As Bella Hadid Tackles 'Untrue' Blind Items About Her Life, TikTok's Celebrity Obsession Is Becoming A Misinformation Minefield
False allegations can ruin lives and careers of celebrities too.
TikTok, Instagram, lev radin / Shutterstock Bella Hadid is hitting back against TikTok's 'blind item' obsession by shutting down some out-there speculation about her life and, by doing so, she's inadvertently sparked a debate about the virtues and drawbacks of this controversial form of celebrity gossip.
Although some celebrities have defended themselves against allegations formulated about them and their careers, slamming them as “untrue.” Hadid is the latest star to become victim of this false celebrity gossip, otherwise known as “blind items” and she is claiming that the most recent stories about her do not have an ounce of truth to them.
What is a 'blind item' on TikTok?
If you’re an avid TikTok user, you’ve most likely heard of the term “blind items,” which are unverified information and claims about celebrities, often salacious and difficult to prove.
Blind items are anonymous claims about celebrities that are not fact-checked or supported with evidence.
These blind items can be rumors about their personal lives, their loved ones and their careers, and can sometimes result in significant harm to their image, especially if they are untrue.
Blind items didn't begin on TikTok, in fact, they predate the app by quite a few years, but they have become more prolific on the platform and there are now several creators who dedicate their entire accounts to posting celebrity blind items, which often make it to news outlets and have fans buzzing about unverified information.
Blind items first emerged in the 00s with the gossip blog 'Crazy Days & Nights' being credited with their earliest popularization.
“Crazy Days & Nights,” is largely considered to be the originator of the medium. Since its inception, the site has been sharing celebrity drama without ever name-dropping the stars they were referring to. Instead, the blog — and others similar to it — use code names, descriptions and a couple of well-placed clues to insinuate who the claims are about without entering a legal grey-area.
The creator of “Crazy Days and Nights” who is only known as “Enty,” revealed to Vanity Fair in 2016 that celebrities have written to him regarding a blind item that they believed was about them, and wound up giving another blind item to him in the process. After a while, more blind items sites began to rise, and they did not hold back on concealing the identities of celebrities.
Perhaps one of the most popular celebrity gossip blind content creators today is DeuxMoi, an Instagram account run by an anonymous user who posts reader-submitted blind items about celebrities. Their sources are unidentified, however, the celebrities they refer to in their rumors are often not. With over 1 million Instagram followers, DeuxMoi has launched a podcast and entire career spilling allegations about celebrities' personal lives and careers that may or may not be true.
While us readers anxiously eat up these stories, they can pose a threat to the celebrities they are written about. To protect their statuses and jobs, some celebrities have spoken out against blind items about them.
Bella Hadid was quick to call out a blind item about her using drugs with Hailey Bieber as false.
In a two-and-a-half-minute-long TikTok video, user @celebriteablinds claimed that unverified sources had alleged to her privately that the 26-year-old model went on a “coke bender” with Hailey Bieber in January 2022. The video is the ninth video of a ten-part segment that revealed blind items about Hadid and other celebrities allegedly close to her.
Other claims in the video revealed that Hadid bragged about “living off of cigarettes and water” in February 2022 leading up to her appearance at Milan Fashion Week and that she and her boyfriend, art director Marc Kalman, were taking Oxycontin on an international flight to “ease heroin withdrawals.”
The allegations in the video were far-reaching, damaging and, according to Hadid herself, entirely untrue.
“There was not one true thing said in this video,” the model quipped back in a comment from her personal TikTok profile. While she claims that the blind items revealed about her are false, the original poster of the video tells a different story.
The TikTok user doubled down and suggested the claims about Bella Hadid are true.
She shares that Enty of “Crazy Days & Nights” has posted the same blind items regarding Hadid. “He usually says that when celebrities reach out to him regarding their blind items, it’s usually because they’re trying to get ahead of it and because it’s actually true,” she claims.
“With this many blind items saying the same things, do we really believe that none of it is true?”
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The case the TikTok user is trying to make lacks weight. Since the earliest creation of celebrity tabloids, it has been possible to sell stories about celebrities if enough evidence can be provided. Blind items have and always will exist to serve those who want to make claims but do not have any proof.
And as these submissions become more prolific, they don't become more factual. In fact, having more blind items likely means there are more false claims rather than real ones.
As celebrity blinds become an increasingly fast-track to TikTok virality, the claims themselves are getting more and more salacious. Gigi Hadid has been accused of “hooking up” with Kendall Jenner after a source alleged, according to @celebriteablinds, that they were seen “sucking face” at a party.
Another celebrity blind items TikTok account, @thekylemarisa, alleged that unverified sources revealed to her that Justin Bieber’s cell phone was seized by police in 2014. The phone reportedly contained disturbing images of other celebrities, including Jaden Smith, Kylie and Kendall Jenner, Selena Gomez snorting cocaine and Will Smith exposing himself on camera.
Blind items could significantly damage Hollywood celebrities.
While not every celebrity like Bella Hadid engages in the time or effort to respond to these blind items in an attempt to clear their names does not mean that these rumors are not harmful to their personal lives and careers.
For example, a blind item allegedly that a certain celebrity couple is secretly pregnant while they may actually be struggling with infertility can have a significant negative impact on their well-being. A blind item alleging that a certain movie actor harassed their crew members could have detrimental effects on their future career.
While it may just be sources of entertainment and gossip for us could have life-altering complications for some of our favorite Hollywood celebrities who are just as human as we are.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.