Holiday announcement 'is a time-honored celeb tradition. It gets buried a bit because of all the year-end news,' celebrity-news editor says.
By Jocelyn Vena
Katy Perry at 2010 VMA's in Los Angeles
Photo: WireImage
Katy Perry and Russell Brand might have decided to announce their divorce over the weekend for a good reason. Celebrity-news experts explain to MTV News why celebs choose to make big announcements on holidays.
David Caplan, a celebrity-news editor who has worked at People and Star, noted that confirming separations during a busy time falls under "PR 101." "Burying a celeb split over a holiday is a time-honored celeb tradition, really kicked off by Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey back in the day, when they finally split and announced it the night before Thanksgiving," he explained. "It's a smart tactical move on their end, as it gets buried a bit because of all the year-end news." See a timeline of Katy Perry and Russell Brand's relationship. Caplan added that it's not just about a slower news cycle, but also a slower work schedule for those in the celebrities' inner circle and those who get paid to follow celeb news. "From a logistics point of view, news outlets, particularly the celebrity media, are either shut down or working with a skeletal staff, so pursuing the story and advancing it is difficult since it simply means there are less reporters available to dig further and to disseminate the story to the public," he noted. "Plus, celeb publicists are typically not too available over a holiday, which makes getting info harder for the journalist, which means less gets disseminated to the public. "And the less that gets disseminated to the public, particularly anything that Katy or Russell's publicists didn't send out, the happier Katy and Russell are, since they're, in a way, controlling the flow and content of information about their split to the public." While more details begin to leak from inside their now-defunct relationship, one expert explained that it's only a matter of time before even more specifics come out. "Holidays are always the time when celebs think they bury bad news, but those days are over," explained Rob Shuter, columnist for HuffPost Celebrity. "Now the news cycle is 24/7, 365 days a year. I'm sure over the next few weeks, we will all know exactly what went wrong." Perry and Brand announced their split Friday, after one year of marriage. While Brand released a statement about the separation, as of press time, Perry had yet to speak about it.
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