Britney Spears announced her pregnancy on it, Rosie O'Donnell takes to verse in hers and last week Tom Green even used his to lash out at fellow comedian Martin Short and got fans to do the same.
Even Ottawa-born Keshia Chante, courting fame as she prepares for her album's release in the U.S. later this year, answers fans' questions online at www.vikrecordings.com/keshia. Her favourite colour, for those who are wondering, is pink.
Stars from A-list to C are blogging like crazy to connect with their fans, often tossing aside grammar, punctuation, capital letters and concern for their image in the process. Their blogs are sometimes fascinating, often banal and frequently embarrassing.
O'Donnell started her blog -- which she describes as the "unedited rantings of a fat 43 year old (sic) menopausal ex-talk show host" -- last December. She has been going strong on http://onceadored.blogspot.com ever since, suggesting Fat Actress Kirstie Alley low-balled her highest weight, praising Ted Koppel for televising pictures of dead soldiers and even ruminating on what drove Winona Ryder to shoplift.
Here's how she describes watching herself being interviewed on ABC's 20/20 this month.
"i am big and old and look/like i need a nap/watching myself is torture..."
O'Donnell's unpredictable blog can count Internet news hound Matt Drudge as a faithful reader.
"Oh, Rosie's on fire," Drudge recently told the New York Observer. "She's a must-read."
Another prolific celeb is Bruce Willis who, in his blog "Notes From a Life" on www.brucewillis.com, talks about everything from his favourite snack -- Goldenberg's Peanut Chews -- to Bella, his farting yellow Lab. He also seems to communicate often with regular readers, a group he estimates at about 300.
"I found it all to be very interesting communicating with the members I wrote and responded to a private message from Lil' Bruce's Mummy, Diane, Marina and I'm not sure if I wrote to Silas but I saw a lot of the postings and you seem like a very cool member," wrote Willis recently.
Gossip sheets have had a field day with Spears, who frequently entertains with her semi-regular "Love B: Stream of Consciousness" posts. They were particularly taken with bungled attempts at wordsmithing in a recent note lambasting "False Tabloids" like Star and Us Weekly.
"As you read this letter, I bet you are asking yourself: Who? Who, me? Am I a false tabloid? Well, I don't know," wrote Spears. "But after this posting, I hope you are asking yourself a lot of questions."
Actress Melanie Griffith risks ridicule on her www.melaniegriffith.com, writing about a happy dream world of "Avalon" she likes to escape to and providing readers with a sample note as to how she consults her conscience.
"Dear Inner Self," she writes, "If it is your will, please reveal to me/in a dream tonight the secret of my success/in order to become closer to you. With love and respect, Melanie."
Most stars, presumably, can afford high-speed Internet. So why do some take to the Web in this wide-open manner, while scores of others do not? There are many arguments: Too much time on their hands; the isolation of fame combined with a longing to connect with real people; even efforts to skip a mainstream media and make sure their message is delivered, loud and clear.
Robert Thompson, a pop culture professor at Syracuse University, believes the current trend of letting it all hang out in cyberspace has been taking root since the time of repression-obsessed Freud. He points to stars such as Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton and the Osbournes who became more famous as their foibles were laid out for all to see.
"People are now putting things in their weblogs, things they would have paid public relations professionals not to have published years ago," says Thompson.
But E! gossip columnist Ted Casablancas, delighted with the trend, believes celeb blogging has more to do with self-obsession and cultivating adoration from faithful fans than anything else.
"It's a virtual full-length, four-way mirror, why the hell not?" he told the Sun.
The resulting scoops might be "brilliant" for his career but Casablancas calls them "hideous" for the celebs.
David Duchovny might beg to differ. The former X Files star is among celebrities using the Internet as a low-key way to promote their work. Specifically, he's been urging fans in New York and Los Angeles to sell out opening weekends for his directorial debut, House of D.
"That's within our power. i mean your power," he wrote last week. "and thanks to all those who have come up to me at screenings and mentioned 'blog' it's become like a secret handshake or code hasn't it?"
Of course there are lots of people who go online to impersonate celebrities too, so fans can't always be sure they are getting the goods.
In the days after Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston announced their split, American celebrity gossip sheet www.defamer.com linked to a purported Aniston weblog featuring a quasi-explanation.
"The tabloid stories weren't true, no one was cheating, no one was carousing around town, it just didn't work out," read the MySpace blog entry, which was accompanied by a picture and several non-Pitt related posts.
The site was taken down soon after the Defamer link, prompting writers there to suggest, "that kind of authentic hissyfit totally makes us think the blog is real!"
Scrubs star Zach Braff, who used www2.foxsearchlight.com/gardenstate/blog to promote his feature debut Garden State last year, warned his fans it was the only place they could be reading his web words.
"... anyone saying they're me anywhere else on the web (myspace, friendster, chat rooms, message boards) is not me," he wrote.
