Thanks to TMZ for pointing out that the latest issue of Us Weekly features two pages full of In Touch’s phony Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston cover stories over the past four years with such gems as “Brad Walks Away,” “Brad Moves Out,” “Pregnancy Joy,” and “The Wedding of The Century.” The title of the piece reads “Brad, Angie & Jen: The Fake News Game. Bogus breakups! Phony Pregnancies! Sham Reunions! In Touch gets the award for most inventive coverage.” I’m not sure if there’s an accompanying article as TMZ just shows the photos of the covers, and they’re damning enough. We pretty much know by now that none of that is true. Brad and Angelina sure sell gossip rags, though, so In Touch probably doesn’t care much that they’re pulling stories out of thin air, fake sources, and outrageous speculation.

Somebody at In Touch must have pissed off US Weekly. In Touch’s comment to TMZ about US Weekly calling them out on their fake stories makes it sound as if they’re slightly amused instead of annoyed:

There’s a new celebrity war raging in Hollywood — except this one doesn’t involve famous people, just the magazines who report on them.

Us Weekly has launched a full-scale attack on their sworn enemy InTouch Weekly — using a two page spread in their new issue to rip their glossy rivals for printing “bogus” and “phony” stories about Brangelina for the last 4 years.

Us printed 21 InTouch covers dating back to 2005 — and then shredded the “fake” stories one by one, killing the mag for running headlines that screamed “Brad Gives Up,” “Brad Moves Out” and “The Fight That Split Brad and Angelina.”

InTouch fired back with a nice snarky statement of their own: “We’re extremely flattered that our competition pays so much attention to InTouch that they were willing to devote a 2-page spread to us.”

[From <a href="">TMZ]

We get the tabloids scanned for us by Sammie in Florida and unfortunately In Touch and Life & Style weren’t on the stands in her town for some reason last week. Did any of you read In Touch last week and did you notice anything that US Weekly might have taken offense to? They may have jacked one of their stories, added some new fake details, and presented it as new. That kind of thing happens all the time.

I like InTouch, though, they do have unique content and they often get celebrity interviews that are exclusives. You can trust that when they run an interview they honestly sat down with the person, unlike some of the British rags which piece together old interviews and present them as new. Even Hello! does this. The cover stories are pretty much crap, but they aren’t patently offensive like some of the awful articles in Star and you can easily tell what they’re pulling out of their asses. They’re also a little more interesting than US in that they do get snarky and aren’t above printing gossip. It’s one of the tabloids we have scanned every week because they have more juicy content. US Weekly has more integrity, sure, but sometimes it’s not as much fun to read.

On the other hand, you kind of hope that InTouch and some of the other rags stop making up stories out of whole cloth, as amusing as their fanfic can be. Some people don’t know how to tell truth from fiction, including us at times, and take these cover stories at face value without digging deeper. Maybe USWeekly can nudge InTouch in a slightly more truthful direction.