Paparazzi | Meaning, Facts, Origin, & Photos (2024)

paparazzi, freelance photographers who specialize in capturing candid photos of celebrities for media outlets.

Origin of the term

The word paparazzi is derived from the name of a character in the 1960 Federico Fellini film La Dolce Vita (“The Sweet Life”). In the film, actor Marcello Mastroianni plays a disenchanted gossip journalist named Marcello who frequents the nightlife scene in Rome while on the hunt for his next story, accompanied by his photographer colleague Paparazzo. The way Marcello tersely and unintentionally accusingly addresses Paparazzo throughout the film helped make the word paparazzo stand out and tie it to the profession.

Time magazine brought attention to the word paparazzo and its plural counterpart paparazzi in a 1961 article titled “The Press: Paparazzi on the Prowl.” The article described photographer Ivan Kroscenko by saying, “He is a paparazzo, one of a ravenous wolf pack of freelance photographers who stalk big names for a living and fire with flash guns at point-blank range.”

Variations of the word are based on Italian suffixes for gender and number. The majority of Italian nouns end in a vowel. Nouns ending in -o are masculine, nouns ending in -a are feminine, and nouns ending in -i are plural; thus a paparazzo is a male photographer, a paparazza is a female photographer, and paparazzi is a group of photographers.

Famous paparazzi

Tazio Secchiaroli (1925–98) was the photographer who inspired Fellini to create the character of Paparazzo in La Dolce Vita. At the time, he was known for his street photography that celebrated Rome’s nightlife. Among the many photos Secchiaroli is known for capturing, two of the standouts are a photo of Ava Gardner, considered to be unflattering, with wet hair wrapped in an old bath towel and a photo of an argument between married actors Anita Ekberg and Anthony Steel. He was also Sophia Loren’s personal photographer for nearly 20 years.

Ron Galella (1931–2022) was named the “Godfather of U.S. paparazzi culture” by Time magazine and “Paparazzo Extraordinaire” by Newsweek magazine. He is credited with creating the model for the follow-and-ambush style used by paparazzi to capture photos of celebrities. He was best known for his obsession with and relentless pursuit of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the photo he called “Windblown Jackie” (1971) was deemed the “most famous paparazzi photo ever” by Time magazine. During his almost six-decade-long career, he photographed a wide range of celebrities, including Elvis Presley, Louis Armstrong, Paul McCartney, Muhammad Ali, David Bowie, Andy Warhol, and Taylor Swift.

Rino Barillari (1945– ) is known for his ability to provoke dramatic reactions from the celebrities he photographs and for reportedly being the first paparazzo to be followed by colleagues looking to shoot pictures of those same celebrities. He has been called the “King of Paparazzi” and appeared in a 2018 documentary about his life and career titled King of Paparazzi—La vera storia. Barillari would wait outside restaurants until 3:00 am to capture shots of adulterous couples emerging together. He has photographed many iconic celebrities, including Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, John Wayne, Jayne Mansfield, and the Beatles.

Paparazzi and the law

The persistent and intrusive methods used by paparazzi to capture candid photographs have long led celebrities to make claims of invasion of privacy and harassment. In 1997 the death of Princess Diana in a car accident caused international outrage at the paparazzi, because they had allegedly been following her chauffeur-driven car. Since then legislation has been introduced to regulate the behaviour of paparazzi.

In the United Kingdom, the Protection from Harassment Act (1997) allows photographers to take pictures in all public places but stipulates that they may be prosecuted if they threaten, stalk, intimidate, or cause distress to their subjects. Additionally, the Independent Press Standards Organization states that journalists should not engage in those behaviours or in persistent pursuit and should desist if asked to do so by their subjects.

In the United States, photographers are allowed to take pictures in all public places, and individual states may have their own invasion of privacy and harassment laws. California, for example, has passed several measures designed to punish invasions of privacy by paparazzi. The California Civil Code section 1708.8, passed in 1998, prohibits constructive invasions of privacy that include attempts to capture images and sound recordings with the use of telephoto lenses and long-range listening devices regardless of whether trespassing is involved. In 2006 the law was amended to allow individuals who encounter these invasions of privacy to sue for three times the amount of damages. A California law passed in 2010 allows for people who engage in reckless driving in pursuit of images to be charged with a misdemeanour. In 2013 the state passed SB 606, which makes it a crime to attempt to photograph the child of a famous person. In 2020 California passed a civil statute prohibiting the use of unmanned drones to photograph people on private property.

Paparazzi industry

The majority of paparazzi sell their photos to agencies that have relationships with media outlets’ photo editors rather than working independently and selling their photos directly to media outlets.

In the early 2000s, called the “gold rush years,” paparazzi typically earned between 20 and 70 percent of the royalties generated by the photographs they took. The amount varied depending on the photographer’s experience, the deal that was negotiated, and whether the photographer used information supplied by the agency about a celebrity’s location. During this time, paparazzi could make between $5,000 and $15,000 for a candid photo of a celebrity pumping gas, getting coffee, or doing other mundane errands.

A combination of the global financial crisis and the growth of digital media outlets put an end to the gold rush years. The demand for celebrity photographs continued, but media outlets were no longer willing to pay what they once were, and photo agencies began to go out of business. To survive, photo agencies offered media outlets subscription services so that outlets could use as many photos as they wanted instead of paying per photo. This resulted in paparazzi earning only $5 or $10 for the same types of photos that used to make them thousands of dollars.