A few days before Christmas 1999, British journalists Camilla Wright and Neil Stevenson fired off their first email newsletter to a handful of friends.

Key points: Popbitch started as a newsletter for those in the PR and journalism industries in 1999

Popbitch started as a newsletter for those in the PR and journalism industries in 1999 Stories were an irreverent mix of gossip and meaningful investigation and it became an 'insider's network'

Stories were an irreverent mix of gossip and meaningful investigation and it became an 'insider's network' From this, they began publishing stories that no media organisations would touch, like those of Weinstein and Spacey

Called Popbitch, it was a quiet protest against an increasingly PR-controlled media.

It featured a story about a gangsta rapper's 'secret' middle-class upbringing, a yarn about Boy George almost being decapitated by a disco ball in a nightclub, and was capped off with a daggy joke.

But by 2011, Popbitch had 350,000 subscribers and Wright was being called as an expert witness at the Leveson Inquiry into the News of the World's phone-hacking scandal.

Underneath the radar

Over the past 20 years, the weekly pop culture newsletter has expanded into long-form journalism and dug into some pretty dark corners of celebrity behaviour.

Among its targets have been the likes of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, actor Kevin Spacey, businessman Jeffrey Epstein, and film director Bryan Singer.

But Popbitch was writing about these scandals long before the so-called 'traditional media'.

It was sharing stories about Weinstein in the early 2000s, and revealed the phone hacking scandal a full seven years before it exploded in the UK press.

So how did this two-person operation become a pop culture soothsayer with almost half a million readers around the world?

Highbrow and lowbrow mash-up

Camilla Wright studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford but, fuelled by a love of pop music and pop culture, took a job as a celebrity interviewer at the end of the '90s.

Popbitch founder Camilla Wright says they wanted to bypass gatekeepers and 'have a lot more fun'. ( Supplied )

"It was really obvious that all the things that me and my friends in PR and journalism talked about were the stories [that] the publishers and managers made you take out," she explained.

"There was a real sense you were being stopped from telling people the fun parts of pop culture — and if only we could go around the gatekeepers, we could have a lot more fun."

Wright said Popbitch was initially intended to be shared only among friends in the industry and remains to this day a humorous and often bizarre mix of meaningful highbrow investigations and pointless lowbrow gossip.

As it grew, it spawned a message board, cultivating a "kind of insider's network of people" involved with media, politics, and the world of celebrities — including some celebrities themselves, such as Madonna.

From these sources, Popbitch was soon running stories no one else would, like details about the indiscretions of Weinstein and Spacey.

Everybody's talkin'

"When we first started [Popbitch] we thought there was just fun to be had," Wright said.

"[But] we realised if you didn't need access to interviews with the stars, there were so many stories you could write about them that nobody else did."

Film producer Harvey Weinstein leaving court. ( Reuters: Mike Segar )

She said Harvey Weinstein was a prime example.

His casting couch and abuses of power were Hollywood's worst-kept secret.

"Nobody was willing to write about it because they depended on [Weinstein], they wanted to go to his parties, they depended on access to Miramax Films or some stars who were in them," she said.

Popbitch began writing about the movie mogul in the early 2000s — 15 years before the #MeToo movement ended Weinstein's career.

To avoid lawsuits, he was never named by Popbitch, but their endless allusions and pointed jokes at his expense made it obvious who they were writing about.

"We could never get anyone to go on the record to talk about it," Wright said.

"But because we didn't need access to [Miramax and] didn't need permission to write these stories, we were more keen to make these [allusions] than anybody would be."

Going for 'big targets'

The Kevin Spacey scandal was another Popbitch covered many years before traditional media did, having gotten the story from one of the young men involved.

Kevin Spacey was arraigned on a charge of indecent assault and battery in 2019. ( AP via pool )

"I don't quite understand sometimes how mainstream media works — everybody is either all for somebody or all against them," Wright said.

"We're constantly fielding lawyers' letters but I think if you're not, you're doing something wrong in journalism and not going for big enough targets.

"Just look at Kevin Spacey. He could do no wrong for years even though [everyone knew about] his behaviour behind the scenes.

"It was an unwritten rule that you were not allowed to talk about Kevin Spacey until one publication or one person broke ranks, then everybody shifts.

"I think you're seeing it now with Prince Andrew.

"For years the deference to the Royal family was like 'oh, you can't write anything bad about Prince Andrew' and now suddenly it's 'you can't write anything good about Prince Andrew'."

Rupert Murdoch fronted the Leveson Inquiry into the media in 2012. ( Reuters )

In 2002, Popbitch was contacted by someone working at one of the UK's infamous tabloid newspapers who detailed to them how reporters were hacking the voicemails of celebrities.

"To be honest, at the time it didn't seem as significant as it turned out to be," Wright said.

"We just wrote it up as it came in because it was from an impeccable source [and] nobody [else] in the media wanted to pick up on it."

It would be another seven years before reporting by The Guardian triggered a Scotland Yard investigation, a judicial public inquiry (that Wright was asked to speak at), the closure of the News of the World, and a string of arrests and sackings.

Trumping everyone

Popbitch's work has not gone unnoticed.

The Columbia Journalism Review heaped praise on the "irreverent, Gawker-style source of 'scurrilous gossip' and 'scandalous stories'" for its 12,000-word exploration of notorious US tabloid the National Enquirer and its connections to US president Donald Trump.

"I know from talking to the New York Times and the Washington Post, [that article] became the seminal text people used when they were starting to cover the National Enquirer [links to] Trump more seriously," Wright said.

"But I don't think people want to credit us because we're not part of the newspaper or media establishment.

"They like to steal our stories and our ideas but they don't like to credit the fact there are some outsiders coming along and having a bite at them."

Written in the stars

Given Popbitch's track record for being ahead of the curve, what does Wright predict as the next big scandal?

"There are going to be a lot of cases and stories come out [in the UK and US] — not just MeToo but bullying and workplace practices — about the media and music industries," she said.

"I think these sort of stories that you hear, about Ke$ha or Lily Allen speaking out, [are the tip of the iceberg].

"People who have been giving us stories for several years are starting to [go] on the record.

"There's been a hell of a lot of untoward behaviour going on in the creative industries.

"I think there are going to be an awful lot of stories coming out in the next year or two, possibly in Australia too."