Archive for January, 2009

We love ya Martellus!

“Twilight” fans waiting to read Stephenie Meyer’s latest vampire novel had better not hold their breath: the author is still pouting about her unfinished manuscript being leaked online — and hasn’t touched the book since.

“I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on ‘Midnight Sun,’ so it is on hold indefinitely,” Meyer wrote on her Web site, stepheniemeyer.com. However, she posted the incomplete draft on her own site, reasoning, “I’d rather my fans not read this version … the writing is messy and flawed and full of mistakes. But how do I comment on this violation without driving more people to look for the illegal posting?”

To the chagrin of “Twilight” followers, Meyer has no further plans to resurrect the would-be juicy read. “Midnight Sun,” the fifth tome in the series, was being written from bloodsucking heartthrob Edward Cullen’s point of view.

“Nothing’s changed,” a rep for the author confirms to us. “Stephenie has no plans to move forward with ‘Midnight Sun’ at this time.”

But Meyer fanatics can anticipate an upcoming novel. “Stephenie is working on something else at the moment,” the flack reveals. “But she hasn’t announced it yet. It isn’t ‘Twilight’-related. When she’s ready to reveal it, she will. This has been an intense three years for her, and currently she’s just focusing on being a writer.”

As for how Meyer plans to protect her works in the future, her spokesperson says, “She’ll just have to be very selective about where she sends her manuscripts.”

While Edward Cullen may not get his time to shine in print, the man who portrays him on screen — British hottie Robert Pattinson — isn’t relying on Meyer’s writing skills for his income. R-Patz is taking on the role of a young Salvador Dali in “Little Ashes,” which comes complete with some steamy male-on-male scenes.

The film, which will hit theaters in March, is rated R for “sexual content, language and a brief disturbing image.” Of course, we can’t really imagine anything more disturbing than a vampire with teenage angst, either.

(source)

Oh, what’s in a number? When that number is a celebrity dress size – a lot.

Ashlee Simpson-Wentz has come out swinging against those in the media who have taken note of big sis Jessica Simpson’s fuller figure.

“How can we expect teenage girls to love and respect themselves in an environment where we criticize a size two figure?” Simpson-Wentz wrote on her MySpace Celebrity blog on Wednesday.

But she seems to be a little … off when it comes to gauging her sister’s current clothing size. A size two?!

Simpson is one of the many curvaceous stars who claim to be able to squeeze into the teeny size.

Kim Kardashian came under fire in September after telling OK! magazine that she’s a two – meaning she could swap clothes with svelte “Regis & Kelly” host Kelly Ripa and tiny Christina Aguilera.

And, of course actress Jennifer Love Hewitt famously used the petite size as a shield against critics of her bikini body declaring, “a size 2 is not fat!”
We think Love Hewitt (and the others mind, you) looks just fine – but they can’t all be a size 2.

“Clearly there’s a psychological piece to clothing size,” says Lynn Grefe, CEO of the National Eating Disorder Association. “Sadly, people believe that you are your size, that the size is a reflection of how good you are or how successful you are.”

Size is definitely a mental thing, agrees FIT professor and fashion designer George Simonton, but there’s no set manual with dimensions for “real” sizes - unless you consult the military.

“There are statistics with the U.S. government,” he says. “For strict measurements you have to go to the Army and Navy for [proper] bust, hip and waist measurements.”

But for non-military duds, sizes are open to interpretation.

“Each designer - believe it or not - fits a little different,” he says. “That’s why there’s always confusion with women.”

High-end designers tend to skew more toward “vanity sizes,” Simonton says, which run larger than, say, their T.J. Maxx counterparts.

Translation: A size two designer dress is more like a size four or six in a department store.

“A lot of women don’t really want to admit what their true sizes are,” he explains. “The only ones that do true sizes are J.C. Penney and Sears. They have certain measurements that their customers demand.”

Those who don’t get the size they want tend to “fib” about it, he says.

But understating one’s size can have negative repercussions for fans, says Grefe.

“For women and celebrities especially to be playing this game … it’s painful when I know people are dying to be these size zeros and twos,” she says.
Grefe adds: “I get disappointed that these women are doing [this]. Do they understand the implications? I don’t think that they do.”

(source)

But the nudie magazine, which is closing its New York office and consolidating operations in Chicago, is hawking tickets to a game-day bash at the Playboy Mansion in LA hosted by Brande Roderick. General admission is $1,500, with tables and cabanas going for $10,000 and $25,000. Meanwhile, the annual pay-per-view Lingerie Bowl has also been canceled. There was a dispute whether members of the Florida nudist colony where it was to be held would have to cover up during the game.

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The couple, who married in 2004, divorced in 2006 and have gotten back together and broken up umpteen times, are taking a break. “They still love each other madly, but this is just the nature of their relation ship,” says a friend of Moakler, adding, “I bet they’ll be back together soon enough.” Moakler’s rep, Lizzie Grubman, tells Page Six, “We never comment on the personal lives of our clients.”

(source)

Kelly Rowland says she will always be a part of Beyonce’s family, but she no longer will be managed by the superstar’s father. Rowland and Matthew Knowles announced Wednesday that he is bowing out as her manager. He’s guided her career since she was kid, when he put her in Destiny’s Child along with Beyonce. He even helped raise her.

Both Rowland and Knowles - who still manages daughter Beyonce - called the split amicable. Both say they will always be family.

Rowland has sold millions of records as part of Destiny’s Child, but her solo career hasn’t matched that success.

Rowland - who turns 27 next month - did not say who her new manager will be.

Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboard player Billy Powell, who played on such hits as “Sweet Home Alabama” and survived the 1977 plane crash that killed three band members, died Wednesday. He was 56.

Powell called 911 in this Jacksonville suburb saying he was having trouble breathing. Rescue crews performed CPR, but he was pronounced dead about an hour later, Orange Park Police Lt. Mark Cornett said.

Powell, who had a history of heart problems, missed a Tuesday appointment with his doctor for a cardiac evaluation, and a heart attack is suspected as the cause of death.

The Jacksonville-based band was formed in 1966 by a group of high school students - famously, it took its name from a physical education teacher they disliked, Leonard Skinner. Powell joined the group in 1970 and became its keyboardist in 1972, the year before they released their first album, “Pronounced leh-nerd skin-nerd.”

It became one of the South’s most popular rock groups, and gained national fame with such hits as “Free Bird,” “What’s Your Name” and especially “Sweet Home Alabama,” which reached the top 10 on the charts in 1974. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

The band was decimated on Oct. 20, 1977, when their chartered plane crashed in a swamp near McComb, Miss.

Six people were killed - lead singer Ronnie Van Zant; guitarist Steve Gaines; Gaines’ sister, vocalist Cassie Gaines; as well as an assistant road manager, the pilot and co-pilot.

Powell received facial injuries in the crash, but eventually recovered. He was the only band member well enough to attend the funerals of those killed in the crash.

Two years after the accident, Powell and fellow members Allen Collins, Gary Rossington and Leon Wilkeson formed the Rossington-Collins Band. It broke up in 1982.

In 1987 Johnny Van Zant - Ronnie’s brother - and a new Lynyrd Skynyrd Band went on a tribute tour, and Powell was on hand again in 1991 when the revived version of the band put out a new album, “Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991″ and started a tour in Baton Rouge, La., where the band was headed in 1977 when the plane crashed.

Fans who kept their tickets from the canceled 1977 concert were admitted free.

The band’s last album, “Vicious Cycle,” was released in 2003.

Johnny Van Zant was devastated by Powell’s death. Hearkening back to the deaths of other members of the band, he said: “Maybe it is just the destiny of Lynyrd Skynyrd. We’ve played before millions and millions of people and it’s been a wonderful ride and a bumpy one too.”

Van Zant said Powell had been a roadie for the band when his brother heard him playing the keyboard.

“Nobody knew he could play the keyboard,” Van Zant said.

Earlier this year, Powell and the band took a four-day cruise on a ship out of Miami with “4,000 crazy Skynyrd fans,” said Van Zant.

The band had recorded several songs for a new album and had upcoming gigs, which will be canceled, Van Zant said.

Howard Kramer, curatorial director at the Rock and Roll Hall, said Powell “was a phenomenal piano player. The band may be able to get another piano player, but they will never replace Billy Powell.”

“He was one of the best piano keyboardists, rock ‘n’ roll keyboardists, of our lifetime,” said Ross Schilling, the band’s manager.

Hank Williams Jr. said: “I will truly miss Billy. We have all lost one of our best rowdy friends.”

After a shaky start to her musical comeback last year, it finally looks like Britney Spears has got her self-confidence back.

Pictured rehearsing for her upcoming tour in a skimpy bikini top, it looks like the troubled singer has finally turned a corner.

As she writhes to the music in a Los Angeles rehearsal studio, Britney is cutting a very different figure to this time last year, when she was stretchered out of her home for psychiatric evaluation.

During her years out of the spotlight, Britney gained weight and stepped back from her career.

But after making her comeback last year and getting back in shape, Britney is slowly, but surely regaining confidence with her figure and performing abilities.

In exclusive pictures on her official website, Britney gives fans an insight into what they can expect on her upcoming The Circus: Starring Britney Spears tour.

Britney is set to begin her world tour in March, starting in her homestate of New Orleans.

The 44-date runs for four months and covers the U.S., Canada and London, with plans to expand to the rest of Europe.

Britney will perform six gigs in London’s O2 arena between 3-14 June.

So until then, Britney is working hard at the studio with her team of dancers and choreographers JaQuel Knight - who choreographed Beyonce Knowles’s Single Ladies - and Tony Testa.

During her whirlwind trip to Europe in November, which saw her perform live on TV shows including The X Factor, Britney was criticised for her obvious miming and lacklustre dancing.

As well as her lip-synching on the episode of The X Factor, it also emerged that the singer hadn’t spent any time with the contestants, who all sang live that night.

While been taken as a snub, it later emerged that Britney felt ‘too shy’ to offer the hopefuls advice.

The same night, Britney was expected to perform at the G.A.Y. nightclub in London, but angered fans when she backed out.

The club’s promoter, Jeremy Joseph, says: ‘I don’t know why she didn’t go on. She’s really shy, and obviously she didn’t feel confident enough. I tried to persuade her, but she said no.’

Last month, her mother Lynne Spears admitted Britney wasn’t the same confident superstar she was back in the early Noughties.

She said: ‘I think Britney’s happy in most ways - very happy with her kids and ecstatic about work. But there’s something missing in her life.

‘That gut belief she had in herself when she was so young - that’s what’s missing, and she’s got to get that back. She could set the world on fire in those days, and she knew exactly what she wanted.

‘But the hardships she’s been through have made her a little hesitant. She needs one big boost, one plug of energy and she’ll be there.’

After giving birth to two boys and her subsequent health troubles, Britney was out of shape for several years, but is now feeling good again after losing 20 pounds.

She told the January issue of Glamour magazine: ‘I have had to work hard at getting [my body] back to where it used to be.

‘I used to be obsessed with working out. But I can’t get motivated right now because I’m so focused on my music.’

(source)

A few years ago she wished for a ‘rainbow’ family of seven children from around the world.

Yesterday, Angelina Jolie was probably wishing she’d been born with a few more pairs of hands.

The actress and her partner Brad Pitt struggled through Narita Airport near Tokyo with their brood of six - just one child short of Miss Jolie’s dream family.

Before the trend for celebrities adopting poverty stricken orphans from around the world took off, Miss Jolie declared: ‘I want to create a rainbow family.
‘That’s children of different religions and cultures, from different countries. Actually, I’d love to have seven, a small football team.’

Her comments, made five years ago before she had met Pitt, were treated with scepticism.

Now the Hollywood actress has finally got her wish.

It is the first time the entire Jolie-Pitt clan has been pictured together.

They were arriving in Tokyo from LA where they had attended the Screen Actor’s Guild Awards.

The family are in Japan for the premiere of Brad’s latest film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

They are expected to return to their native US next month for the Oscars, where both Brad and Angelina have been nominated for Benjamin Button and Clint Eastwood’s film The Changeling respectively.

Attached to her mother’s chest in a sling, blue-eyed little Vivienne, born with her twin Knox in July last year in the south of France, looked the spitting image of her older biological sister Shiloh Nouvel, two, seen here holding her mother’s hand. They both had their mother’s famous rose-bud lips.

Shiloh, the couple’s first natural daughter, was born in May 2006 in Namibia. The name is of Hebrew origin and means ‘the peaceful one’ or ‘His gift’.

Wide-eyed Knox riding on his father’s chest was also styled like him - with both wearing grey jumpers and tweed flat caps.

The twins have certainly earned enough to keep the whole family in expensive threads in their short lives so far. Their parents negotiated the most expensive magazine deal ever when they sold pictures of the twins to People magazine and Hello! a month after the births for £7.5million.

However the money was donated to the Jolie-Pitt family’s charitable foundation.

Gripping tight hold of Brad’s left hand is Zahara Marley. She was adopted from an orphanage in Ethiopia when she was just five months old in July 2005. The adoption came two months after Miss Jolie first visited the country with Pitt.

To Brad’s right is Pax Thien who was adopted from a Vietnamese orphanage in March 2007.

Abandoned at birth he was called Pham Quang before being renamed by Jolie. Pax is Latin for Peace and Thien is Vietnamese for heaven.

Trailing slightly behind the group is Maddox. In June 2002, Jolie and her then husband Billy Bob Thornton adopted the Cambodian orphan.
He was nine months old at the time. Jolie had decided to adopt after visiting the country as a goodwill ambassador for the UN in 2001.

Brad and Angelina - dubbed ‘Brangelina’ by showbusiness commentators - recently complained they spend the entire life jet-setting with their family. Their gruelling schedules promoting films and endorsing products have made them two of the highest-paid celebrities in Hollywood.

Miss Jolie said: ‘Our kids are always packing. They like to pack - it’s a game in our house.

‘It can get very hard trying to find 20 minutes to close your eyes if you’ve been up since four in the morning. We travel so much, we never have to adjust. We change school time to four in the afternoon if we have to.’

(source)