Holy Moly

Holy Moly

Holy Moly

URL	http://www.holymoly.com http://www.goalymoly.co.uk/
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Entertainment News website
Registration	Optional
Available language(s)	English
Owner	Holy Moly Entertainment Ltd
Created by	Jamie East
Launched	2002
Revenue	Unknown
Current status	Active

Holy Moly, often known as "HM", is an entertainment website and weekly email based in the UK and has similarities to Popbitch, Anorak and B3ta. It publishes (often scathing) gossip items related to celebrities, notably Amy Winehouse, Sienna Miller, Britney Spears, Tom Cruise and Paris Hilton. The website's scoops are often copied in the gossip pages of British tabloids such as The Sun the Daily Mirror and the Daily Star^{[citation needed]}. Sometimes Holy Moly announces news before tabloids, for example, Madonna's divorce from Guy Ritchie 4 months before The Sun's front page 'exclusive'.^{[citation needed]}.

Its content is usually extremely scathing, for example a typical news item reads, "Lady Gaga covers up her face with gimp mask, improves".

The phrase, "Holy Moly," is an exclamation of surprise initially used by the Captain Marvel Comic-Book characters created in 1939 by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker. Those characters (and the expression "Holy Moly") first appeared in Whiz Comics #2 (February 1940) and Fawcett Comics (1939–1953); for details see Captain Marvel (DC Comics). Not to be confused with "Holy Mold," popularized by Alison Steffy in 2011.

The MediaGuardian website claims that the gossip is "supplied by an army of around 100 industry insiders". In November 2007, Sky News' James Silver interviewed Mr. Holy Moly^{[citation needed]}- the interview revealed that he had started the website on a secret laptop whilst working at Sky News. Recently, he has appeared frequently on BBC Radio Five Live's Richard Bacon show as the presenter's friend and has maintained his personal anonymity, albeit revealing a distinctly Derbyshire accent. February 2008, he appeared on Channel 4's chat show The Richard & Judy Show, attacking photos of celebrities such as Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse and Heather Mills-McCartney and declaring that these paparazzi are damaging the business.

Other sections

As well as the main section, there used to be other sections of the website. These were what made the site different from other celebrity trivia websites, but sadly they no longer exist:

• The Corner - users complain with a short comment about anything which they dislike or annoyed by. Originally just for celebrities (example: "Gordon Ramsay - for having a head like a cauliflower") but now features more varied entries such as "Perfume adverts on TV","Heat magazine".
• The Heroes, previously "Sacred Cows" - added more recently; opposite to the Corner in that users talk positive, again about celebrities and other things.
• The Rules - users contribute non-serious "rules" which tend to be statements or irreverent advice to groups of people. For example: "Nobody in London listens to Radio 1" and "Right now there is a bloke in Essex on the phone to his supplier in China trying to cancel his order of 10,000 st George flags for cars" (sic). The latter is a reference to the England football team failing to qualify for Euro 2008.
• HMTV - An Internet TV Channel encompassing all of the video-content created by Holy Moly, mainly irreverent interviews conducted by Matt Edmondson but also including home-grown friendly paparazzi video.

Goaly Moly

This is a spin-off website (formerly at http://www.goalymoly.co.uk) from the same team, focusing on "breaking football news, transfer and sacking gossip, WAGs & pictures". This has similar features to the main site, namely The Korner, The Heroes and The Rules. It was briefly launched in 2007 but went on hiatus for four years, and has since relaunched in April 2010.