After "Firecrotch" came a string of scoops, some more substantive than Davis's anatomical digression and some not. In July 2006, there was Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic diatribe after he was pulled over for drunk driving in Malibu ("the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world"); TMZ exclusively obtained the police report. In November of the same year, Levin published the now infamous cell phone video of Michael Richards letting loose on an African American heckler. After Anna Nicole Smith's fatal drug overdose, TMZ posted photographs of her "death fridge," revealing that she was still taking methadone and also using the diet aid Slim-Fast, a competitor to TrimSpa, which she publicly endorsed. But stories like these are the exception among TMZ's 30 or so daily posts, which generally pick up news from other gossip blogs. The site's tone is best described as frat-literate: juvenile enough to be funny, smart enough to offer the reader a sense of superiority.

Two years after launching Levin's formula, TMZ has become what is arguably the most popular purveyor of gossip about celebrities and their hangers-on out there, in any medium, by constantly serving up fresh video of celebrity antics and assiduously working sources in the legal world to get the jump on just about every divorce, lawsuit, or arrest to speak of in Hollywood. Los Angeles native Levin, who never met a cable show booker he didn't like, has become the virtual sheriff of a mythic Hollywood, populated exclusively by very famous, very rich, and very, very stupid people.

Standing in TMZ's headquarters, perched on the third floor of a soulless mall on the Sunset Strip, he can look out the window and see the Laugh Factory, the site of Richards's outburst. He can also keep his eye on Hyde, the celeb-heavy hotspot outside of which "Firecrotch" sprang to life and where CSI star Gary Dourdan beat the crap out of a TMZ videographer, earning the actor the most publicity he's had in his life. Just across the street is the fabled Chateau Marmont, a mecca for troubled actresses and the epicenter of Levin's jurisdiction. TMZ's staff of 10 full-time videographers need only walk out the door to train their lenses on Hollywood's drunk and disorderly stars. On the wall of TMZ's lobby, where newspapers would hang their Pulitzers, Levin has mounted a framed jailhouse letter from Paris Hilton: "Dear Harvey, I just wanted to thank you for your fair and unbiased reporting of the events in my case." Instead of dots over the i's, there are little hearts.

Paris isn't the only one who loves Levin: In June, TMZ had 9 million unique visitors, up more than 1,800 percent from
Levin has become the virtual sheriff of a mythic Hollywood, populated exclusively by very famous, very rich, and very, very stupid people.December 2005, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. That makes it the number-one entertainment news site by a mile. Perhaps the most remarkable measure of TMZ's success is the fact that the average visitor spends 13 minutes on the site—an eternity in Internet time. Numbers like that have convinced Time Warner to spin the site into a syndicated daily TV show to take on Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood. The half-hour program, to be hosted by Levin from TMZ's newsroom, launches in September; it will air primarily on Fox stations nationwide.

It could be argued that if every actor in Hollywood simply hired a driver, TMZ would be out of business tomorrow. The site's success rests almost exclusively on the personal calamities of Mel Gibson, Alec Baldwin, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Ms. Lohan. When I ask Levin if waking up to news of Lindsay's arrest didn't make his morning just a little bit brighter, he demurs. "You know what? I'm really sad about this," he says. "I'm sad about Lindsay Lohan. And I'm sad about Britney Spears." He leaps from his chair to root around his desk, pulling out a thick, stapled sheaf of Xerox paper. It is, he explains, a collection of wit and wisdom from his days at Celebrity Justice—spontaneous remarks and behind-the-scenes conversations that he and his coworkers jotted down for posterity. "I will be absolutely honest about this," he says, a devious smile crossing his face as he flips through the pages. "I have gotten caught up in it. But I really try not to." He's looking for a page that recorded the following conversation:

Levin's producer: "Sandra Bullock has a stalker."

Levin: "Excellent!"

He laughs. "I remember saying that and thinking, Oh God, I will go to hell for this."

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