Carson Blackwelder is the senior editor of Closer Weekly and is based in the New York City office. He lives in Manhattan with his husband and you can usually find him watching way too much TV and way too many movies — pretty much consuming anything and everything pop culture-adjacent. It’s easier to ask him what he isn’t watching rather than ask what he is watching. Never ask what his favorites are — it’s an impossible question to answer. If you want to obsess over the Oscars and the Emmys, Carson is definitely your guy. So what’s his claim to fame? He once held hands with Connie Britton at the top of the Empire State Building and it was a huge moment for him.
Work or writing background leading to expertise
Carson is responsible for editing all stories that go on Closer Weekly, working with a small, but talented, team of writers to make sure we’re covering all our bases — from the royal family to the Osmond family, and everything in-between. He enjoys interviewing celebrities as well as writing about TV shows and movies from the past, present and future.
Education
A proud Tar Heel, Carson graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2013 with a double major in journalism (with a concentration in reporting) and English literature. He loves any excuse to get back down to the Southern Part of Heaven.
Work history
In the summer of 2012, Carson was an editorial intern at TV Guide Magazine as part of the prestigious American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) program. Upon graduation, he accepted a job at Wetpaint — a site focused on celebrity and TV news — as an assistant editor, and was later promoted to associate editor. After working there from July 2013 until July 2016, he left to pursue a freelance career, contributing to various outlets, such as InStyle, IMDb,Epicurious, Country Living, Best Life and The Hollywood Reporter. He then worked at A Plus — a positive journalism site co-founded by Ashton Kutcher and now owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul — as the associate editor covering arts and entertainment from March 2017 until February 2019. In February 2019, Carson took over as the senior editor of Closer Weekly.
