Kara Kennedy

‘I am kind, I have a big heart, I’m an Aquarius. I love animals and I’m shy. I’m a tomboy. I’m an undercover nerd. I love cartoons and I’m a girl’s girl,’ says Paris Hilton at the start of Archetypes, Meghan Markle’s podcast about ‘dissecting labels’. This time the label is ‘bimbo,’ and with an intro like that, it’s good to see that Paris doesn’t feel the need to play into the bimbo trope. Meghan helpfully adds that ‘you may not have quite picked up on my voice. It’s Paris Hilton, the real Paris Hilton, not the archetype that you’ve come to know for so long.’ Thanks, Meghan!

Neighbours make or break home ownership. Getting home from a long day and collapsing onto the couch doesn’t have the same ring to it as when you have John next door blasting loud music. Or Sally tottering over to reprimand you because your dog did the dirty on her lawn. Residents in Ranch Hope, an exclusive neighbourhood in California, are up in arms because they have two A-listers who want to join their community. You’d think that rich celebs would be welcomed, driving up house prices and bringing a certain prestige to the town. But this is Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. Fresh from losing their crusade to take over Hollywood, the pair are being driven out before they’ve even hired the moving vans.

What does it mean to be an A-list Hollywood power couple? Celebrity, yes, but also respect. Look at George and Amal Clooney, a high-powered heartthrob and his equally high-powered human-rights-lawyer wife. Or look at Beyoncé and Jay-Z, hip-hop royalty and dedicated philanthropists. You and your partner can buy a mansion in the right zip code, hang out with the right people and say the right things at the right charity events, but that doesn’t make you a Hollywood power couple. Modern-day stardom is about more than name recognition. It takes charisma, dedication and charm. For all their striving, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle just don’t have it. Britain has realised this — and Hollywood is starting to realise it too.

Let me start by saying that this is not a defence of Ghislaine Maxwell, the part-time girlfriend, part-time sexual fixer for the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. How could it be? The New York judge that sentenced her to 20 years in prison earlier this week said that she played a ‘pivotal’ role in supplying girls for Epstein to abuse. She was integral to one of the largest and most prodigious sex-trafficking rings in US history. Ghislaine was undoubtedly a perpetrator – but no one quite wants to admit that she might have been a victim too. The disgraced socialite, dressed in prison overalls and ankle chains, told the court: ‘My association with Epstein will permanently stain me. It is the biggest regret of my life that I ever met him.

Katie Price has, yet again, avoided prison. She was up at Lewes Crown Court on Friday, this time for breaching a restraining order; from what I can work out from the asterisks-laden news reports, she had texted her ex-husband’s fiancée, calling her a ‘gutter slag’. As an avid Katie Price fan, I have watched the last few years of her life unfold through my fingers. In between her facelifts, numerous reality TV shows and her eight engagements, a week rarely goes by without her being in the headlines for something serious. Over the last decade she has been banned from driving six times and earlier this year she dodged prison after failing to repay £3.2 million in debt by declaring herself bankrupt. Where did it all go wrong?

The thought of Love Island starting tonight gives me that same fuzzy feeling I had as a child when I lost a tooth, aware that I’d be waking up a slightly richer woman. I realised after years of turning my nose up at the show that – once you get past the initial guilt – watching trivial nonsense is a bit of a sugar rush. All your friends are watching and, crucially, badmouthing, the young 20-somethings prancing across our screens each night. Love Island is a moral vacuum, one that much of the nation loves being sucked into. Good manners are cast out the villa window and what is frowned upon in the real world – infidelity, nastiness and misogyny – is amped up, even celebrated.

Why has the Wagatha Christie case – the libel trial between Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy – so captured the public imagination? Perhaps the answer is that it is a brief, exhilarating reminder of a bygone tabloid age – a time when footballers' wives really could dominate the news.  Let's go back to the 2006 Germany World Cup, when an assortment of wives and girlfriends of Britain’s top footballers spent much of the tournament lounging by a hotel pool in Baden-Baden, south west Germany. The staff, wary of paparazzi attempts to snap their high-profile guests, decided to put up screens to protect their privacy.

In a society obsessed with labels, we are surrounded by amateur psychologists at every turn. Low attention span? ADHD! Social awkwardness? You’re probably on the spectrum. Had an argument with your partner? Maybe he’s a gaslighting narcissist. You’d be lucky to have a mid-afternoon drink without whispers that you're an alcoholic. The West's obsession with diagnosing disorders reveals a need to blame someone, or something, for our actions. And yet I can’t help but wonder whether we’re watching someone showing real signs of psychological distress and choosing to ignore it. Just look at Britney Spears. Her latest Instagram selfie shows her totally starkers, save for a small pulsating love heart emoji over her bits and pieces.

It’s a fact of life that at any given time, a woman’s social media messages will be filled with three things. Young Ponzi schemers asking if you want to earn £500-a-month from the comfort of your own sofa; an unknown jewellery brand with 15 followers begging you to be their new ‘brand ambassador’; and blurry photos of a man’s penis. The men who send these pictures are weirdos, obviously. But if the government gets its way, soon they’ll also be criminals. The Online Safety Bill, going through parliament today, makes so-called ‘cyberflashing’ a criminal offence.