How did I get started? I am a fundraiser by profession - I raise money for social services. I was with the University of British Columbia and then I moved to Covenant House Vancouver, where I was a development officer. I had left UBC to take care of my mom (she had a kidney transplant) so when I was between jobs, I ended up sending two girlfriends a daily e-mail updating them on Hollywood happenings, just because I've been a pop culture junkie my whole life and I used to sit with them in the office and regale them with updates as to what the celebrities were doing.

When I left, they felt that they were missing that and said 'send us an e-mail everyday.' Because I wasn't doing anything, I sent them an e-mail everyday and they started sending it to their friends, who started sending it to their friends. Pretty soon, I had literally thousands of people on this e-mail distribution list, and it crashed the server. So, on a lark, I said, 'okay, maybe I'll start this website.'

We have a friend who is a web designer, and he set up this basic website for me. As soon as I was out on the Internet, it became more acceptable and reached more and more people. That's how people who are in the business or tied to the business started coming forward as sources. About five months after the website launched, eTALK called and they were interested in bringing me on as gossip correspondent and it went from there.

I don't know if it happened really quickly, but it obviously happened very unexpectedly, and I'm extremely honored and grateful for the fact there are some people who have been reading it since it started as an e-mail. That would be three or four years now, so it's really encouraging.

I'm a reporter for eTALK, and I'm also a celebrity blogger, but I'm not really in the celebrity world - nor do I have any aspirations to be. I don't want to live in Los Angeles, I don't want to live in New York - most of my website is editorializing celebrity stories. Obviously a significant, though small, part of it is breaking stories, but a lot of it has to with my voice and how I position these stories.

I can tell you when I'm wearing my reporter hat for eTALK, it's a game. I ask a question that you're expecting, you give me an answer I'm expecting.

eTALK sent me to Cannes, and being the smut hound that I am, I naturally bugged around Cannes to look for smut. When I found myself in those situations, it was just interesting being an observer.

I don't think any of us, at least the rational ones - and I'm talking about my typical reader: Somebody who is a professional, has a job, is educated, is informed and likes celebrity gossip as a distraction but it isn't their whole being - I don't think "we" really want to be friends with celebrities. I think that it's fun for us to sit at arms length and sort of laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Of course, there are some celebrities that are an honor to meet because of who they are, and those ones very rarely disappoint you. But I wouldn't say that I'm living in that world or that I'm approaching that world, because I do have a regular existence in Vancouver.

Celebrity gossip can certainly be harmful in the way that it's told, in the way that it's sold and reported. I myself have a certain line, and that line is my line. It might not be your line or anybody else's line, but I try and stick to it.

For example, I have never, ever reported on my website on Anna Nicole Smith. To me, that's what I classify as 'sad smut.' Similarly, this situation with Amy Winehouse; I announced last week that I would no longer talk about Amy Winhouse unless she cleans herself up because it sort of descended into a disturbing situation. This is clearly a girl who has struggled with demons all her life, and it's really not in a fame-whoring kind of way like the Britneys and Lindsays.

As screwed up and as f*cked up as Britney and Lindsay are, there's a certain absurdity, a caricature-like quality about them that makes it almost comical to talk about. With Amy Winehouse and Anna Nicole Smith, that situation was so sordid; it was so unsavory that it didn't taste right, so I didn't go there. To a certain extent, this Owen Wilson situation is unsavory as well.

Suicide is no laughing matter, and although I know the reasons - I do have sources that are able to tell me what they were - I prefer not to talk about it. This is clearly a guy who doesn't live to be in the spotlight like Paris Hilton does, so it's not really an open season market for me.

To me, it can be hurtful for tabloids to go so deeply into the Anna Nicole type stories, and that's a personal decision I've made. I don't necessarily object to what they're doing; it's not my business to determine whose line should be drawn where, but it's certainly my business to determine where my own line is drawn.

I don't think I can offer anything profound about whether or not a situation like Owen Wilson's causes the industry to change. I can tell you that I'm not ever one of those people who blames the media for things that have happened and the way celebrity culture has evolved.

I will not do that, and I will fight tooth and nail with the people who blame the paparazzi or the media. We have to take a certain amount of ownership for that too - there is an appetite out there. It's very simple; it's supply and demand. There are people that want to know, so the question is why do we want to know? And that demand is fed; it's fed by celebrities themselves.

Jennifer Aniston...Jennifer Garner - these people exist because they want us to know that they exist. They've created an image for themselves (Jennifer Aniston is the good girl or the girl-next-door) so she will constantly peddle that out there. Then consequently, housewives and women everywhere will say to themselves 'Oh my God, I love Jen, she's so like me, I totally relate to her, I want to know more.'

An example of that is celebrities inviting people into their homes to be photographed. If you were really just an actor or a singer, what your house looks like has no bearing on that. These are people who know the game - they've spun the game accordingly, and they wanted to control it. Unfortunately, it spun out of control because once you've whet an appetite, you can't control that appetite.

I refuse to accept that whole accountability issue about our society being obsessed. It's Hollywood putting that out there. The dog isn't going to crave peanut butter unless I've introduced him to peanut butter!

Paris Hilton needs us. To say that the paparazzi is so bad is really naive, because how do you think they end up at these places? Do you think they actually live at the grocery store?

The way I write things, my readers know gossip is conjecture. I'm not out to be malicious for the sake of being malicious - these people are really putting themselves out there.