INFdaily.com, Fame PicturesEveryone's a critic—including, it seems, PayPal-enabled web crawlers, who this year voted en masse with their dollar on who's who (congratulations, Michael Phelps) and who's over (sorry, Speidi) in pop culture.
Coming out tops in this year's celebrity maternity race, at least according to the highly scientific 2008 sales figures released today by eBay, was Gwen Stefani, whose desirability, bolstered either through Brangelina fatigue or her own new-mother charm, wiped the floor with Angelina Jolie, outselling her related merchandise by a margin of nearly 2-1.
Which means Stefani, among other credentials, now has the distinction of being the mom you'd most like to buck.
But it isn't all good news: Lindsay Lohan's fans, for instance, proved they were not nearly as buy-curious as the actress herself…
Among those joining Stefani in the hearts, or at least wallets, of the American public:
- Miley Cyrus came tops in the celeb-sellout derby, with her Hannah Montana ephemera selling more—at 223,139 items—than the Jonas Brothers and High School Musical cast combined. Of course, slightly scandalous, skin-revealing, underage magazine covers do tend to have ways of bringing out particularly deep-pocketed anonymous Internet users, but a win is a win all the same.
- Jessica Simpson outsold her would-be romantic rival Carrie Underwood, with Tony Romo's current arm candy selling 59,037 items to his former arm candy's 15,395.
- Try as Speidi might to dethrone her, Lauren Conrad is still queen of The Hills, outselling to an almost embarrassing degree her longtime frenemies turned pseudo wedding opportunists Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt. While 1,082 Conrad-related items sold on eBay this year, just 323 Montag-related ones did. As for Pratt, just 10 users felt compelled to own some Spencer paraphernalia.
- As for the past-their-prime comeback
kids men, the Backstreet Boys sold fewer than 9,000 items, while the New Kids on the Block hung tough with a solid 30,075 items sold. - The gifts that keep on giving—rehabbed starlets—were given in kind last year, with mess-no-more Britney Spears (at 32,966 items) outselling fellow "treated" celebs Amy Winehouse (6,665) and Kirsten Dunst (4,1456). Lohan's fans, meanwhile, shelled out for just 7,899-related items, but still managed to outdo Nicole Richie, whose buying power was only good enough for 842 items.
- As for those divas, Madonna, as she always tends to do, came out on top, with the Material Girl's fans proving just as material as her and buying 96,511 items. She easily trumped sometime rival and newlywed Mariah Carey, who sold just one-fifth of Madonna's total.