Dedication: Jeremy Piven may have met his girlfriend through a cattle call, but she's sticking by him during the "mercury" poisoning. Marc Jacobs' man isn't going anywhere either.
• Jeremy Piven's latest conquest? A 23-year-old model/bottle waitress at Mansion named Ashley Chontos, who was the first to respond to Piven's late-night text appeal ("Come to my room—whoever responds first gets me for the night") and who, you'll be happy to hear, is standing by her man, even though he's in Bangkok so he can "recover" from "mercury poisoning." [NYDN]
• Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony are supposedly divorcing in a few weeks, or at least that's what the Daily News says. For the time being, though, they seem to be enjoying themselves in Puerto Rico. [E!]
• Mia Farrow's daughter's death may have been been AIDS-related. [NYP]
• Mariah Carey is supposedly in talks to make a Broadway musical about her life and hopes Leona Lewis, Vanessa Hudgens, or Eva Longoria will take on the lead role. [Telegraph]
Today brought news in two murder cases: the death of Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and nephew, and the mysterious shooting of Mark Ruffalo's brother, Scott.
♦ Madonna and A-Rod are reportedly shopping for "love nests" on the Upper East Side. They're looking for something between Fifth and Park, from 60th Street through the 80s, in case you have any suggestions. Oh, and they're looking for retreats in Hamptons, too. [P6]
♦ The blame game begins: Ivana's friends say her split with Rossano Rubicondi was his fault because he's been dating a model. Rossano, meanwhile, says Ivana is to blame because she's been dating a model. [R&M]
♦ Robert and Blaine Trump are scheduled to make their first appearance in Manhattan Supreme Court this morning as the couple looks to end their 25-year marriage. Prepare for things to get "exceptionally ugly." [NYP]
♦ Uma Thurman's parents unknowingly hired one of the bookers from Ashley Dupre's escort agency to run their upstate yoga center. [NYP]
Courting Controversy. When the question is, "How long is long enough before it isn't considered too insensitive to present the side-by-side you've been dying to post since William Balfour was first identified as a person of interest in the nightmarish Jennifer Hudson family killings?" we're afraid the answer is, "There exists no sufficient length of time." With news that Hudson's estranged brother-in-law was finally arrested today, however, we could resist no longer. [Yahoo/AP]
It looks like Donald Trump has found a rather morbid way to capitalize on the press surrounding the murders of Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother, and nephew. The publicity-seeking mogul now says he's been "protecting" Hudson by allowing her stay in a suite with her family at his Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago free of charge since October 24th. It might have been a kind gesture on Trump's part if he weren't blabbing about it to People magazine (especially since she's supposedly holed up in his hotel for her own safety), and if his other recent charity case, Ed McMahon, wasn't still waiting for the handout that Trump promised him back in June. But these are precarious economic times and Trump's Chicago property is reportedly near bankruptcy. So should we really be surprised he's stooped to this?
Though the deaths of Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother, and nephew spawned some iffy reactions from celebrity streetwalker New York and an enterprising maker of bedside shotgun racks, neither could have prepared us for the, uh, less-than-tactful way that Hudson's sister Julia has been updating her Myspace.Despite the fact that her estranged husband is still the prime suspect in the murders (and may be free as soon as Monday), Julia has added new pictures that showcase her partying with friends, as well as a picture of her late brother captioned, "NOW THAT JASON'S GONE I'M THE PRETTIEST ONE." There's also this picture of Julia with American Idol's Fantasia Barrino:
♦ A long list of celebs have been involved in a last-minute effort to get out the vote for Obama, including Oprah, Diddy, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Edie Falco, John McEnroe, Mary J. Blige, Russell Simmons, Beyonce, and Jay-Z. In the elderly celebrity writer department, Vanity Fair's Dominick Dunne says he postponed surgery so he could vote today. [R&M, Politico]
♦ Ivana Trump has been calling Marius Rusovici, the 23-year-old Belgian she's been hanging out with, "her boyfriend," although it may just be a plot to make Rossano Rubicondi jealous. Or stir up some press. Or both. [NYDN]
♦ David Duchovny and Tea Leoni were spotted holding hands while their kids went trick-or-treating on the Upper East Side last Friday, which may or may not mean they're getting back together. [P6]
♦ Sumner Redstone's ex-wife, Paula Fortunato, is still living in his Beverly Hills mansion. But he may have already reunited with his ex-girlfriend, Manuela Herzer. [P6]
Yesterday we took a look at the celebrity glossies' websites, to get a sense of how this weeks issues would cover the Jennifer Hudson story. People and Us Weekly seemed like they planned to devote the most space reporting on the murders of the singer/actress's mother, brother, and nephew. And, sure enough, they were the only two to run the story as the main image on their covers. But what's inside? Us spoke with people who described the inciting incident, a fight between Hudson's brother and the man suspected of doing the killings. That story isn't really featured in any of the other five magazines we looked at, so I guess Us gets the points for that. People's is typically heavy on the personal interest, though surprisingly they didn't set aside a space for other celebrities to weigh in on the tragedy, as three others, Life & Style (they got fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama!), Us, and InTouch, did. They pretty much all have the same photos, especially the terribly cute and just, well, terribly sad photos of Hudson's seven-year-old nephew. So, who wins? Us Weekly, we guess. Though, it also kind of feels like nobody won.
The murders of Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew last weekend may be almost incomprehensibly tragic to you, us and most anyone with a functioning conscience, but we can't all sit around and just grieve over a trio of senseless deaths. There are products to sell and memories to exploit, as with this uniquely evil (and authentic) press release currently making the rounds — perhaps the single worst piece of PR ever to slither over the transom at Defamer HQ: COULD A BEDSIDE SHOTGUN RACK HAVE SAVED JENNIFER HUDSON’S FAMILY FROM TRAGIC DEATH?
When the celebrity weeklies unveil their new covers tomorrow, we can bet they'll be dominated by coverage of the terrible Jennifer Hudson news story, in which the singer and actress's mother, brother, and 7-year-old nephew were murdered on Friday. And we suppose they're right to, it being big news and all. Since the issues went to print yesterday, it's up to the websites to tease what each publication has in store (and to keep up with breaking developments). So what might each magazine be featuring? We took a look at five magazines' websites today to try to see if there were any hints of what their coverage will look like tomorrow. People, the longstanding classy version of the other tabloids, has a story (kinda far down the page, honestly) about Jennifer's bond with her mother, featuring recollections about Darnell Donerson from Jennifer's acting coach and from people in Donerson's Chicago neighborhood. It's the kind of sad human interest story that People has made their name doing. Expect sidebar reactions from American Idol judges (Hudson was a contestant on the show) and maybe one of the bigger gets, like Beyonce, Hudson's Dreamgirls costar. Us Weekly reports at a more breathless, staccato clip, giving us gory details about the number of times Hudson's young nephew was shot and quoting from Hudson's sister's MySpace, in which she mourns her lost loved ones and imagines them as her guardian angels now. In your face awfulness. InTouch, Life & Style, and OK! aren't giving the story as much prominence as Us (their older and more popular sibling). OK! does a small dissection of the dispute that lead to the whole tragedy InTouch covers Idol judge Randy Jackson's reaction to the sad news. And Life & Style has nothing about the incident on their sparsely updated site. So, once again, it looks as though Us Weekly leads the pack toward getting the scoop, though their hand at the necessary quiet, soft-touch pieces is not as nimble as People's. Us ought to get the early lead while People follows up in the coming weeks with a punch-in-the-gut Hudson interview. Or not. Maybe we'll get surprised with a big Exclusive. It could happen.
Every time—every time—a horrible tragedy befalls a famous person, some of our nation's most clueless PR practitioners use it as a news peg for some unfortunate client. And of course that tradition continues with the news that singer and actress Jennifer Hudson's whole family was murdered! When hearing such horrible news, we're bound to ask ourselves: Is there any "invaluable device" that could have saved them from their violent end? Well!:
Hooker personality Tiffany "New York" Pollard (now there's someone we have a feeling is already well acquainted with Dr. Manhattan's cobalt nether regions) has addressed the media recently about Jennifer Hudson—whose skyrocketing career she doesn't envy in the least—and her fiance, a former I Love New York contestant whom she had the gall to liken to a gold-digging Al Reynolds. Having learned with the rest of us of the horrifying Hudson family deaths in Chicago, however, Pollard was consumed by guilt over her tactless remarks, and instantly set about righting her wrongs by issuing her deepest condolences to Hudson in the best way she knew how: by recording a heartfelt video message outside LACMA's streetlamp installation. She then went back about her regular routine of making kissy sounds at passing luxury vehicles in the hopes that one of them might contain the producer who will put her in his hip-hop movie musical, Dreamgrillz. [YouTube]
While it is a joyous event that comedians Amy Poehler and Will Arnett delivered their first child, Archibald, over the weekend, we recognize that this development has some downsides, too (though perhaps not the ones implied by the above "circle of child life and death" feature that is currently gracing the front page of Yahoo!). For starters, this marks Poehler's end on Saturday Night Live, as the new mother will be segueing to her still-untitled NBC sitcom after some well-deserved maternity leave. Just as devastating: Poehler's unplanned absence from this week's live taping of SNL forced the audience to sit through a third, hastily scheduled Coldplay performance. Still, at least Poehler ducked out before she had to take part in the painful Barack Obama skit that Lorne Michaels pointlessly lured Maya Rudolph back for. Take a look, after the jump:Click to view
The Jennifer Hudson saga continues to get bleaker and bleaker with news that the dead body of her 7-year-old nephew may have been found in the back of a white SUV on Chicago's West Side. Hudson had offered a $100,000 reward for the safe return of Julian King, but he appears to be the third victim of a domestic dispute on Friday in which the Dreamgirls Oscar winner's mother and brother were both killed. CNN is reporting that Hudson's brother-in-law has been taken into custody as a "person of interest." Expect a full-on media frenzy to ensue in a reminder that no matter the economic climate, when celebrity and crime mix, ratings surge.
Chicago police investigating the murders of Jennifer Hudson's mother and brother and the disappearance of her 7-year-old nephew discovered a child's body this morning on the city's West Side. Julian King had been missing since Friday, when Hudson's mother Darnell Donerson, 57, and brother Jason Hudson, 29, were found shot to death in Oscar-winner's childhood home. The estranged husband of her sister Julia was arrested but has yet to be charged in connection to the deaths, and amid calls of support by everyone from Barack Obama to her fellow American Idol almuni, Hudson this weekend offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the boy's safe return. More after the jump.The Sun-Times reported in the last hour that police were summoned to S. Kolin Ave., where the body of a black male child was spotted in a white Suburban SUV. The cops aren't yet commenting, and an Amber Alert remains in effect for Julian, whose mother discussed the shootings and suspected kidnapping at a press conference Saturday in Chicago. Her plea for his return came as FBI investigators joined Chicago police in the hunt — a clue that authorities suspected the boy may have been taken across state lines, though local detectives said Sunday that the search would concentrate on "the immediate vicinity" of the home.
♦ Amy Poehler and husband Will Arnett became parents for the first time on Saturday when Amy gave birth to a son, Archie. [Us]
♦ Madonna is in "meltdown mode," and asked her assistant to gather all the items she received from Guy Ritchie so she can "bury them." Guy, meanwhile, has reportedly said the couple's marriage began to disintegrate when she started planning their sex life around her workout schedule. [MSNBC, Daily Mail]
♦ Jennifer Hudson is offering a $100,000 reward for the return of her nephew, who went missing on Friday when her mother and brother were fatally shot. [People, Access Hollywood]
♦ Lindsay Lohan doesn't want people thinking she's a lesbian just because she's dating a girl. [NYDN]
