Heat-ed Chat

Mark Frith, ex-editor of Heat magazine, has been at the hub of celebrity culture for the last eight years and now his memoirs are set to reveal all about the ins and outs of the celebrity game. We caught up with him to talk Britney, size zero, reality TV and all things celebrity.

Looking around a newsagent's today we see rows of celebrities peaking out at us from the covers of magazines. The face of magazines has changed somewhat in the last ten years, as has celebrity culture. Many attribute this change to the arrival of Heat. So, what does the man behind its huge success think about that?

“I would love to say there would be no celebrity world if I hadn't worked on Heat magazine but of course there would have been,” says Frith. “I think it was going to happen anyway.”

There's something about celebrities, something fascinating that makes people want to find out more and Mark Frith is no exception. “The thing I'm most obsessed about is what makes people tick and the way people interact. I love all of that,” he says. “I'm a people watcher; that's why I love the world of celebrity and the world of reality TV.”

Aah reality TV, it's addictive, unfailing formula has made the 15 minutes of fame a reality for pretty much anyone. People don't admit they like watching a bunch of people sitting around in a room doing nothing; really watching people's relationships unfold and hearing others cheering and booing real people is admittedly ridiculous, but also addictive viewing.

The first Big Brother started just three months after the launch of the new Heat which cleverly latched itself onto this strange new programme. “For us to have that to ourselves and to be a living breathing embodiment of what Heat is - that curiosity, that stuff about how people get on with each other was fantastic for us,” says Frith.

As the magazine became more and more influential, Frith felt responsibility to his readers, especially when the size zero debate started raging, “I feel that the stuff we did with size zero was very responsible actually.