‘Fame Junkie' Stars Have Psych Woes, Shrink Says

Celebrities like Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who sell their stories and photos to magazines may have a "mental disorder," a top shrink claimed last night.  

According to The New York Post, Clinical psychologist Oliver James said many superstars need to constantly reaffirm their fame.  

"They need the sense of validation. They need the sense that they're important, and they want everybody else to know just how important they are," James told the ITV network in London.  

"Celebrities like appearing in magazines because the great majority have actually got a mental disorder."  

His comments come after Zeta-Jones and Douglas sold the rights to photograph their wedding to OK! magazine in Britain.  

Yesterday, the couple won a court battle to ban OK!'s rival Hello! from the stands after it printed photos of the wedding secretly snapped by a guest.  

James, dismissing the idea that celebs who sell their stories do it for the money, said that stars who seek the spotlight often find their relationships in deep trouble.  

"What causes it is that the sort of people who would want their marriage recorded in that way, and shown to the whole public, are the sort of insecure people who have a very weak sense of self," he said.  

"They are exactly the sort of people who would say, ‘I've made a terrible mistake. I need to be married to someone else.'  

"And then after a bit, ‘I made another terrible mistake. I need to be married to somebody else,' and so on and so on."  

Welsh beauty Zeta-Jones and Hollywood superstar Douglas, now honeymooning in the Bahamas, struck a $1.5 million deal with OK! for exclusive pictures of their wedding at The Plaza hotel over the weekend.  

Guests were told not to bring cameras, and were searched on arrival.  

But when Hello! hit the stands Monday night, it contained "exclusive" photographs of the couple.  

The newlyweds and OK! applied for an injunction in London, saying their privacy had been violated - but were too late to stop 15,750 copies from being sold.  

A London judge ordered the remaining 740,000 copies withdrawn. Hello! is trying to get the ruling overturned.  

The magazine’s lawyer, Michael Silverleaf, said Douglas and Zeta-Jones had made the wedding a media event by selling the rights to a magazine, so couldn't claim the right to protection of their private and family life.  

Hello! bought the photos from a photo agency, Silverleaf said. – Albawaba.com. 

© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com [1])