Us Weekly

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Where this publication overrides General Guidelines: Headlines follow a sister-rule across onpage / promo / SEO with shared keywords and front-loaded topic or celebrity name—a structural requirement with no General Guidelines equivalent. Bold all celebrity names in body copy and link them over their tag pages where available—neither requirement appears in General Guidelines. Numerals (not spelled-out numbers) in heds and H2s. Single quotes (not double) in heds and H2s. No periods, no ampersands, no Oxford / serial commas anywhere. Em dashes and ellipses get spaces on both sides—matches AP per ap-compatible-quick.md + ap-compatible-condensed.md (restated for emphasis; Woman’s World is the AMI title that deviates with no-space em dashes). Couples, pairs, and duos take plural verbs—a unique grammatical convention not shared with other AMI titles. Months always spelled out in full—deviates from AP six-or-more-letter abbreviation rule. Us italicized with capital U whenever the word appears as a brand nod. Every story uses H2 prose-paragraph sections—never “Key Facts” bullet-list summaries. Quotes reproduced exactly and in full—no mid-sentence truncation; censored-asterisk profanity preserved verbatim. Headlines 80–100 characters. Output within ~15% of target word count. The reference hierarchy is Us Weekly Style Supplement → Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 11th Edition → AP Stylebook → Chicago Manual of Style → Words Into Type. Text in red throughout this page marks anything that overrides or goes beyond the General Guidelines.

Publication Overview

Us Weekly is a celebrity news and pop-culture mass-market publication. The site covers entertainment, reality TV, royals, music, fashion, and beauty for a celebrity-engaged general audience. Coverage runs from breaking-news fast turns to longer features, with a heavy reliance on celebrity-tag-page taxonomy and recognizable celebrity-driven headlines.

Our Reader

Us Weekly serves a celebrity-news-engaged general reader, women-skewing across a broad age range. The reader is fluent in pop-culture vocabulary, scrolls fast, and rewards content that names the celebrity up front, gets to the point, and treats them as already informed about the personalities involved.

• Mindset: Knowing, conversational, in on the joke
• Reading context: Mobile-first scrolling; competing with social feeds for attention
• Decision driver: Recognizable names + clear value or new information in the first eight words
• Tolerance: Low for padded leads, formal phrasing, or context the reader already has
• Engagement signal: Tag-page click-throughs—celebrity names function as both content and navigation

Note: This persona is inferred from the source style materials and pop-culture-vocabulary signals throughout the style supplement. Editor sign-off recommended before treating it as authoritative.

Voice and Tone

Conversational, knowing, and pop-culture-fluent. The voice treats the reader as already familiar with the personalities and lets the news land without preamble. It is not academic, not corporate, and not snarky-mean—but it is allowed to be playful, alliterative, and pop-vocabulary-rich.

• Front-load value. Lead with the celebrity name and the news. Background and context come after.
• Keep sentences scannable. Most should fit one breath. Em dashes and parentheses are fine for asides, but avoid stacking them.
• Use plain modern vocabulary. Pop-culture coinages (e.g., “frenemy”, “glow-up”, “showmance”, “mashup”) are welcome where they read naturally; archaic or stiff alternatives are not.
• Trust contractions—selectively. “It’s” is OK. Avoid “we’d”, “you’ll”, “you’d”, “must’ve”, “what’d”. Always write out “he has” / “she has” / “who has” rather than contracting them.
• Fix bad contractions even in quoted speech—e.g., “what’re” should be rewritten as “what are”.

Headlines (H1, SEO, Promo)

(REQUIRED)

Sister-rule: the onpage headline, promo headline, and SEO title must resemble each other structurally and share the same keywords. They are siblings, not three independent headlines.

Example:

• Onpage: What Happened to Nancy Guthrie? Everything to Know About Her Disappearance as Search Continues
• Promo: What Happened to Nancy Guthrie? Everything to Know About Disappearance
• SEO: What Happened to Nancy Guthrie? Everything to Know Amid Search

Formatting requirements:

• Topic or celebrity name front-loaded—the first eight words carry the most weight
• Length: 80–100 characters—confirmed by Us Weekly editorial and SEO teams. Aim for 80 minimum, 100 maximum. For roundup heds combining multiple topics, capture a single unifying theme; do not list individual topics separated by commas
• Numerals in heds and H2s, not spelled-out numbers—e.g., “Has 4 Kids With 3rd Ex-Husband”, “Top 10”, “No. 5”
• Single quotes in heds and H2s—use for TV show + film titles in heds (italics are body-copy-only)
• No periods in heds
• No ampersands in heds—write “and”; ampersands are reserved for taglines, bylines, reporting credits, and trademarked or official company names (e.g., R&B, A&R)
• SEO heds in title case—not lowercase
• “1st” / “2nd” in heds (vs “first” / “second” in body)—exceptions: “first date”, “first love”, “first time”
• Em dashes get spaces on both sides if used; avoid two sets of em dashes in one headline

H2 Subheads

(REQUIRED)

• Title case
• Include keywords—drawn from search intent or related queries
• Written as complete phrases or questions—not single-word labels
• Numerals (matching headline rule)
• Single quotes (matching headline rule)

Examples:

• Nancy Guthrie’s Daughter Savannah Guthrie Speaks Out After Kidnapping
• When Was Nancy Guthrie Last Seen?
• Detectives Unveil New Evidence in Nancy Guthrie Kidnapping Case

Article structure (required):

• Every Us Weekly CSA story uses H2 section format. Never “Key Facts” bullet-point format.
• Each H2 subhead contains the subject’s full name plus a relevant keyword or context descriptor
• Each H2 section is followed by full prose paragraphs—not bullets or numbered lists
• The article must lead with a substantive intro paragraph before the first H2

✅ ## Pete Davidson Reflects on His Sobriety Struggles ❌ ## Key Facts About Pete Davidson ❌ ## Background

Body Copy Conventions

Brand Italicization

• Italicize Us with a capital U whenever the word “us” appears in copy—a nod to the brand. ✅ “Travis gave Us a little hope it could happen one day.” ❌ “Travis gave us a little hope…”
• Italicize the full publication name Us Weekly in body copy. ✅ “Us Weekly has reached out for comment.” ❌ “Us Weekly has reached out…”

TV Show and Film Titles

• In headlines: single quotation marks—not italics. ✅ Stars of ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ React… ❌ Stars of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills…
• In body copy: italics—not quotation marks of any kind. ✅ She rose to fame on Laguna Beach. ❌ She rose to fame on “Laguna Beach”.

Celebrity Names

• Bold celebrity names in body copy
• Link tag pages over names where available—search “[celebrity name] Us Weekly” to find a tag page
• Strip “Knowles” from Beyoncé; “Norwood” from Brandy (unless full name is referenced); “Combs, Sean ‘Diddy’” → just “Diddy” on second reference; nicknames in quotes in middle position for first mention (e.g., Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi)
• “Markle” or “Duchess of Sussex” on second reference for royals stories; “Markle” otherwise
• Name references per H2 section: use first and last name on the first reference within each H2 section. Last-name-only is acceptable on subsequent references within that section. Reality stars may be referred to by first name only; when in doubt, default to last names after first full reference

Em Dashes and Ellipses

• Em dashes get spaces on both sides—matches AP (which uses spaces per ap-compatible-quick.md + ap-compatible-condensed.md); restated for emphasis. Woman’s World is the AMI title that deviates with no-space em dashes
• Avoid two sets of em dashes in one sentence
• Ellipses: space, period, space, period, space, period, space. If preceded by a complete sentence, end the sentence with a period first

Numbers

• Spell out 1–9 in body copy; numerals for 10+
• Numerals always for sports scores (even 9 or below): “Phillies won 4-3”
• “1st” / “2nd” in heds (per headline rule)
• Decades: ’80s or 1980s
• Year ranges: 1993 to 1998, or 1993–1998 (en dash); avoid deleting the first two digits—prefer “1991-93” over “‘91-‘93”
• Heights: 5-foot-6, 6-foot
• Weight (people): “8 pounds, 4 ounces”; “An 8 pound, 4 ounce child.” For objects, recipes, and display type, “lbs” and “oz” are permitted
• Percent: spell out, never %
• Time: “a.m.” / “p.m.” lowercase with periods; use PST / EST / PDT / EDT as appropriate; “10 a.m.” not “10:00 a.m.”
• Sizes: numerals—”size 0”, “size 2”
• Millions: numerals with “million”—”3 million”
• Phone numbers in letter form (800-BUY-THIS): convert to numerals; hyphen between area code and number

Dates and Months

• Always spell out months in full. Us Weekly does not follow the AP convention of abbreviating months with six or more letters. ✅ “She spoke about the breakup in September.” ❌ “She spoke about the breakup in Sept.”

• Date format depends on recency of the reference:

  Context	Format	Example
  Happened today or this week	Day of week + Month + Date	Monday, April 27
  Happened earlier in the current year	“in [Month]”	in April
  From a previous year	Month + Year	December 2023
  Evergreen quote attribution (sourced from prior year)	Full month + year phrasing	in a December 2023 interview

• Do not include the current year for recent references unless needed to distinguish from a prior year
• Do not output standalone year-only dates (“in 2024”) when a month can be identified

Quote Integrity

• Reproduce quotes exactly and in full. Never truncate mid-sentence
• Do not cut a quote with … to meet a word-count target
• Do not paraphrase inside quotation marks
• If a quote contains profanity censored with asterisks in the source (e.g., s****), preserve the asterisks exactly as written—do not interpret or auto-correct the censored text

✅ “Have I been on with Meghan McCain, or does she just come after me? I can’t remember, but she’s an annoying c*,” Kathy claimed. ❌ “Have I been on with Meghan McCain?… I can’t remember, but she’s an annoying ct,” Kathy claimed.

Italics

Italicize:

• Newspapers and magazines (Us Weekly, The New York Times)
• Films, books, plays, TV shows, album titles, video games
• Spacecraft, boats, airplanes (the Enterprise)

Do NOT italicize:

• Websites, news agencies, blogs, or TV networks (TMZ, The Blast, Reuters, CNN, BBC, E!)
• Podcasts—use quotes, not italics

Combined Text (closed compounds)

• Closed up: cohost, coworker, coanchor, cofounder, costar, cocreator, coauthor, cochair, coparent
• Exception: co-owner (looks weird unhyphenated)

Commas

• “Only one” rule: offset a name with commas only if the named person is the only one who could fill the role. (“My mom, Linda, told me…”—only one mom; “My sister Jennifer is taller…”—three sisters, no commas)
• City + state: offset with commas at start or middle of sentence (“Westchester, New York, is where I was born”)
• Full dates (day + month + year): offset with commas (“on January 4, 2021, and fans are excited”). Month + year only: no offset (“in January 2021 and fans…”)
• No Oxford / serial comma. Ever.

Couples / Pairs / Duos

Plural verbs for couples, pairs, duos, and mashups (Brangelina, TomKat). This is unique to Us Weekly—other AMI titles use singular. Mashups are always plural.

Curse Words

• Hyphenate so the word is clear without spelling it out: f–k, s–t, a–hole, d–k, motherf—er, p–sy
• For quoted matter only
• Print bitch, ass, tit without hyphens

Apostrophe S Rule

• No additional s after apostrophe for words ending in s: Spears’, Roberts’, Desperate Housewives’
• Exception: CBS’s
• For compound possessives where the possessive is made even more possessive, keep the s: “Grey’s Anatomy: Grey’s breakout star…”

Style Reference (Selected)

The full Master Style Guide is the source of truth for word-by-word decisions. The selections below cover the highest-frequency Us Weekly–distinctive entries—items that diverge from Merriam-Webster 11th defaults, are uniquely Us Weekly, or come up routinely in entertainment copy. For anything not listed here or below, defer down the reference hierarchy.

People + titles:

• actor for both men and actors in general; actress for a woman specifically
• comedian for both male and female (not “comedienne”)
• host for both male and female (never “hostess”)
• firefighter (not “fireman”)
• spokesman / spokeswoman (not the ambiguous “spokesperson”)
• little person (not “dwarf”; never “midget”)
• Native American (not “American Indian”)
• Dr. only when not obvious from job description (“body language expert Dr. Lillian Glass”)
• Jr. with no comma preceding (e.g., Freddie Prinze Jr.); if a Jr. is in a caption that only identifies by name, use last name only with no Jr.
• junior lowercased and spelled out unless with full name (John junior; John F. Kennedy Jr.)
• Military titles cap before name (General David Petraeus)

Celebrity names + nicknames:

• Beyoncé—no Knowles
• Brandy—no Norwood unless full name is referenced
• Diddy—on second reference for Sean Combs
• Snooki—first reference Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi
• Markle—or Duchess of Sussex on second reference for royals stories; Markle otherwise
• Kardashian, Khloé—accent in text, never on the cover
• K-Fed—Kevin Federline; OK on second reference or in display type
• JLo, J.Lo, J. Lo—different things: JLO is the clothing line; J.Lo is the album; J. Lo is the nickname
• Jay-Z—with hyphen
• ‘NSync, ‘NSyncer

Numbers + symbols:

• 4th of July
• 24/7
• $10,000 worth of flowers (not $10,000’s worth) BUT “thousands of dollars’ worth”
• 20th Century Fox—the company uses the ordinal
• No. vs. #—use “No.” in conjunction with a figure to indicate position or rank (“No. 1 man”, “No. 3 choice”). Use # only in display type for space, under extreme duress

Awards + ceremonies:

• Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, Grammys, Critics’ Choice Awards
• “best supporting actor Golden Globe”; “an Academy Award”
• Always “awards show”—not “award show”
• Critics’ Choice Awards pre-2010; Critics’ Choice Movie Awards or Critics’ Choice Television Awards from 2010 on
• Country Music Awards = CMAs; ACM Awards; CMT Music Awards

Words to avoid / replace:

• “wanna” → avoid; “gonna” → avoid
• “former Olympian” → never; once an Olympian, always an Olympian
• “cougar” → banned from the magazine
• “manse” → never; use “mansion”
• “donuts” → use “doughnuts”
• “paparazzi” / “paparazzo” → use “photographers”
• “deserted island” (not “desert island”)
• “transgender” (not “transgendered”)
• “Latinx” → follow current desk policy; default to gendered “Latino” / “Latina”
• “Roe v. Wade” italics for court cases

Grammar and Punctuation

Em dash: Spaces on both sides. Try to break up em-dash–heavy text or substitute parentheses. Avoid two sets of em dashes in one sentence.

En dash: Use between prices and sports scores, and with compound modifiers where a two-or-more-word phrase modifies a single word. Type with option+hyphen on Mac. (“New York City–based designer”, “fluffy pillow–loving Kardashian”). Not needed with abbreviations: “L.A.-area boutique”.

Hyphen:

• Hyphenate temporary compound modifiers preceding a noun (a smooth-riding car; a shocking-pink dress)
• Common or clearly defined compound modifiers no longer take hyphens (high school student, red carpet ready)
• Hyphenate invented compound verbs (air-drum, executive-produce)
• Display type: avoid hyphens unless absolutely necessary; never use a hard hyphen to break a word—use SHIFT+APPLE+HYPHEN soft hyphen
• Capitalize words after hyphens in heds (Good-Bad Comparison; Jet-Black Hair; Behind-the-Scenes Runner-Up; A-List; Son-in-Law; G-String; T-Shirt)

Quotations:

• Capitalize the beginning of a quote when it follows attribution
• Don’t capitalize if the material before the attribution is paraphrased (“Although they once had a romance, she said, ‘it now seems to be over.’”)
• Comma after short attribution; colon for longer leading clauses
• Use single quotes in heds—but not in deks or pull-quotes when not initial-cap
• Italicize commas, periods, colons, semicolons that follow italic words; not bold
• Question marks and exclamation points don’t take on italic unless the whole sentence is italic or they’re part of an italic title

Capitalization:

• For story heds and some types of subheds: cap any word that is four letters or longer regardless of part of speech (including “with”, “that”, “from”); lowercase any preposition, article, or conjunction less than four letters
• Exception: words that are part of an inseparable phrase (“Lay Off”, “Tune In”, “Find Out”) are always capitalized
• If a word is hyphenated in Merriam-Webster 11th, still capitalize the word after the hyphen in a hed (Jolie Shows She’s a Do-Gooder)
• “the” titles only capped when before a name (the prince; Prince Charles; the queen of England; Queen Elizabeth II)

Acronyms: All caps only for true acronyms (PETA). Otherwise cap first letter only.

Slash (/): Means “and/or”. Acceptable for fun constructions (9/11, 24/7, ex-wife/sushi waitress). For song lyrics or poetry, add space before and after: “I like big butts and I cannot lie / You other brothers can’t deny”.

Possessives + names in parentheses: Apostrophe and “s” come after the parens: Luke Skywalker (Mark Hammill)’s. But not with directionals: De Niro’s (far left) festival. No additional s after possessive words ending in s.

Evergreen vs. News Article Handling

The CSA must correctly identify whether source material is evergreen or time-sensitive news—the two paths use different date formats and different attribution patterns.

• Articles from 2023 or 2024 are not “current” unless the article explicitly flags its subject matter as ongoing or evergreen
• When citing a quote from an older article in an evergreen piece, always include the full month + year of the original interview or publication (e.g., in a March 2024 interview)
• For breaking news stories about current events, use the current-date format (see #### Dates and Months)

Word Count

Honor the selected word-count target. Output should not significantly exceed the target set in CSA settings.

• A modest overage (no more than ~15%) is acceptable to preserve quote integrity or essential context
• Consistent overages beyond ~15% should be treated as a formatting error, not a style choice

CMS Workflow

Every Us Weekly story requires the following CMS fields populated:

• Flavor text (use only the labels on the team flavor-text sheet)
• Category (if no vertical fits, choose Celebrity News)
• Tags (must include a tag matching the category—Celebrity News tag for Celebrity News category, Entertainment tag for Entertainment category)
• Content segment
• Vertical
• Audience category
• Featured image: resized; crops set

Reference Hierarchy

When this guide doesn’t address a question, defer in this order:

1. Us Weekly Style Supplement (this page is the consolidated working version)
2. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition
3. The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual
4. Chicago Manual of Style
5. Words Into Type

What to Avoid

Pre-Publish Checklist

Headlines:

• Onpage / promo / SEO heds are sister-style with shared keywords; topic or celebrity name front-loaded
• 80–100 characters; roundups capture a single unifying theme (not comma-listed topics)
• Numerals (not spelled-out numbers) in heds and H2s
• Single quotes (not double) in heds and H2s—including for TV / film titles
• No periods, no ampersands, no Oxford commas in heds
• “1st” / “2nd” in heds—except “first date” / “first love” / “first time”
• SEO hed in title case

H2 subheads:

• Title case
• Include keywords
• Written as complete phrases or questions
• Subhead carries subject’s full name + relevant keyword / context descriptor
• No “Key Facts” bullet-list format; full prose paragraphs only; lead with substantive intro before first H2

Body:

• Us italicized with capital U; full publication name Us Weekly italicized
• TV / film titles: single quotes in heds, italics in body
• All celebrity names bolded
• First reference in each H2 uses full name; last-name-only after (reality stars may go by first name)
• Tag pages linked over celebrity names where available
• Em dashes and ellipses have spaces on both sides
• Numbers 1–9 spelled out in body; numerals for 10+
• Months always spelled out (no Jan. / Sept. / Nov.)
• Date format matches recency: “Monday, April 27” / “in April” / “December 2023” / “in a December 2023 interview”
• Quotes reproduced exactly and in full; no mid-sentence … truncation; censored-asterisk profanity preserved verbatim
• Italics on newspapers, magazines, films, books, TV shows, album titles, video games—not on websites, news agencies, blogs, TV networks; podcasts get quotes
• No “we’d” / “you’ll” / “you’d” / “must’ve” / “what’d”
• Couples / pairs / duos use plural verbs
• Curse words hyphenated for quoted matter only

Length and source handling:

• Output within ~15% of target word count; consistent overages are a formatting error
• Pre-2025 sources treated as not current unless explicitly evergreen; evergreen citations include full month + year of original

CMS:

• Flavor text, category, tags, content segment, vertical, audience category all set
• Tag matches category (Celebrity News tag for Celebrity News category)
• Featured image resized; crops set