Yankees player Alex Rodriguez's nickname, A-Rod, is already so delightfully phallic! Sadly, when choosing a headline to reveal his affair with Madonna, the tabloids went with hackneyed baseball metaphors instead. The Daily News wonders if A-Rod got to "first base;" meanwhile, the Post announces a "squeeze play." (Here's our headline suggestion from yesterday.)
If one attention-obsessed, desperate mother isn't enough, the Lohan brood is in luck. A Florence, Montana, woman named Kristi Kaufman, 44, has just announced that she had a secret love child with Lindsay Lohan's dad 13 years ago. The newest Lohan, Ashley, is presumably ready for her own Disney show and movies and all the shame and scandal that naturally accompany such misadventures. Update: It's true!
Social-twit Paris Hilton talks exactly like we thought she would! In US Weekly, D-list celebrity and comedian Kathy Griffin explains how she had to translate Paris's words to Jenny McCarthy, who had "couldn't understand a word she said." Paris told Jenny, "Hi, bitch! Comes to my party? Publicist? Bye, bitch!" Translation:
Paris Hilton was recently accused, via Page Six, of yet another antic concerning the welfare of a helpless animal, and she's just about had it. She took her case to the people's court, also known as her MySpace blog: "I was catching up on news last week only to read a story about me walking by some puppies for sale, and demanding that I be given a Yorkie puppy to be an accessory for a photo shoot. These stories have gotten out of control and I want to clear some things up."
The Ronson family, comprised of DJ/Lindsay Lohan dater Samantha, DJ/producer Mark, fashion designer Charlotte, and a wacky socialite Mom and rock-star stepdad, is "not like the Kennedys," in the words of son Mark. And he's right! They're fairly bizarre, and they're everywhere. Samantha's already converted Lindsay Lohan to kissing girls, and Mark is going around telling stories of sleeping over at Michael Jackson's house when he was a child. After the jump, a brief guide to the family that would let their kid sleep over at Michael Jackson's.
Those photos of actress and pop singer Lindsay Lohan nuzzling her "close friend," DJ Samantha Ronson, have attracted surprisingly little attention. A lot of female celebrities pretend to have girl crushes—it's edgy—and at first we automatically dismissed the images as publicity-seeking. Even the confirmation of a relationship by Lohan's semi-estranged father can be dismissed as his own quest for attention. But the relationship between the freshly rehabbed star and her lesbian friend is quite extraordinary, and here's why:
From Banterist, an image of what celebrity magazines could and should, perhaps, look like. Banterist says that the target would be people in their late 30's, but I think it could work for pretty much anyone who managed to let the celebrity machine rumble past them. (I mean, can someone please tell me who Stacey Kebler is?) My favorite is "Someone From Gossip Girl Squats." (Click through for larger)
Ohh poor beleaguered celebrities. When caught drug-handed or with pants down, they often have to make very public excuses for their un-role modely behavior. The latest came from former child star Tatum O'Neal, who was arrested for trying to buy crack in New York on Sunday night. She says she was sober, but had been chasing the dragon around the streets of New Amsterdam because she was distraught over the death of her dog. She claims she didn't know she was buying crack, and yet was in possession of a crack pipe. Oh, Tatum. A little darling no more. Also, lie better. There are other wonderfully silly celebrity excuses (including another one involving a dog!) waiting for you after the jump. Tell us which one you think is the worst.
Pregnant and famous? Call your agent. Your breastesses are gonna be huge, and you're gonna wanna capture the blessed event for posterity before things go considerably... south. And if you happen to help Vanity Fair sell a few thousand more magazines while you're at it, well, that's showbiz. Jolie's breasts-and-hair shot for VF's July issue looks more like Maxim's style, but judge for yourself. Click to, uh, enlarge.
Heroin? S&M sex? BORING. The real nugget of sadism behind the unearthed video of actress-turned-self-righteous-humanitarian Angelina Jolie in the UK's Sun is her blasé confession about—whoops!—kind of killing her pets. She's worse than Paris Hilton, who got in trouble for neglecting her many chihuahuas—and worst of all, young Jolie, filmed rambling on in what the Sun calls a "drug den," thinks her forgetfulness is really cute, grinning sheepishly as she recounts the pets she's killed over the years: "I had a dog and I ended up beating him, and he got sick and... I've hurt so many—I am just not a good animal person... I had a rabbit that died, too... a cage fell on him..."
Who will corporately sponsor actress Lindsay Lohan's 22nd rockin' birthday? Remember, it's the '00s now, and the Brand is You. Lindsay clearly understands this, as does the marketing firm handling her party. But let's cut the crap: if you're a sponsor for her birthday bash, what's in it for you? After all, this is what the marketing site calls "an internationally media worthy event. Lindsay and 10 of her closest friends will start the celebration in the early afternoon with manicures, facials and massages."
Like two straight co-eds showily making out at a party, the fake-lesbian act trotted out by usually-classy film starlets reeks of desperate self-promotion. (Yet, our hetero male readers mysteriously disagree.) There was Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson's W magazine spread, which featured very intense staring that led us to rather sexual conclusions, despite the fact that they played sisters in the movie they were promoting. And now Scarlett and Penelope Cruz's kissing scene is all hyped up in the trailer for Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Clearly inspired by the much-vaunted free Madonna show at an "intimate" 2,000-capacity theater last night, the New York Times review got a little wild, describing her fans as "screamy" and quoting a 28-year-old about her look for the evening: "stewardess-Madonna-tricky-tranny." The show was only thirty minutes long; one Madonnagay told the Times that "Gays don't camp out [for tickets], but we'll camp out for this." (Only Madonna can overturn the gays' longtime anti-camping law.) When the aging pop star took the stage,"the room roared with 'Omigods.'" [NYT]
Yesterday, we wondered what the hell to do about our taxes. Today, we know: do everything but ignore them, like actor Wesley Snipes! He's been in trouble for a while now, but the latest development is prosecutors are seeking a 3-year jail term. Way harsh, but seriously—dude hasn't filed since, like, '99. What other celebs have totally blanked on their taxes?
Over-sharey reporter George Gurley interviewed Christina Ricci for the upcoming issue of Black Book. They've got the SEXY PHOTOS of disconcertingly tiny Ms. Ricci up at their site, but you might be more interested in the Observer columnist embarrassing himself a bit, as would be his wont if he was capable of embarrassment. After the jump, Ricci, who is trying to promote some sort of movie about a speedy racer, makes the mistake of looking at Gurley's notepad.
Was Billy Crudup one of those little boys who liked to dress up in his sister's outfits a little too often? Playing a girl once is a good way to show yourself to be a Serious actor who Isn't Afraid to take risks. Now he's playing FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in the film Public Enemies, who was also a notorious cross-dresser. [Variety] Click to see a pic of Crudup as a girl from the film Stage Beauty. He's pretty!
Last week, Salon's Rebecca Traister worried that "The Golden Age of Celebrity Gossip" was "grinding to an end" because of "evil geniuses" like Us Weekly editor-in-chief Janice Min. Min did, after all, put The Hills star Lauren Conrad on the cover of her mag. But the Little Girls of America have a message for the Min doubters: "J-Min is right, and you are old, so shut your old face before I shut it for you." I just went to the corner newsstand to buy cigarettes and while I was waiting forever for this one Nigerian dude to buy a stack of phone cards, two Russian girls who looked to be about eight or nine years old showed up.
In Salon today, Rebecca Traister argues that "the golden age of celebrity gossip is grinding to an end." Ah, the golden age! When Starlets yet new! Traister notes the ever-increasing number of relatively random, famous-for-famousness' sake photo fodder who are splashed on the pages of fading mags like In Touch, Star, and People (only Us Weekly increased its readership last year). She says we're overloaded with inexplicable images, coupled with those "???" headlines hand-crafted by "evil geniuses" like Janice Min. Have we reached critical mass? She asks, "what heart of celebrity darkness is there to be exposed?" A good question. Surely something else about these people's lives can be laid bare. Though it may be scary and sad, like Traister suggests, and we may not like what we uncover. Sort of like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Art show! Posing for a good mug shot is never easy. I say this from experience! They don't let you style your hair, and your makeup is usually confiscated by this point in the arrest process. (Try asking the cop to buy you a cup of coffee, then use the grounds as eyeliner.) If you're a celeb, you're going to want to look good: Los Angeles artist Rachel Schmeidler is turning celebrity mug shots into pop art, compiled at Hollywood's Most Wanted. It's been a busy year for her! [LA Times] Want to see a recent mug shot of reckless-driving Dawn Wells, aka Mary Ann from "Gilligan's Island"? Yeah you do.
