The teen rags were, and stll are, just that--RAGS!
Some of the teen magazines were (and probably still are
) guilty of making up stories, but the article with Frid's mom was published in one of the "adult" magazine (something like TV Radio Mirror). And truthfully, some of those were a hell of a lot worse about making up stories - they were basically the tabloids of their day. (Whenever I go through my DS collection, it's absolutely hysterical to see some of the titles of the articles on the backs of some DS articles. Titles like Cher Warns Barbra Streisand - Stay Away From My Man! Like Streisand would have had any interest whatsoever in Sonny Bono?
) For the most part, though, it was pretty easy to figure out which magazines were making up articles, as opposed to the ones that were truthful, because not only were most of their titles outrageous, but the articles themselves were totally out there. But I always bought them anyway - especially if they contained pictures that I didn't already have.
And speaking of pictures, a funny anecdote about "My Son The Vampire" is that when one of my aunts saw the pictures of a bare chested Frid reading in bed and in the (gasp!) shower, in utter astonishment she showed them to my mom and marvelled that Frid would have allowed himself to be photographed "that way" and that children were allowed to see "such things."
If she were still alive today, I can't even begin to imagine what my aunt would think about the things that today's kids are routinely exposed to...