Is The Anonymous DeuxMoi Instagram Account Making Celebrity News Toxic Again?
The days of wild rumors, unverified sources, and celebs lashing out are back.
Motortion Films / Shutterstock The celebrity gossip Instagram page, DeuxMoi, is reviving invasive news culture and proving that fiction sells better than fact.
Back in the day, we would refresh TMZ for sneaky paparazzi shots of a celebrity newborn or look to Perez Hilton for the latest on a messy Hollywood breakup. Now we swipe through DeuxMoi’s Instagram story for sordid speculation before the mainstream media get hold of it.
The gossip account became a favorite for celebrity culture fans in 2020 who were otherwise starved of gossip. DeuxMoi, a private account that periodically accepts follow requests from the public, now has over 600,000 eager followers.
Each day, DeuxMoi posts screenshots of anonymous — and critical to state, unverified — tip-offs and tidbits of celebrity news from completely unverified sources to their Instagram story.
For 24 hours, or longer if the images are captured and reposted, these uncorroborated statements and farfetched theories from people claiming to be assistants, executives, and friends-of-friends to stars are consumed by fans and followers of the page.
The account has had its fair share of reputable tip-offs, to be sure: DeuxMoi speculated that Emily Ratajowski was pregnant almost a month before it was made public, and knew about Beyonce’s British Vogue cover weeks before it was released.
But they’ve also posted plenty of bizarre and intrusive rumors that open celebrities up to unnecessary scrutiny or even ridicule.
One submission to the account claimed Leonardo DiCaprio likes to wear headphones during sex while another alleged that Lori Harvey and Michael B. Jordan’s relationship is a PR stunt.
With little to no vetting process between someone submitting a statement anonymously and that statement getting sent out to the world, the page walks a fine line between celebrity news and a defamation case on an almost daily basis.
Given the propensity,social media has to “expose” and “cancel” famous faces, DeuxMoi could be recreating the invasive celebrity news cycle of the early 2000s on an even larger scale.
The rise, fall, and rise again of celebrity gossip
DeuxMoi didn’t invent celebrity gossip and,in the age of “fake news,” they certainly aren’t the only platform to use unreliable sources. But the account did tap into a new era of celebrity reporting that had been dying off since the 2010s.
Our obsession with famous people has been somewhat unfettered since the beginning of modern celebrity culture but how we consume and engage with celebrities was undergoing a revolution until DeuxMoi came along.
There was a time when paparazzi would stalk Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to capture the first images of their children or camp outside Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton’s homes to catch them partying.
Celebrity news was invasive, and the celebrities themselves were rarely in charge of the narratives.
Then, with the rise of social media and the oversaturation of mainstream celebrity reporting, the power dynamics shifted. Celebrities could give the illusion of letting fans in without having to share anything too private.
Gossip sites became less popular as fans could get all the celebrity news they needed from their idol’s Twitter or Instagram.
Celebrities took control and stories right out of the hands of these sites by making social media the home of pregnancy announcements, break-up posts, and notes app apologies.
This, alongside a series of defamation lawsuits against media outlets taken by Sean Penn and many others throughout the 2010s, made the world of celebrity gossip less of a playground for rumors and name-calling.
But the insurgence of Instagram accounts like DeuxMoi, TikTokRoom, and DietPrada have revived an appetite for celebrity gossip, this time with the added benefit of social media accessibility.
Now, instead of needing to have connections in TMZ or JustJared in order to sell a story, inventing a baseless celebrity rumor is never more than DM away.
The account does a decent job of warning followers about plausible deniability.
Their Instagram bio warns followers, “This account does not claim any information published is based in fact,” and their website, where a large amount of the submissions are made, features a lengthy statement relinquishing responsibility for anything wrongfully shared.
However, given that these stories are made to be screenshotted and reposted, often these warnings are drowned out by the shock factor of the submissions.
Equally, the account doesn’t make any effort to discourage followers from fabricating stories often causing backlash for celebrities unnecessarily.
Hailey Bieber became a target for DeuxMoi followers in late 2020 after an anonymous submission claimed she was driving a wedge between Justin Bieber and his family and a divorce was imminent.
She also warned the media about running stories about fabricated pregnancy rumors that began on DeuxMoi. The account had unintentionally made her the subject of unwanted attention.
Then Bieber shared that she thinks she uncovered who was behind the gossip account and, ever since, DeuxMoi has made no mention of the model.
But for other celebrities, who have had a welcome break from the spotlight amid stay-at-home orders, the account has revived a lack of respect for personal boundaries.
DeuxMoi sourced of an invasive screenshot of Mary-Kate Olsen and Olivier Sarkozy’s Zoom divorce proceedings, rumors of a Kourtney Kardashian-Travis Barker relationship began on the account, and their daily “Spotted” segment gives exact locations of A-listers at any given moment, ala Gawker Stalker back in the day.
The toxic culture of celebrity gossip that pushed stars like Britney Spears or Justin Bieber to breaking point lives on in the corners of social media and is finding a home on DeuxMoi — and voyeuristic viewers seem to be settling in just fine.
Alice Kelly is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. She is a generalist with an interest in lifestyle, entertainment, and trending topics.