EXCLUSIVE: Why Anna Nicole Is NOT a Celeb Weekly Cover Story in 2009

The suspicious death of Anna Nicole Smith in 2007 resulted in multiple celebrity weekly covers.

However, when Howard K. Stern and two of Anna Nicole Smith’s doctors were accused of supporting her drug addiction, the celebrity weeklies decided against making Anna Nicole a major cover topic.

CoverAwards spoke exclusively to Star Magazine’s Editor in Chief Candace Trunzo and Life & Style Weekly’s Editor in Chief Dan Wakeford who provided insider perspective on why this is the case.

“The suspicions about [Howard K.] Stern and Anna’s Nicole’s two doctors were raised at the time of her death, so readers were neither surprised nor shocked by the new developments,” explains Trunzo.

She adds that this is “a story worthy of coverage inside Star, but not the cover.”

Wakeford pointed to the general mood of the country as a reason why Anna Nicole was not a main cover topic.

“In these economic conditions readers want to be a little bit more comforted with their celebrity news than before,” says Wakeford.  “The upsetting details of a two year old gruesome case don’t draw in readers on the newsstand at the moment.”