(continued)

Granted, the interview subjects usually aren't A-list—this week's cover girl, a blonde failed reality-show participant with pneumatic breasts named Lauren Jones, talks up an upcoming guest stint on FX show Rescue Me—but they can be oddly topical: a recent story about Tatum O'Neal ran the week the former child star just happened to be arrested while attempting to purchase crack cocaine on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Unfortunately for Hayden, the pool of would-be takers for his items has dwindled considerably of late. The Post is no longer an option following the Opie brouhaha. (Reached for comment on this story, Richard Johnson said only, "I am not proud to be associated with Mr. Hayden, so I'll decline.") Hayden was banned for life from contributing to MSNBC three years ago after getting into a dustup with a guest on Joe Scarborough's show. While filming a segment for ABC News Now's Tattle Tales with Gigi Stone in 2004, Hayden was asked to keep his voice down by Diane Sawyer, who happened to be shooting Prime Time Live nearby. Annoyed, he mentioned on-air that he had been rudely shushed by Diane Sawyer. As soon as the cameras stopped rolling, he was led out the building and asked not to come back.

"Chaunce certainly knows what a gossip item is, but sound journalistic method is not his strong suit," says Portfolio's Lloyd Grove, who used to work with Hayden when he wrote the Lowdown column for the Daily News. "He was one of the many self-promoting fame junkies that a gossip columnist deals with every day."

Another former reporter who dealt extensively with Hayden agrees: "He wasn't always reliable—he would push whatever thing he had that was the most gossip-worthy. But he was always friendly."

The latter is certainly true—Hayden is very agreeable, particularly if you're a hot chick and he's interviewing you. (Says Joanna Molloy, of the Daily News' Rush and Molloy column: "Chaunce is a guy who likes beautiful women and asks them questions. He's nice and funny, but you can't just take his stuff verbatim.") It's just that Hayden's willingness to gab has the habit of landing him in hot water.

Perhaps the biggest fallout of his career occurred with Sirius Radio's Howard Stern. Hayden was a frequent guest on Stern's program when he was still on terrestrial radio, often providing the big-haired shock jock with tidbits he'd sourced from deep within the bowels of the strip club Scores. (Stern was even a guest on an Internet radio show Hayden hosted for eYada.com from 1999 to 2000. Joanna Molloy, who hosted a celebrity gossip show on the same station in an adjacent room, recalls that guests of Hayden's show—often paraplegics and amputees—frequently had sex in the studio. "It was a really dark room," she says.) But right when Stern was set to make the jump to satellite radio in 2005, Hayden was subpoenaed by the SEC after making comments during an ABC television appearance that implied Stern might be guilty of insider trading for leaking key financial details of the move. Hayden told Richard Johnson about the subpoena, Johnson turned it into a Post cover story, Stern flipped out, and he and Hayden haven't spoken since.

"That whole thing was so fucking ugly, and I feel really bad about it, but that's showbiz," says Hayden.

That Hayden considers his line of work "showbiz" is telling. "It's pretty addictive to see your name in print," he admits. "But these days, it almost seems like journalists have to be celebs themselves to get the really high-paying gigs. I'm just trying to make sure people know who gave them the story."

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