When it comes to trashy celeb chicks, the Brits out-Hilton our Paris

Forget Paris
The most transfixingly trashy tabloid stars can be found in the UK
By Rachel Shukert/Nerve.com

The British are classier than us. It's a simple rule of thumb, grudgingly accepted, by most Americans. Accordingly, the American idea of a British celebrity is of a notable whose inherent talent, integrity, and dedication to their craft, whatever that may be, lies unquestioned. For the most part, the Brits have obliged us. They've thrown open the hallowed gates of the RSC, sending countless Sirs and Dames and OBEs to our graceless shores, to sweep our Oscar nominations, litter our stages and portray our historical figures — FDR, Nixon, Dr. Greg House — with a gravitas no mere Yank could possess. Serious actors, serious about their place in the world, they will never be asked to describe their fitness regime or address plastic-surgery rumors in a magazine interview, nor will their genitalia be glimpsed, let alone photographed, as they alight from a limousine (I am, of course, excluding Kate Beckinsale from the former category, and Sienna Miller from the latter.)

Even when caught doing something unsavory, Her Majesty's subjects weather the storm with enviable panache. Hugh Grant is caught with a hooker and comes off like an adorably naughty schoolboy; Eddie Murphy simply tries to lend one a "helping hand"and is immediately branded a desperate, half-crazed tranny chaser. Kate Moss is videotaped doing blow in a recording studio; does she immediately commence a round of self-flagellating talk show appearances, culminating in a Vanity Fair exclusive detailing her emotionally traumatic childhood and ensuing lack of self-worth? No. She keeps her fucking mouth shut, makes more money than ever before, and after the compulsory stint in rehab, immediately resumes her place as one-half of the most cracked-out, co-dependent power couple since Bobby and Whitney. Such are the genes that rode out the Blitz.

But spend an hour or two browsing through the British tabloids, and a different story emerges. Unlike our own gossip rags, which keep the different types of celebrity respectfully separate (one will rarely see a Julianne Moore sharing cover space with the likes of Kevin Federline), the U.K. publications tend to chuck them all together in one irreverent, Gucci-covered heap. On one page, a color photo of Sir Ben Kingsley having a chuckle with the Countess of Wessex; on the other, a former stripper wearing but three strategically placed belts, a reality-TV star who has expressed ignorance at the existence of asparagus, and an extremely tan woman of many talents, the greatest being the ability to remain upright despite having a pair of breasts equal in size to roughly four of Pamela Anderson's.

They are the Three Graces of the British tabloids, products of a country that has managed to yield both Dame Maggie Smith and Jack the Ripper. They are women so ferociously exhibitionist that Paris Hilton could post a film of her own pelvic exam on YouTube and seem positively demure in comparison. I am speaking, of course, of Jodie Marsh, Jade Goody, and the incomparable Jordan.

Jordan was once a simple Sussex girl, who on the suggestion of a friend, blundered into the world of "glamour modeling" — a charmingly genteel term for what we in the States call "titty mags" — and almost at once, skyrocketed to fame on "Page Three,", a feature in the U.K. tabloid The Sun . Jordan's notoriety quickly grew, along with her bra size (after a series of augmentations, she grew from an estimated 32B to a mind-boggling, 34 FF). When questioned, she was typically philosophical: "Some people may be famous for inventing the pencil sharpener. I'm famous for my tits." She entered into a series of surprisingly high-profile relationships with footballers and TV gladiators, and perhaps most famously singer Dane Bowers of the British boy-band Another Level. Their relationship ended with a highly publicized abortion, and a suicide attempt she later admitted to The Scotsman may have been just the teensiest bit self-serving: "It was probably just to get attention. Stupid. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone." Naturally, she blamed Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham, who was recording a duet with Bowers at the time. Posh (who, in the interest of transparency, this writer must admit is her single favorite celebrity) was livid, and even more so when her husband David admitted sheepishly to the press that he had "a bit of a crush on Jordan."While he later insisted he was quoted out of context, many in the tabloid press wondered if Victoria's suddenly inflated cleavage didn't have the teensiest bit to do with Jordan.

But Jordan's image in the media began to recover. Her son Harvey, from her volatile relationship with footballer Dwight Yorke, was not only biracial, but blind and autistic (take that, Angelina!) She was diagnosed with finger cancer. She resumed using her given name, Katie Price. She married the Australian singer Peter Andre after they fell in love on the U.K. version of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! (during which she also irreversibly alienated John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten — ah, how the mighty have fallen!) She gave birth to their son, Junior, via televised C-section on their subsequent reality show, When Jordan Met Peter , and sure, while that sounds tacky, it was actually kind of sweet.

And lo, the mantle of England's Trashy Fame-Whore-in-Chief passed to Jordan's longtime rival, Jodie Marsh.
Jodie Marsh seems to exist for one reason alone: to out-skank the glory that once was Jordan. Though she too has a appeared on "Page Three " and in a few reality shows — she was the first contestant to be evicted on Celebrity Big Brother , and was a particular target of former Labour MP and possible psychotic George Galloway — she is best-known for appearing in public wearing outfits that would seem immodest at a leather party: harnesses that cut painfully into her giant boobs, chaps and, and most famously, at an FHM party in 2004, nothing but three strategically placed, diamond-encrusted belts. She has made her predilection for group sex well known to the media (she participated in a threesome relationship with two men; and a story involving four different men, another woman, and a barn has gotten particular play). She also enjoys a long-standing public feud with Jordan, who, with typically Dickensian alacrity, has likened Jodie's nose to a "builder's elbow" and her breasts to "a spaniel's ears." Jodie, who thanks to her high-school academic record is supposed to be the smart one, managed only to retort that her rival's nose was "hooked like a witch."

If, on account of their mutual loathing, Jordan and Jodie are Britain's answer to Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan times infinity, Jade Goody is its Jessica Simpson. Not because she is a singer; as of this writing, she isn't. Not because she has a creepy dad; though hers abandoned her as a baby and is currently in prison, he can't touch Joe Simpson. Not because she shot to fame on a reality series (the UK Big Brother ), not because she is often held up as the quintessential arbitrary, irrelevant celebrity foisted on the public by the entertainment industry, and not because she launched a spectacularly inane fragrance line — the hilariously named Shhh...

No. To truly understand Jade Goody, it's best to let her speak for herself.

On farming: "What's asparagus? Do you grow it?"

On self-esteem: "I am intelligent, but I let myself down because I can't speak properly or spell."

On the U.S.: "They do speak English there, don't they?"

On art: "It's the Mona Lisa that's symmetrical, innit?"

And finally, on peacocks: "Don't think I'm daft, but them things that look like eyes, are they them real eyes?"

But unlike the inimitable Ms. Simpson, Jade Goody is more than just a bundle of adorably illiterate malapropisms. She has amassed a fortune of roughly $7 million simply by presenting and appearing on reality shows — Celebrity Wife Swap, Celebrity Driving School, Back to Reality, Celebrity Stars in Their Eyes , and most recently Jade Goody's Diary , which is sure to rival that of Samuel Pepys in capturing the zeitgeist of the British society of the time. In October, suffering the stomach pain that often accompanies a sudden dip in media coverage, Jade underwent emergency screening for colon cancer (in U.K. speak, "bowel cancer," a term at once deliciously visceral yet vague). When the prevailing medical opinion was that her abdominal pain was probably the result of a few nasty kebabs, Jade let her anger out by slugging a grandmother in the face at the cinema, in a fracas possibly instigated by her nineteen-year-old lover, Jack Tweedy (she has since broke things off with him, after several tabloid photographs surfaced of him in the embrace of a naked blonde, speculated by some snarkier British gossip blogs to be celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.) The granny, surely the kind of woman who lives in a flat decorated with Royal Wedding memorabilia and serves her guests tea from charmingly mismatched floral china, had this to say about Goody: "She called me a fat cunt. I used to like her from the telly but now I think she's a pig-faced thug."

While she may not be exactly what Antonin Artaud had in mind when he first floated the idea of living one's life as a work of art, Jade Goody is nevertheless the epitome of arbitrary renown; the ne plus ultra of commercialized insta-fame. As Henry V was the perfect English warrior-king, so Jade Goody is the perfect English tabloid celebrity.

This is all not as incongruous as it appears. While it may seem that America has exported its penchant for inexplicable celebrity to the U.K., perhaps it is the other way around, yet another symptom of what President Bush calls "our special relationship" to the mother country. For whatever its other strengths, Britain is not, and has never been, a meritocracy, but a place where a seat in Parliament, a title, a throne can arrive through the most arbitrary means of all. Britain has always had undeserving public figures — they used to be called the nobility. Earls, viscounts, barons, rendered barely functional by centuries of inbreeding were the original celebrity class, twittering away in their stately homes, guaranteed a life of privilege and the ear of power through an accident of birth. With that kind of historical perspective, it's hard not to root for the self-made Jordans of the world. At least a little bit.