Celebrity Gossip and our past

Humans as a species live in groups, so it is essential for individuals to learn what other members of the tribe are up to and what this means. In our modern world with its instant communications celebrities make up part of that group. We feel we know them even if we have not even met them in real life. This drives us to engage in gossip about the celebrities. This begs the question :
Did celebrity gossip just start recently or has celebrity gossip been around for a long time?
Long ago reputations were important, we are talking, middle ages here, even more so than they are today. Women needed their husband to uphold their reputation if a woman felt she was losing their husband, she would vocally accuse her competitor of trying to take him away by calling her a whore. You could even be punished for gossiping!
The punishment was various but included a scoldas bridle, a metal band that fitted over the head and had a 3.5 inch protrusion which was inserted in the mouth and lay flat against the tongue. One sure way of making sure they did no more scolding.
Going back further. "If primate intelligence originally evolved to solve complex social problems, such as keeping track of shifting coalitions or countering against deception, then it's possible that present-day human intelligence carries a legacy of this history. So it seems that even in history mankind has been engaging in different forms of celebrity gossip.