Did People Magazine Screw Up With the Pink Separation Story?

Usually, when People Magazine breaks a story, you can count on it to be accurate. The king of the celebrity tabloids has long had good relations with people in the entertainment industry and is keen to maintain them. They are not TMZ, who are frequently accurate in their coverage but attain it through less savoury means. So, when they shared a breaking news exclusive last night claiming that singer Pink had separated from her husband, Carey Hart, we had no reason to doubt it. Celebrities often have their publicists announce a split through People, and while, in this story, Pink's team refused to comment, nothing about the article seemed dodgy.

But then Pink went on Instagram and denied it. She said, 'I was just alerted to the fact I have split from my husband. I didn't know. Thank you People Magazine. Thank you, Us Weekly. Thank you for letting me know. Would you also like to tell my children? My 14-year-old and nine-year-old are also unaware. Or do you want to talk about some real news?'

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by P!NK (@pink)

Huh.

This is very unusual. Not the idea of a celebrity calling out a false story, but of one having to call out People of all places. They're not in the business of pissing off A-Listers who they may want to have on the cover in the future, and Pink is a proper star, especially to their target demographic. Was this an issue of communication or bad info? Did they jump the gun? Or is someone getting fired in the morning?

I wonder if they saw Pink's publicist refusing to comment as an implicit confirmation of their story. Such is the stress of being famous: say nothing and you fuel the fire, but speaking out often doesn't quash it either. Maybe a typically reliable source just got their wires crossed, but then you'd hope that People would still do their due diligence in checking it out. It could be that Pink and Hart are planning to separate but don't want someone else to break the news first, especially if they try to do so before their family are able to deal with it. Pink's statement doesn't directly say, 'nope, not getting divorced', which I've already seen some people claim is evidence that she actually is, but that is weaksauce stuff.

The People piece is still up, by the way, but they have changed a ton of stuff to add Pink's reply. The headline remains the same, which is just dodgy as all heck. Why is People doing clickbait with this story where they messed up? It makes it seem like they don't care. Frankly, this whole story might just be yet another symptom of how stretched thin journalism is right now, and how even a consistently top-selling magazine with a massive internet presence is fallen error to the endless hunt for clicks.