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Before the 21st century, stories became popular because people talked about them in other publications or shared magazine and newspaper clippings with friends.

Obviously I read the newspaper sometimes, or I look on the Internet. When you go out in public, you hear things, and people ask you questions, and that's part of the game.

I think fans have an outlet. Through social media, you can hear them.

I grew up on a farm in a small town where you do or say one thing and everybody knows about it. You see it happen, there's always the town gossip - 'Oh did you hear about so and so, or did you hear what went on in this household?' So I learned at a very young age just to keep my mouth shut.

The media transforms the great silence of things into its opposite. Formerly constituting a secret, the real now talks constantly. News reports, information, statistics, and surveys are everywhere.

Every week I read about myself in a magazine, about something that I haven't done or some place that I've never been or don't even know. It's just gossip, rumors, egos, and politics.

Gossip is conversation about people.

I do know something about the news world. I was sitting on the floors of newsrooms since I was seven years old, and I've been around them my whole life. I understand that someone looks at a story with famous people in it, and you want to put it out.

A lot of what is publicized now is really pretty trivial stuff - you know, what I eat for breakfast, where I have my pedicures, questions that I just cannot for the life of me understand why someone would want to know that.

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.