Illustrated by Eddie Guy On April 3, TMZ held court with Rhode Island Rep. Seth Magaziner, who hosted a Real Housewives of Rhode Island watch party the night before. During the show, Harvey Levin radiated outrage, wondering if the watch party was the right message to send. Before the cameras started rolling, however, Levin expressed gratitude that the congressman was so willing to appear as he prepped him for the interview. “We’re going to talk a little bit about what we are doing and then come to you,” Levin said. “I think that what you guys are doing is helpful, I really do,” Magaziner replied in kind.
TMZ, the media outlet that long chronicled the bad behavior of the Hollywood elite, is now embracing its inner populist, and Washington is adapting accordingly, and even cozying up.
It’s just the latest trick up the sleeve of Levin, 75, who gamely plays up his love-to-hate-him gossip-hound bona fides as he places a new series of bets (look for more true crime on its feeds) to put TMZ roaring back in the conversation after a few years of slipping relevance. “We now have a producer and a photog circulating in the Capitol, showing the intersection between politics and pop culture,” he says.
One Capitol Hill communications director says that they have been prepping their politico for the TMZ cameras, betting that a populist message for that audience would connect to viewers outside of the political media bubble that normally dominates congressional coverage.
In opening forays, the gossip crew’s cameras have spotlighted Sen. Lindsey Graham at Disney World holding a $40 bubble wand; Sen. Ted Cruz in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Sen. Cory Booker brunching in L.A.; Rep. Robert Garcia in a Las Vegas casino; and others, all to put the focus on the workers they are leaving behind during the partial federal government shutdown. But it’s done in signature style: A grainy photo, received as a tip, of a high-profile subject in the wild, and out of their element.
Harvey Levin interviewing Rhode Island Rep. Seth Magaziner from the TMZ newsroom. TMZ “Last week, we interviewed a TSA worker who is struggling to survive without a paycheck, and it outraged us so much we wanted to use our platforms to show how Congress — Dems AND Republicans — have betrayed us,” Levin says in an email to The Hollywood Reporter. “We spontaneously came up with the idea to juxtapose members of Congress on their Spring Break against federal workers who are losing their homes, their cars, their livelihoods.”
Levin notes that the site has covered politics and D.C. for years, but has poured more resources into the space “several months ago” during Trump’s second term. “We now have a producer and a photog circulating in the Capitol, showing the intersection between politics and pop culture,” he says. A few days later on April 2, he went a step further, telling viewers during a TMZ livestream that they are “going to staff up in DC … we are going to join the crowd.”
A former TMZ staffer tells THR that Levin has long been “obsessed” with politics, and gaining a meaningful foothold in D.C. has long been a dream. Maybe riding the populist wave will make it work this time?
Levin founded TMZ alongside the late Jim Paratore in another era of media. A joint venture of AOL and Warner Bros.’ Telepictures, TMZ launched in 2005 with a goal of taking the tabloid sensibilities of certain newspapers to the digital and TV age. A lawyer turned TV legal analyst, Levin became the face of the franchise himself, which extended to a syndicated TV show that launched in 2007, and has continued on TV and streaming to this day. Sources who worked there at the time said that Levin and his deputy, Charles Latibeaudiere, had “total control” over everything that was published, with plenty of horse-trading with stars, publicists and the powerful. By 2008, TMZ was generating more than $25 million in revenue.
But Levin also was known to be difficult and demanding to work for, calling into the newsroom late at night or on the weekends. Warner Bros., which owned TMZ after the AOL split, didn’t know what to do with it. At various points in its history, executives contemplated a tie-up with sister company CNN (executives at the cable news channel are said to have put the kibosh on that quickly) or selling it outright. Over time, sources say, Levin’s relationship with execs at the parent company soured. That culminated in 2021, when he told higher-ups that if it remained under the ownership of Warners, he would likely leave TMZ.
The result was what one source described as a “fire sale” to Fox (it emerged as the only plausible buyer) in a deal valued at less than $50 million. Lachlan Murdoch, Fox’s CEO, framed the transaction as modest but strategic. “What we look for in businesses is something that we can, from a content or business model perspective, plug into our multiple platforms, where we can monetize them through entertainment, through news, through sports, and digital,” he said at the time. Perhaps most importantly, Levin signed a multiyear deal to stick around.
The Murdochs, of course, have long embraced tabloid media like the New York Post and The Sun, and Fox, by all accounts, has put TMZ to good use. Like most digital news outlets, TMZ has seen its traffic fall in recent years as Google’s search monopoly has been disrupted by AI chatbots. But Comscore numbers for February show that TMZ had 21.9 million unique visitors, up from 19.6 million the year prior.
Harvey Levin has regularly appeared on CNN in recent months to give updates on the search for Nancy Guthrie after her kidnapping in Tucson in February. CNN The outlet has owned big stories, like the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, sticking with them even after other outlets packed up and left town. It has also not been afraid to embrace the silliness of digital media, in some cases becoming the story itself, as when it reported that Donna Kelce, the mother of NFL stars Travis and Jason Kelce, was “in the middle of a home renovation,” citing town records. The brothers called her on their New Heights podcast, where they expressed incredulity at the coverage of what amounted to new windows being installed. TMZ published four follow-up stories on its scoop.
Fox has reimagined TMZ’s TV presence, complementing its daily streaming and TV show (which averages more than a million viewers per episode) with longform specials that touch on celebrity or true crime. Recent specials revealed new footage of Michael Jackson, a deep dive into the Rob and Michele Singer Reiner murders, and viral videos from 2025, underscoring how far the TMZ brand has been extended. It has now become Fox’s version of NBC’s Dateline or CBS’ 48 Hours, covering the stories that hard newscasts wouldn’t dare touch.
But TMZ’s resurgence still lives in Levin’s shadow. While the specifics of the Fox deal are not known, it is common for acquisitions with key employees to include five-year earnout periods, and the five-year anniversary of TMZ’s deal to Fox comes this year. “I think the reason why he’s still there is because if he does stop, then that’s when it will all go to shit,” a former TMZ employee says.
TMZ’s renewed relevance, particularly in the political space, could also be too good for Levin to ignore.
But D.C. will need to brace itself for the tactics perfected by Levin. Reporters have long roamed the hall of the Capitol seeking politicians, but TMZ plays in the shadows. By now the playbook is well known: TMZ pays for tips, photos and video, a practice that most other news outlets avoid. It has sources in hospitals, hotels, police departments and airports across the U.S., tipping them off about travel, arrests, and in some cases death. One source said that courthouse employees will fax TMZ lawsuits minutes after they are filed, but before they are public.
The outlet has, infamously, broken news of dozens of celebrity deaths, including Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant. In the case of Bryant, TMZ published the story before his family was notified. “It would be extremely disrespectful to understand that your loved one was perished and you learn about it from TMZ … That is just wholly inappropriate,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said in a press conference about the incident.
Is D.C. ready for a world in which every restaurant server is a possible snitch? Where the police may be enlisted to tattle on a Congressperson behaving badly? Where the death of a politician or judge leaks to the tabloid before their constituents are informed about it? A lot of it stems, frankly, from Levin himself.“Short story — our D.C. presence will sometimes be fun, sometimes intensely serious,” Levin says.
“Sometimes fun and sometimes intensely serious” may as well be TMZ’s motto, and Levin’s calling. And in a city where horse-trading is the name of the game, he may find himself right at home.
TMZ has become Fox’s version of NBC’s Dateline or CBS’ 48 Hours, covering the stories that hard newscasts wouldn’t dare touch. Gabe Ginsberg/Getty This story appeared in the March 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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