The prices of celebrity baby photos are skyrocketing—or at least that's what the tabloids want you you to think

This article is from the July/August issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here.

What generates more buzz than forking over $6 million for photos of a celebrity's barely conscious newborn? Letting people think you did, a maneuver that disingenuous editors at leading tabloids seem to be embracing.

Earlier this year, Ad Age leaked reports that People had paid that immodest sum for cover snaps of Jennifer Lopez and her new twins, quoting insiders "familiar with the negotiations." The news that the songstress' offspring were apparently worth enough to buy her 600 mink coats flooded the Web, stunning even People's competitors. "It was an astronomical figure," a source at a rival tabloid tells Radar with a laugh, "way beyond what we're prepared to spend."

When the unremarkable world exclusive issue showed up a few weeks later, the hype helped move 36 percent more copies than average and doubled traffic at people.com. Only after the issue left newsstands did People's editors coyly admit that the $6 million figure was inflated. Yes, they'd heard the reports. No, they hadn't paid quite that many millions. But they shrewdly declined to say exactly how much they had coughed up.

The mag pulled the same trick back in 2006. Responding to allegations that, like the publishing equivalent of a crack addict, it had blown $4.1 million for shots of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, People issued another vague "clarification": "We've heard figures between $3.5 and $5 million. ... They're all incorrect."

No one knows who's leaking the phony figures. But they're certainly convenient, says Brandy Navarre, vice president of paparazzi photo agency x17online.com, creating a "myth that the magazines have that kind of money to throw around."

Even the smaller, seven-figure sum that People has implied it paid Lopez seems suspiciously out of whack given the depressed market, she says. When the week's hottest paparazzi pics fetch only low five-figure sums, "[Those numbers] don't quite pass the sniff test."

Baby-photo negotiations have become so aggressively discreet that even rival bidders can't dispute the rumors. "It used to work like an old-fashioned auction," says a veteran at one of People's competitors. "You knew the exact numbers on the table. Now, the stars' managers say abstruse things like, 'You're going to have to do better than that.' Unless you buy the photos, you never know how much they sold for."

All the better for the buzz machine.

According to the New York Post, tabloid editors themselves are now openly predicting that the twins gestating inside Angelina Jolie may yield $10 million. Expect the price to dip dramatically a few weeks after you've recycled your special collector's issue.

This article is from the July/August issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here.