employee $5,000 for information and paid a maid $10,000.

Tabloid skeptics who think people will say anything for money might be surprised to learn that those checks sometime come with a lie-detector test and an obligation to sign a statement revealing themselves as the source if the publication is ever sued.

"If there's a high-risk involved, we needed three sources, and lie-detector tests," she said.

Although Kast said there was something curious about the relationships with DiCaprio and his friends, including Tobey McGuire, in the end, she said, there was more smoke than fire.

"To this day, I do not believe Leo is gay," she said. "I think that he's experimented, but he's been in too many relationships with women." She also doesn't believe McGuire is gay.

That did not stop her from writing a story with the headline, "Titanic Leo's Kinky Secret Life."

Kast did have reservations about writing a story about Madonna's weight gain. Although Kast trespassed and lied about her identity to get her information, she said she still believed what she wrote was true. The assignment about Madonna's weight gain, however, appeared to be based on a manipulated photo.

Fearing for her job, Kast wrote the story about a "Fat and 40" Madonna, who was considered a safe target, meaning a celebrity who will not sue the tabloid. To back up the story, Kast said she invented quotes from unnamed "pals" of Madonna, who speculated that she was putting on pounds because she changed her diet after becoming a mother.

Such celebrity "pals" are hairdressers, mechanics or other acquaintances whose names are on a list at the Globe office, Kast said. To make an easy $200, the "sources" would say they were the source of the quote if anyone were to ever ask.

Not everyone has a price, however.

"I once offered a friend of Monica Lewinsky's $50,000 if she'd give me e-mails she sent her in school," Kast said. "She looked me in the face and said, 'I'd never sell out my friend.'"

Kast quickly developed a thick skin while working at the Globe. After interviewing Carrie Fisher about her mental problems, Kast said she promised to write a sympathetic story about the actress. After editing, the Globe feature was about Fisher's stay in the "psycho ward."

"I had given my word that I'd be sympathetic," she said, admitting she felt she had betrayed Fisher. "It was a turning point. I had to see celebrities as headlines and not people. I had to look at it as a job and nothing else."

By the end of her career at the Globe, Kast said she felt she had jeopardized her morals. But it wasn't a moral crisis that led her to quit. After the Globe fell under the same ownership as the Star, National Enquirer and other tabloids, she said the job lost its sense of competitiveness.

After leaving the Globe, Kast lived abroad for several years and since has established a career as a mainstream journalist. Her work has appeared in travel and surf magazines and other publications, including the North County Times.

"My intention wasn't to destroy lives," she said. "I never wanted to destroy people."

Kast has several book-signings scheduled to promote "Tabloid Prodigy." She will appear 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Barnes & Noble, 10775 Westview Parkway in Carmel Mountain; 7 a.m. May 31 before the Rotary Club of Rancho Penasquitos; noon July 6 before the Rotary Club of Oceanside; 3 p.m. July 12 at the Aegis Living Center, 3012 Bear Valley Parkway in Escondido; and 1 p.m. July 16 before the Rotary Club of Fallbrook.

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.

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