Fashion journalist Damion Matthews, in the article below, alleges that [editor] Bonnie Fuller's Star looks a little too much like [ex-editor] Bonnie Fuller's US Weekly. They have same articles covering the same people, in the same format. The soap opera intrigue! Is US Weekly's Albert Lee secretly writing as Star's Brenda You? Will US Weekly have to die so that Star can live?

The article:
"Her name isn't on the masthead, but Bonnie Fuller's fingerprints are all over this week's Star Magazine. With a photo of J.Lo and Ben dominating the cover, the first issue of the tabloid bears all the trademark Fuller touches: chatty headlines; a relentlessly upbeat attitude towards, like, everything; an obsession with all the various products that celebrities buy to make themselves look fabulous (but a bigger obsession with all the geeky things they do that makes them 'just like us'); and above all, a lot of color — color everywhere — with each story getting its own color motif. If an article is boring, at least it can look pretty!"

"All the things that made Us a runaway success are in this week's Star, which is probably bad news for Us, but worse for Ms. Fuller; as she's now in the strange position of being in competition with her own work! With Us, she created a formula so perfect, a plan so fool-proof, it seems the thing can just edit itself. Even when she's not working there, it's still HER magazine.

And so when you look at this week's Us, you'll be hard pressed to find anything in it that's not also in this week's Star, which really IS her magazine.

The most stunning similarity between the two magazines is their coverage of Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce Knowles. In Us, on pages 20 and 21, a spread by Albert Lee asks 'Is Beyonce Becoming J. Lo? Having trouble telling these divas apart? Maybe it's because Beyonce is crazy in love with Lopez's look!'

Now to Star. The same pages, 20 and 21, have almost the identical story. 'Move over J.Lo, Here comes BEYONCE,' is the name of the piece by Brenda You which, like the Us article, does a side-by-side comparison of the two women. Both magazines compare coats, hair, hats, and even butts to show that Beyonce is hot on Jennifer's tail.

The Star asks 'Are they secret twins?' Perhaps the most interesting part is that both magazines have taken stills from their music videos as examples. Us shows J.Lo and Beyonce both on their hands and knees in their videos, saying 'Crazy in Love was partly inspired by Flashdance — just like J. Lo's I'm Glad.' Star shows images from the same videos, but with the women on their backs! Says Star, 'Beyonce bends over backward in her Crazy in Love video, just like J. Lo's Flashdance-inspired video for I'm Glad.'

The similarities between the two articles are so strong, one wonders if it's more than a coincidence. For instance, look at the captions where both magazines compare the 'I'm, Glad' and 'Crazy in Love' videos. They use the same wording: 'just like J. Lo's I'm Glad' (Us) and 'just like J. Lo's Flashdance-inspired video for I'm Glad' (Star). The same page, the same week? Come on. It's intriguing, isn't it? A little tabloid mystery. Could Albert Lee be moonlighting for Star as 'Brenda You'?

Now check out the 'Faces & Places' section in Us. This week, it's all about 'Action-Hero Dads!' Writer Samantha Youngman wants us to know that 'they can kick butt on screen or on the field, but can these famous Mr. Moms handle daddy day care?' The piece has shots of Sylvester Stallone, Hugh Jackman, Eric Bana, Nicholas Cage, and David Beckham out in public with their kids.

Over at the Star, the headline reads, 'My Dad's a Star! Famous fathers get hands-on with their kids.' Here is the same photo of Stallone and Jackman with their kids at the beach, and a shot of Eric Bana from the same set that was published in Us. Star chose Liam Neeson and Tommy Lee as examples of celebrity dads over Beckham and Cage.

This week's cover story at Us is an 'Angelina Exclusive.' Apparently, 'Billy Bob Wants her Back!' They devote four pages to Angelina and her life post-Billy Bob. Star also has an Angelina story, but it's only a quarter-page item.

And here you see exactly why there are talks to make Star into a glossy. While the US piece doesn't break any major news, it does have several gorgeous images of Angelina out in public with her adorable child Maddox. It's the US photography that hooks readers week after week, something that just doesn't translate well onto the inexpensive tabloid paper of the Star, which washes out the color and kills detail.

Fuller's biggest change and challenge is not in making Star a celebrity-friendly tabloid, but in turning that tabloid into a full-blown magazine that's better than Us."