No, not Saddam Hussein, silly, he’s dead. Even worse: Michael Lohan!
Earlier this week Dina was honored as a “top mom” by something called the Mingling Moms Organization (which is admittedly ridiculous), and Page Six quotes him as saying:
“Are you kidding! Top celebrity mom? Look at her off-screen antics, her lack of morals and how she conducts herself. I guess they forgot to mention how this top super-mom leaves her kids alone at night and even parties in their presence. Just wait until we go back to court. She comes stumbling out of Butter at 3:15 a.m. with bloodshot eyes and a red runny nose, yelling ‘Oh, [bleep],’ when she saw the paparazzi.”
I’m not sure why they bleeped out “pshaw,” but I do know that Michael Lohan needs to shut up about partying too much. Being a good tipper up in the strip club does not count as good parenting skills. Even if the stripper is your daughter…
Michael Bloomberg, in 2001 (before he was mayor of New York), when asked if he’d ever tried marijuana:
“You bet I did. And I enjoyed it.”
These days, Mayor Bloomberg better watch his back before smoking spliffs on his Upper East Side terrace. He now oversees what the New York Civil Liberties Union describes as a “marijuana arrest crusade,” as the NYPD locks up more than 35,000 people each year for marijuana possession.
Arrests are up elevenfold since the 1990s, even though most people who are arrested aren’t even smoking up at the time. Why would cops do that? According to researchers:
[B]usting pot smokers is a relatively safe and easy way to pad arrest figures, which creates the illusion of productivity, and generate overtime pay, a practice known as “collars for dollars.”
Additionally, studies have shown white kids ages 18 to 25 are the most likely to light up a fat one, but black and Hispanic New Yorkers are arrested three to five times as often for possession. Which might explain why Mayor Bloomberg himself escaped his youth unscathed, hmm?
Since Victoria Beckham’s career as a fashion designer seems to have fizzled, perhaps she can support herself as a professional litigant.
As previously reported, Posh Spice’s denim line was dropped last month from LA fashionista havens Kitson and Fred Segal due to poor sales. The $290 jeans eventually popped up on sale racks at Loehmann’s for $70.
Now she’s seeking $100-million from Rock and Republic, the premium denim designer that helped her launch her own line, for loss of earnings, because she thinks the jeans should have sold better than they did.
However, the line was dropped reportedly because she declined to promote the jeans or do anything beyond putting her name on the label.
Is this the first time in history that Posh has avoided publicity? I can’t think of any other time when she’s turned down an opportunity to promote herself.
Rob Lowe’s nanny legal mess just became even more of a headache.
Knowing a storm was a-brewin’, he and his wife Sheryl went on the offensive and sued three former employees for extortion, but that didn’t prevent one of the nannies and a chef from suing him for sexual and verbal harassment, wrongful termination, and nonpayment of wages.
Now the other nanny has filed a lawsuit against Sheryl Lowe for the same.
But wait, is this 1988? Sex scandals are so “been there, done that” for him, after seeing his career ruined by the release of a raunchy tape of him with some teenage girls. He’s acknowledged it was a “mistake” and said he’s moved on. I thought we were all past that, no?
Joe Francis has released a bit of the Girls Gone Wild footage that Ashley Alexandra Dupré filmed for them and is suing them over.
No, not the naked bits — the part where she gave her consent to be filmed:
In the new release, Dupre appears covered by a terrycloth towel and gives her name as Amber Arpaio. An unseen questioner asks if she is 18.
“Yes I am,” Dupre answers in a strong Southern accent.
“Do you know what ’Girls Gone Wild’ is?” the questioner asks.
“Yes I do,” she replies with a laugh.
“Can I use this on ’Girls Gone Wild’?” she is asked.
“Of course you can,” Dupre answers.
The video also displays a New Jersey driver’s license with the Amber Arpaio name and a birth date that would have made her appear to be in her 20s.
This pretty much nullifies her whole argument that they filmed her even though they knew she was underage. The defense rests in time for happy hour.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s downfall Ashley Alexandra DuprĂ© has filed a $10-million lawsuit against Girls Gone Wild because, she alleges, they coerced her with booze into signing away the rights to her breasts when she was 17 years old.
Far be it from me to defend Joe Francis — talk about a Class-A douchebag — but seriously, an admitted hooker claiming that she had to be plied with alcohol to pull out the funbags for the camera? A bit hard to, um, swallow.
Francis tells TMZ:
“We were very surprised and in fact amazed today that Ms. Dupree filed a lawsuit against Girls Gone Wild. We have not publicly released any new video of Ms. Dupree, due to corporate policy of not using footage of individuals younger than 18. It is incomprehensible that Ms. Dupree could claim she did not give her consent to be filmed by Girls Gone Wild, when in fact we have videotape of her giving consent, while showing her identification.”
That would be her fake ID that said she was 21 at the time. How fast will this be tossed out of the courts? Before lunch, perhaps?
Metallica seems to be regretting a little thing I like to call The Time They Destroyed Napster.
Back in 2000, the heavy-metal band sued the shiz out of the awesomeness that was once free music, claiming Napster was encouraging piracy and copyright infringement by allowing people to trade songs over their servers.
Of course, after years of irrelevance and crappy album sales, they’re thinking of following Radiohead’s lead and allowing people to download their next release for free.
Drummer Lars Ulrich says:
“We’re looking at how we can embrace everything. We want to be as free players as possible. We’ve been observing Radiohead and Trent Reznor [of Nine Inch Nails] and in 27 years or however long it takes for the next record, we’ll be looking forward to everything in terms of possibilities with the internet.”
Why? Because through the lens of experience they realized what a profoundly short-sighted move it was to punish people for downloading music online? iTunes, anyone?
Or maybe it’s because they were upset at being ranked No. 17 on Blender’s Biggest Wusses in Rock list last year due to “the anti-Napster crusade.” It’s bad for business if you’re supposed to be all rebellious and rules-eschewing but in reality you’re just whiny and lame.
Madonna has for a while now proclaimed herself the be-all, end-all of working moms, juggling a massive music empire with three kids and a rigorous exercise schedule. In a People magazine cover story a while back, the interviewer struggled to compare Her Madgesty to your everyday working mom:
Like many working mothers — even those who have an assistant and at least one nanny on hand, as she does — her life is “exhausting.”
“There isn’t a second in my day that isn’t taken up looking after my family or thinking [about work].”
It’s kind of a shame then that she’s prioritizing her new album over the adoption of her youngest son, David Banda, a Malawi AIDS orphan (or not, since he actually has a dad). Madonna has been granted her request to postpone the adoption hearing until May 15, after she has returned to London from promoting Hard Candy overseas.
The adoption has been controversial from the start, when she was rumored to have skirted the proper channels to bring the boy back to England immediately.
Does David Banda have a passport? Is he going to be with his mom on the road, or stuck back in England with the nanny army for the next few weeks? It’s odd enough that the adoption has taken nearly 18 months to finalize, why push it back even further?
You give some people an inch, they take a mile and run into fantasy land.
Steven Vander Ark, a school librarian and obsessed Harry Potter fan, developed the Harry Potter Lexicon, an online encyclopedia of all things Hogwarts.
J.K. Rowling, the author of the hugely successful wizard series, praised his efforts and said it was so comprehensive, it even helped jog her memory while she was writing.
So what happened to all this goodwill?
Vander Ark decided to cash in. He received an advance from RDR Books to publish his encyclopedia, but oops, forgot to check with Rowling first.
So she sued him. As you do when people you try to help then try to steal from you.
Seriously, who does that?
George Clooney gets all huffy when you mention that he makes extra bank shilling for companies in foreign countries. Stars do it all the time (remember Lost in Translation?) because the Japanese and Europeans will pay them tons to sell out and it doesn’t damage their credibility with their American fanbase.
So lately he’s been complaining about a pair of Italian designers who fraudulently used his name and likeness to promote their fashion line:
“If someone tries to sell you clothes or watches that are based on me, don’t buy them,” Clooney, 46, told reporters Wednesday in Rome, where he was promoting his new film, “Leatherheads.”
I’ll bet that Omega, the Swiss watch company, is thrilled about his statement. He’s been shilling for them for the past year, even being named Omega Ambassador and getting richly compensated in return. I mean, he’ll sell clothes and watches, just be prepared to pay him for the honor. But shhh, don’t remind him about that, he doesn’t like it when you expose that kind of stuff.
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