A couple of years ago, I was looking around at everyone (celebrities) in a room and thinking: "You all are morally bankrupt and insane."

Fortunately, Page Six's Paula Froelich now realizes that most all the people she encounters or works with — not just celebrities — are also morally bankrupt and insane. Froelich does not seem like the type to habitually fly under the radar. Nor does she, by any measure. However, given that she has worked among some of the most outsized, outlandish personalities in New York media, it's perhaps not surprising that her profile seems modest by comparison. She was part of the latter-day gonzo golden age of the New York Post gossip column, striving alongside Ian Spiegelman (bounced out for drunk-emailing), Jared Paul Stern (shown the door for an alleged shakedown), and unrepentant boozehound Chris Wilson (who toddled off to Maxim). Grandaddy spider Richard Johnson remains serenely in charge, of course, but few might have suspected that Froelich would end up as his remaining marquee player.

Froelich's only scandal was a little trash talk from New York Daily News competitor Lloyd Grove (since canned himself) that she'd mocked Billy Bush of Access Hollywood because of her own cushy side-gig at Entertainment Tonight. Hardly toxic stuff, and the bad old days of rampant reportorial shenanigans have pretty much died out since. After all, Page Six now disciplines or fires the new kids just for throwing parties.

So what's Paula up to these days? Well, she has a book: it!: 9 Secrets of the Rich and Famous That'll Take You to the Top. Yep, it's a self-help thing. Not exactly the hardboiled novels or gossipy tell-alls or thinly disguised gossipy hardboiled tell-all novels favored by other gossip types, but maybe she's on to something. "Attitude + Dedication = SUCCESS" is the title of one chapter, and who can argue with that? Sure, she has to embark on an occasional safari into postadolescent girly nostalgia, but that's the genre, what can you do.

Beyond that, Froelich continues doing yeowoman work for Page Six. She even headlined the column during boss Johnson's recent vacation. She's never been afraid to embrace and demonstrate the guiding principles of her department, such as eviscerating a Paris Review party, daring to call the NYDN's Ben Widdicombe "middle-aged," or challenging Tara Reid to a (sadly unrealized) jello wrestling match. And she's known to bring the Post newsroom to an awkward halt by hurling her lunch into the trash and screaming, "This tastes like ass!".

Would any of this qualify her as heir apparent to Page Six? Hard to say, as Richard Johnson seems more the type to eat his babies. But she's the most visible still-standing member of old guard, so who knows. As long as she escapes former cohort Spiegelman's pseudo-fictional threat to shave her bald, she could blonde her way right into the big chair someday.

UPDATE: Ian Speigelman irately writes in with a correction about who shaves whom:

Can we just get this straight already? I'm so sick of Ben [Widdicombe]'s misreading (or non-reading) being imposed upon my poor li'l novel. The blonde gossip who works beside the narrator of Welcome to Yesterday is not Paula. If it's anyone, it's [Post writer] Jeane Mac[Intosh], and it's not even her. And she's never threatened with a head-shaving. Somewhat annoyed by her sudden infamy one morning after she's credited with killing off a talent agent, her partner notes, "I wasn't so jealous that I could've shaved her blonde head right there in the office, but she might have mentioned me on one or two of those press calls." See? Paula's in the book, naturally, but not as obviously as all that.

[Photo: Getty Images]