The Big Business of Stalking Britney Spears

Forget telling your children to be lawyers or doctors when they grow up.

Wal-Mart cashier position, who needs that?

No, the big money is actually in becoming a paparazzi. Don’t believe me?

Stalking celebrities is big business.

The Associated Press just wrote an article about who is making money off of Britney Spears and her breakdowns and why. She is a cash cow for them. As long as people are buying the magazines with her on the cover (and they are) then they’ll put her on every single week. From the AP:

“An editor’s dream is to have a real life soap opera unraveling in front of you, and Britney provides that every week,” said Sarah Ivens, OK!’s U.S. editor. The magazine has a 10-person team in Los Angeles devoted to Spears coverage. “We’re on constant Britney alert.”

US Weekly has been just as enamored of the star, putting Spears on nearly two-thirds of its covers last year, including each of the last 14. People has had Spears on the cover 10 times in the past 15 months.

Getting pictures of celebrities is big bucks. That hasn’t really changed over the years- though the number of people trying to get the pictures seems to be increasing. The money is just too good.

Stalking the Kennedys

Ten years ago, John F. Kennedy Jr. and his then girlfriend Carolyn Bessette were so lucrative to photographers that two of them would literally sit outside their apartment every day in their car waiting for John and Carolyn to exit the apartment.

A picture of them simply walking down the street would net the paparrazi about $500. If it was something more “interesting”- such as John picking up after their dog did his duty on the sidewalk- that would net about $1000.

Seems like small potatoes right? But the paps know that every once in a while, the stake-out can pay off big.

And it did in the case of John Jr.

A few months before they were married, the paps filmed the couple fighting in Central Park. This was no lovers quarrel but a shouting and crying fight that the paparazzi caught all on video and digital camera.

They sold the video footage to one of the celebrity tv shows for $100,000.

Jack-pot!

But none of that seems to compare to Britney-mania.

She is at a whole other level- for now.

X17’s Navarre said an exclusive shot of the star would sell for about $10,000 in the U.S. and generate thousands more in residuals. “She’s the most expensive right now,” he said. “For Angelina, for example, you divide by two or even three to get the price.”

X17, which owns the infamous picture of a bald Spears taken in February, has a team of photographers tracking her at all times. “For us, she’s the star No. 1,” Navarre said.

Don’t you want to be the proud parent who says: “My son has grown up to be a celebrity stalker, er, photographer”?

At least you can brag that he’s making a lot of money.

There are some estimates that there are at least 40 paparazzi following Britney on any given day. Add on all the editors, writers and bloggers also making a living off of her and she’s a one woman recession fighter.

Who needs the government stimulus package when there is Britney Spears?