For the Love of Gossip

There’s an old wives’ tale in my family that I entered the world already in trouble: the cord wrapped around my neck, struggling to breathe, a worrying shade of blue. A dramatic beginning, but allegedly not dramatic enough to interrupt what really mattered in the delivery room. My dad and my mum’s best friend were seated in the corner, utterly absorbed in gossiping about her sister-in-law, a woman who had earned the nickname Witchy Poo. Doctors fluttered, nurses intervened, life was ushered into existence, and still, the gossip continued.

It’s said (by me, mostly) that by some mysterious form of osmosis, this moment permanently altered my brain chemistry. While other babies absorbed love or light through the womb, I absorbed gossip, nicknames and complex family dynamics. No birth, no crisis, no sacred moment should be interrupted by a good story.

To this day, gossip feels less like a guilty pleasure and more like a birthright. Among friends, my nickname is the Broygus Report — broygus being Yiddish for grievance or conflict — which is both affectionate and cautionary. I am known for my willingness to share information I’ve gathered (often unintentionally, sometimes extremely intentionally) and for my unashamed prying into the inner workings of other people’s lives. I want to know who broke up, who missed your birthday dinner and an update on your work nemesis antics.

Being the youngest of four with almost a decade between me and my older siblings, I’ve grown up as a sponge, absorbing their wins, challenges and missteps and using them as a blueprint for what not to do. Most importantly, particularly for those in my inner circle, it’s given me access to the far more salacious gossip of this older cohort; swinger parties, husbands running off with best friends and rehab stints are infinitely more compelling than my friends’ hypnobirthing classes or long-winded wedding speeches.

Gossip, of course, has a terrible reputation. It’s lumped in the same breath as cruelty and small-mindedness, associated with bored women, sharp tongues, and moral rot. It deserves every bit of a bad rap when it’s fuelled by spite, glee, or malicious intent — or when it punches down, when it encourages stereotypes or when it delights in humiliation for its own sake.

There are times I’ve deserved gossip’s terrible reputation for cruelty, from sharing things I absolutely shouldn’t have, to indulging in schadenfreude during moments of insecurity, and most disappointingly, breaking the trust of the people who matter most to me. I’ve carelessly let others’ pregnancy news slip, told friends things they weren’t ready to hear about their exes and passed judgment on others for faults I also share.

But before you think I’m about to dispense hard-won wisdom or put my own failings on trial, let me be clear: I’ve also provided the goods to these same people. And that’s where my love of the why comes in. This is the moment gossip becomes almost sacred — as we dissect the details together and it transforms into analysis. It’s the chance to sit with my friends and wonder whether being dropped off late to birthday parties as a little kid played a role in their sense of self, and to quietly reveal to each other where we draw the line, what we forgive, and what we don’t.

Strip gossip of its sneer and you’re left with something far more essential: the sharing of information. Humans did not evolve by silently minding their own business. We survived by telling stories about who could be trusted, who couldn’t, who hurt whom, who loved whom, and what to watch out for next time. And for those who think they’re above it — who believe they are too kind, too intelligent or too busy — then you are missing the obvious: gossip is everywhere. Politics, sports, and world news are basically gossip wearing a respectable outfit.

Once you see it this way, the defense of gossip becomes harder to dismiss. At its best, gossip is how we make sense of one another. It’s how we test our values, affirm our instincts, and sometimes how we feel less alone in our private doubts. When someone leans in and says, “Have you heard…?” what they’re often really saying is: Help me understand this person. Help me understand myself.

I love gossip not because I enjoy cruelty, but because I’m endlessly fascinated by people — their contradictions, their secret lives, the distance between who they are and who they perform. I love that it allows for confusion about what we believe is right or wrong and speculation as to how we could’ve done better ourselves. As people become used to curating picture-perfect lives on social media, sharing and examining the quieter, messier truths of others’ lives provides an opportunity to humanise and humble us.

Some people are born under lucky stars. Some are born screaming. I was born into gossip and I’ve been sharing it ever since.