Us Weekly had the highest digital circulation of any American magazine in the second half of 2024, averaging 1.7 million digital copies per issue, according to Press Gazette’s analysis of Alliance for Audited Media data. It also led the field in paid digital subscriptions, at 1.7 million. A spokesperson confirmed a total circulation of 1.95 million to Axios that summer. Those are not nostalgia numbers. Celebrity weeklies were supposed to be dead by now, and this one still moves product off shelves and puts names in front of people who buy things.
So the question of how to get featured in Us Weekly is a practical one. The answer is narrower than most founders and publicists assume. The magazine does not run general profiles of companies. It runs pages, and each page has a format, an editor, and a short list of things it can print. Pitch the page, not the publication, and your odds change.
Us Weekly is a 49-year-old title with a new rulebook
The New York Times Company launched Us in 1977 as a biweekly. Jann Wenner’s company bought it in the mid-1980s (the Associated Press dated Wenner’s ownership to 1985), and Wenner ran it for more than three decades. The Walt Disney Company took a 50 percent stake in February 2001, and Wenner bought that stake back in August 2006. In March 2000 the title went weekly and took the name Us Weekly.
The modern magazine starts with Bonnie Fuller, who edited it from 2002 to 2003 and turned it into a photo-driven newsstand machine. In March 2017, Wenner Media sold Us Weekly to American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer. The price was not announced, but two people briefed on the deal told The New York Times it was $100 million. American Media merged with the distributor Accelerate 360 and became a360media in October 2020. In December 2024, a360media folded into McClatchy Media Company, which placed it under a lifestyle and entertainment division. Chatham Asset Management owned both sides of that merger.
Why should a pitcher care about any of this? Because ownership shapes what the magazine wants. In July 2024, Axios reported that Us Weekly was expanding from 48 to 52 print issues a year, adding 12 pages per edition, building a TV studio in its New York office, and pushing into sports and influencer coverage. More pages and more video means more slots to fill. Sports and creator coverage means the definition of “star” got wider. A pro athlete, a reality contestant, or a creator with a real following now fits pages that once belonged only to film and TV names.
Which pages open to outsiders?
Start with the franchises. “Stars: They’re Just Like Us” debuted on April 1, 2002, according to Slate’s history of the feature. Kate Lee, a former Us reporter, told Slate the idea came from a paparazzi shot of Drew Barrymore picking a coin up off the sidewalk, which Fuller held up and captioned on the spot. The section shows famous people doing ordinary errands: pumping gas, carrying groceries, walking dogs. You cannot pitch your way into a paparazzi photo, but you can make sure your product is the thing in the frame. That distinction matters later.
“Who Wore It Best?” pits two celebrities in the same outfit against each other. For fashion brands, this is the jackpot page, and it is driven by red carpets and street photos, which means a brand gets in by dressing talent, not by emailing the fashion desk. The magazine’s regular sections also include Hot Stuff, Fashion Police, Loose Talk, and Us Musts, a recommendations page where editors flag products and entertainment they like.
“25 Things You Don’t Know About Me” is the most direct door for talent. A celebrity, or someone working hard to become one, supplies 25 short first-person facts. The archive shows actors such as Tate Donovan in the slot. The format rewards specificity: a weird phobia, a first job, a hidden skill. Generic answers read like a press kit and get cut.
Then there is shopping. The website runs a heavy volume of commerce stories: celebrity-inspired product roundups, sale alerts, “editor-loved” picks, and beauty finds. At most big publishers, commerce writers handle these stories apart from the news desk, and they follow a different logic. Getting featured in Us Weekly through a shopping post is the most realistic path for a consumer product, because commerce writers need a constant supply of things to recommend.
Score your angle with the CELEB test
Most pitches fail because they describe the sender’s priorities instead of the page’s needs. To fix that, run every idea through what I call the CELEB test. It scores an angle on five factors, each worth zero, one, or two points, for a total out of ten.
C is for Celebrity proof. Does a recognizable person use, wear, own, or endorse the thing? Two points if a named star has been photographed with it or has said so on the record. One point if a mid-tier personality or creator uses it. Zero if your proof is a testimonial from a customer named Jen.
E is for Easy to buy. Shopping editors need a working link, a clear price, and stock that will not sell out before the story publishes. Two points for a live product under about $100 on a major retailer or your own site with fast shipping. One point for a higher price or limited availability. Zero for preorders and “coming soon.”
L is for Look. Us Weekly is a picture magazine. Two points if you have clean, high-resolution product shots on white plus lifestyle photos, ideally with a recognizable face. One point for usable but plain images. Zero if the editor would need to request art.
E is for Event timing. Two points if the angle ties to something on the calendar: an awards show, a premiere, a reality finale, a holiday gift window. One point for seasonal relevance. Zero for “we launched a new SKU.”
B is for Brevity. Can an editor summarize the hook in one caption line? Two points if yes, zero if it takes a paragraph.
Pitch angles that score seven or higher. Rework anything between four and six, usually by finding the celebrity link or the calendar hook. Shelve anything under four. The CELEB test is deliberately harsh, because an Us Weekly editor is harsher.
Get product into roundups and talent into 25 Things
For brands, the most reliable path runs through talent rather than editors. Seeding products to stylists, makeup artists, and the publicists of working actors produces the photos that feed “Just Like Us,” “Who Wore It Best?” and the red carpet pages. When a celebrity carries your tote or drinks your seltzer on camera, a commerce writer can build a “shop the look” post around it, and you have something concrete to pitch: here is the photo, here is the product, here is the link. Send that package as a short email with the image embedded and a price in the subject line.
For straight commerce roundups, study the bylines. Pull up ten recent shopping posts in your category, note who wrote them, and look at what they keep recommending. Commerce writers cover recurring beats such as beauty under $25, Amazon finds, sale roundups, and gift guides. Pitch the beat, not your launch. “Your readers keep buying satin pillowcases, here is one at $29 with 4,000 reviews” beats a press release every time. Gift guides close early, so pitch holiday products in late summer, not December.
Be aware that shopping content runs on affiliate economics. Check the disclosure at the top of any commerce post: publishers earn a commission when readers buy through links. That makes an affiliate program with a reasonable rate, a working tracking link, and enough inventory a practical requirement. Editors cannot recommend what the commerce team cannot monetize or what is out of stock by Tuesday.
For talent, “25 Things” rewards preparation. Write the list before anyone asks for it. Draft 40 facts and cut to the 25 most surprising, keep each one to a sentence or two, and make sure the client approves every line, since the format is first-person. Pair the pitch with a news peg: a premiere, a book, a tour, a new season. Publicists who already have relationships with the features desk have an edge here, but a tight list plus a current project is what closes it.
Celebrity-adjacent experts have a lane too. Trainers, dermatologists, nutritionists, and stylists who work with famous clients can comment on trends, red carpet looks, or wellness habits. The catch is that you need to be able to name at least one client, with permission, or the quote has no value to a celebrity magazine. If you are working out how to get featured in Us Weekly as an expert without a famous client, build the client list first.
When paying makes sense, and what a KFC bucket teaches
There is a clean wall between editorial coverage and paid placement, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Paid options sit with the publisher’s advertising team, not the editors: print ads, digital display, video sponsorships, and branded content labeled as such. Some deals go further. In December 2023, the wearable wellness company Hapbee announced a media partnership with a360media in which the publisher took an equity stake and contributed media assets across Us Weekly, Star, In Touch, First for Women, and Woman’s World. That is a real model, media in exchange for equity, but it is a business negotiation, not a pitch.
Paying makes sense when you need guaranteed timing (a launch date, a retail reset) or a specific audience at scale, and you have the budget to buy frequency. It makes less sense when you want the credibility of an editor choosing you. Readers can tell the difference, and so can the people you plan to show the clip to. If you want help sorting which of your angles belong on the earned side, the Instant Press team builds publication-specific pitches like this one every week.
Now go back to April 2002, to the first “Stars: They’re Just Like Us” spread. Slate reports it ran under the headline “Busted! Fast Food Fiends.” Russell Crowe walked out of a KFC. Jennifer Lopez ate pizza. Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz sat at a Johnny Rockets. Nobody at KFC or Johnny Rockets pitched that page. They got there because a famous person chose them on an ordinary day and a photographer happened to be there. Twenty-four years later, the mechanics have not changed: put your product in a famous hand, give the editor a photo and a price, and let the magazine do what it has done since Fuller held up that picture of Drew Barrymore and a coin.