Sidney Skolsky was an American writer best known as a Hollywood gossip columnist. He ranked with Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons as the premier Hollywood gossip columnists of the first three decades of the sound picture era.

A gossip columnist is someone who writes a gossip column in a newspaper or magazine, especially in a gossip magazine. Gossip columns are written in a light, informal style, and relate opinions about the personal lives or conduct of celebrities from show business, politicians, professional sports stars, and other wealthy people or public figures. Some gossip columnists broadcast segments on radio and television.