TMZ's Anniversary 14 Years Of Big News
Well, here it is. 14 years ago today, we pushed a button and TMZ.com went live and has been on a wild ride ever since.
We have broken thousands of stories over the years, many of which we can proudly say have changed the political and social climate. Our Ray Rice story had profound implications on the way the NFL and others deal with domestic violence. Our Donald Sterling story changed basketball for the better.
Some of the stories we've posted have been jaw-dropping. Those of us who worked at TMZ back in June 2009 were thunderstruck when we realized Michael Jackson was dead, and our investigation into doctors who enabled the singer was super disturbing.
Check out just a few of the stories we've broken that have made national and in many cases world news.
MAY 2014
Sometimes you just know. When we got the Beyonce/Jay-Z elevator video back in May 2014, we knew it would generate crazy interest. What caused Solange to attack Jay, and how do you deconstruct Bey's reaction? Bey and Jay eventually righted the ship, and now all's well.
2014
Baltimore Ravens star Ray Rice got in trouble for attacking his girlfriend, but the public had no idea how serious it was until we got video of Ray viciously knocking out his fiancee in an elevator. The story hit like an atomic bomb. Prosecutors gave Rice a slap on the wrist, and the NFL gave him a measly 2-game suspension, which it later increased after a torrent of public criticism. The story triggered big changes in the way the NFL and other sports deal with domestic violence.
Michael Jackson long had trouble with drugs but kept a lot of it hidden from public view. On June 25, 2009, we got a tip he went into cardiac arrest and made about a hundred calls and eventually determined he was dead. After we broke the death story, the L.A. Times posted a story that Jackson was in a coma. The rest of the media had to then choose ... who to believe.
