Guess Who's all Wet?

Some pistol-packing paparazzi soaked stars Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams at the Australian red carpet premiere of Brokeback Mountain over the weekend. Seems like Heath has pissed off some of the camera jockeys by spitting at them at some previous event, and they were out for revenge.

"It's true that he's misbehaved for the past 18 months but he won't do it again in a hurry," said photographer Peter Carrette. "...I hope that Heath learns some manners out of it and that he will learn that in this profession it's a two-way street."

While Ledger didn't respond he may be pressing charges and the studio says the cameraman will never get accreditation again. Responds the man with the license to spray: "I put out [photographs] to 56 countries of the world and if they don't need that sort of publicity ... they're cutting off their noses to spite their face."

Which raises an interesting relationship -- the unspoken one between the paparazzi, the tabloids and celebrities. They need each other, feed off each other and wouldn't exist without each other. Sure celebrities complain about their presence and talk about how their privacy gets invaded, but without them they would disappear between films, and the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

It is a two-way street. Stars (and their handlers) want red carpet photographs, they want to be fawned over during press junkets and so they complain, but not too much. And they release personal details as payment. Why else would Brad and Angelina and now Gwyneth announce pregnancies, would Eminem's publicist confirm that he got married over the weekend?

Celebs don't have to talk about this stuff. They don't have to confirm or deny or say anything. The tabs will suss it out on their own and some would say they write whatever they want. So why do they do it? Because they want to. It's easy to forget the paparazzi and celebrities work in the same business -- one just makes a little bit more.