TMZ Spawn Fishwrapper.com SHUTTERED

TMZ owned gossip website, fishwrapper.com, is no more. Without warning, (and apparently the notice of many,) the site was poof, and redirected to toofab.com..

TMZ’s Harvey Levin called it quits on the unpopular celebrity spawn of his huge industry standard of celebrity gossip without providing explanation.

Gossip and entertainment news site TMZ has shuttered one of its spinoff sites, we hear.

We’re told that execs closed down the gossip site Fishwrapper.com on Sept. 1 and that some staffers have been pink-slipped.

Insiders said that TMZ has been tightening its belt, but a rep for the site said the company — owned by Time Warner — “made the decision to use Fishwrapper resources to expand [another spinoff site] TooFab.com, which is a growing business for TMZ.”

The rep wouldn’t address the layoffs, but said: “Nothing to do with budget issues. By the way, check out our new TMZ video slot machines in [Las] Vegas.” h/t pagesix

No word on if fishwrapper will come back in some fashion or if toofab can forever enjoy all the misdirected hits..