A lot of celebrity gossip is rooted in the true crime aspect of it. Like the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives drama - one of the women was literally throwing metal barstools at her children while fighting with her partner. The outrage stems from people wanting her held accountable in some form. And the networks know that outrage will spur more views.

I don’t see it any different than indulging in sports gossip or even Fediverse related gossip (Tesseract incident, anyone?). People like to indulge in some judgment and outrage at others. It can be unhealthy, but mostly I think it’s a rather neutral, human thing to do.