Courtney Hits the Big Time

Teen sensation, Courtney Stodden, has experienced a remarkable rise to fame over the past year. She made headlines when she married 51-year-old Green Mile actor, Doug Hutchinson and caused controversy when she transformed herself from an innocent school girl into a provocative model. Since then, Courtney has done all she can to stay in the limelight. She recently became an advocate of animal rights group, PETA, and starred in a commercial for credit scoring.

Courtney has also been a continuous subject of British newspaper, The Daily Mail’s, attention, frequently featuring on its celebrity and gossip pages for her mishaps and publicity stunts.

The Katie Price effect

Is Courtney’s continuous fight for headlines a disturbing and desperate plea for attention, or is it the result of a clever, money-making PR and business plan? Compare her to UK glamour model-turned-business-woman, Katie Price – also known as Jordan – and her plight to grab people’s attention might not seem so dumb. For the past twelve years, Katie Price has made many millions of pounds for herself by creating personality and brand, Jordan. Starting her career as a “page three” girl, Katie then appeared in many mens magazines and carved a solid career in modeling.

However, Katie Price soon realized her outrageous collection of day-to-day outfits and drunken nights out in sleazy night clubs were earning her almost permanent presence in the country’s most widely-read newspapers. She was quick to take advantage of this, and soon realized that papers were interested in her every move. They documented her string of relationships, her drunken party antics and challenges faced when raising her three children. Katie capitalized on the attention by securing consistent lucrative advertising deals, starring in numerous reality TV shows, writing advice columns and releasing fitness DVDs. She now has an impressive business portfolio including owning her own modeling agency, writing three autobiographies, and having several TV shows made about her life, including: Jordan: Living With a Dream (Channel 4), the series When Jordan Met Peter (ITV), Jordan & Peter: Laid Bare(ITV2) and Jordan & Peter: Marriage and Mayhem (ITV2).

Katie Price is now worth over £40 million ($67 million). Not bad for a model from West Sussex in England.

More critics than fans

With this in mind, Courtney Stodden is not doing too badly. A girl who has made her fame and fortune thus far through flaunting her body and creating debate around what is decent and what is not, Courtney would be mad to stop what she is doing. Like Katie Price, Courtney Stodden undoubtedly has more critics than fans, but this is unwittingly making her more money. The teen recently released her own website – www.courtneystodden.com. Perhaps playing on the brand she has spent the past two years creating, the website was launched with a spelling error to her last name. But the publicity that followed this faux-pas was more than Courtney could have hoped for; the Daily Mail – the world’s most widely-read online newspaper – devoted an entire article to the “story”. With a career that depends on people not liking her (in order to generate conversation about her), why would Courtney care that this error would appear to make her look like a bimbo?

Her website is a tribute to what she has already achieved in her short life span. Among her achievements to date: she was VH-1’s Top 40 ‘Winningest Winners of 2011’, Fox411’s Breakout Web Celeb of 2011, and The Huffington Post’s Biggest Celebrity Story of 2011. She has also recorded a new song, has modeled for various projects including AIDS Fight organization, Be-the-Link, and has starred in comedy, Funny or Die. People the world over might laugh at her recent attempt to conquer the pop world, but her recent song – Don’t Put It On Me Girl — has reached over 3.5 million YouTube views to date.

She recently created headlines again when she was drafted into the script of popular TV show, Gossip Girl. It didn’t matter that the mention was a negative one (she was referred to as “unsexy” by characters Blair and Dan). Seen as she is making her name from negative coverage and debate, this mention was a blessing for Courtney; Gossip Girl is watched by over 3.5 million people.

Although she won’t be share trading in the near future, Courtney Stodden might be the smartest “dumb blonde” ever to grace our gossip columns. Courtney will be laughing all the way to the bank.

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