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Jennifer Hudson to discuss murders of three of her family members.

by admin on Jun.30, 2010, under Celebrities, Celebrity Gossip

Jennifer Hudson will address the October 2008 murders of three of her family members on an upcoming episode of VH1’s “Behind The Music.”

According to MTV News, the star will “talk at length” about the loss of her mother, brother and nephew in the episode, which will debut Monday on the network.

As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, her mother, Darnell Donerson, and brother Jason Hudson were found dead at the time inside the family’s Chicago home with the body of her nephew, Julian King, found several days later.

William Balfour — the estranged husband of Hudson’s sister, Julia — was charged with the killings.

The star has mentioned her heartbreaking losses several times in the year and a half since the murders, though never at length.

“I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time,” she wrote on her MySpace page in November 2008. “My sister and I take great comfort and strength from your love and concern.”

Months later, she thanked her fans once again on the red carpet.

“Everyone has been so supportive and it’s overwhelming,” she told Access Hollywood’s Shaun Robinson at the Grammy Awards in February 2009.

At the ceremony itself, she thanked “my family in heaven, and those who are here today” after earning Best R&B album — her first Grammy.

The upcoming “Behind The Music” episode will also feature a look at Jennifer’s stunning rise to fame, which has found her going from a run on “American Idol” to an Oscar-winning role in “Dreamgirls,” Grammy success and a thriving career in film and music – as well as welcoming fiance David Otunga and their son, David Jr., into her life.

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Seinfeld said he hates Lady Gaga

by admin on Jun.23, 2010, under Celebrity Gossip

Jerry Seinfeld has changed his opinion of Lady Gaga, who was taken to his private box at the Mets’ Citi Field after showing photographers her middle finger at a game earlier this month.

Previously, Seinfeld released a statement noting that his family took “an optimistic view of Lady Gaga’s gesture as a sign that she wants the Mets to be in first place as badly as they do,” but during an interview on New York’s WFAN Sports Radio with Steve Somers, he changed his tune.

“You know, I changed my mind. I hate her,” Seinfeld said in his typical rant style after the sports jock pointed out that Gaga was taken to the comic’s seats after flicking off the photogs. “I can’t believe they put her in my box — that I paid for! You give people the finger and you get upgraded? Is that the world we’re living in now? I mean …”

Seinfeld said he didn’t learn that the bikini-wearing Gaga was taken to his seats until later that night when he came for the second game of the day.

“How would I know anything? I wasn’t even there … I came for the night game and heard all about it,” he said. “She’s a jerk. … What is she giving the finger (for)? What’s the finger anyway? Speaking of interesting and new, how old is the finger, how did it even get to be the finger?

“Get an act,” Seinfeld continued. “Rhinestone bikinis and giving people the finger? But she is talented. I don’t know why she’s doing this stuff.”

When informed that Gaga got special treatment at a Yankee’s game recently, Seinfeld said he’d had enough.

“Oh please, wake me when it’s over,” he said.

Earlier in the broadcast Seinfeld also wondered aloud if Gaga’s act was just a game.

“I wish her the best. You know, you take one ‘A’ off of that and you’ve got ‘gag,’ ” he laughed.

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The 24-year-old star Amanda Bynes retiring from acting.

by admin on Jun.21, 2010, under Celebrity Gossip

Amanda Bynes is done acting, the 24-year-old star announced on Twitter.

“Being an actress isn’t as fun as it may seem,” she tweeted from her verified account. “If I don’t love something anymore I stop doing it. I don’t love acting anymore so I’ve stopped doing it.”

However, she admitted that she’s a little young to call it quits already.

“I know 24 is a young age to retire but you heard it here first,” she tweeted. “I’ve #retired.”

Following her star-making roles on Nickelodeon’s sketch comedy “All That” and her own show on the network, “The Amanda Show,” Bynes starred alongside Jennie Garth on the WB sitcom “What I like About You” and hit the big screen in such films as “She’s The Man” and “Hairspray.”

If she holds true to her retirement revelation, her last film project may be the fall comedy “Easy A,” co-starring Emma Stone, due September 17.

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Charlie Sheen’s future in a smoke-free facility is an impossibility.

by admin on Jun.18, 2010, under Celebrity Gossip

A plea deal that meant Charlie Sheen would be required to serve only 30 days in jail as a result of his domestic violence arrest in Colorado sounded like a good pact when the actor’s lawyers first bargained for it. But after the deal hit a snag over Sheen’s requested work-release option, those 30 days no longer seemed so appealing. According to Radar Online, the “Two and a Half Men” star is now angling for a new jail-free option.

The alternate arrangement is allegedly necessary because Sheen can’t kick the smoking habit. When work release was on the table, so was the chance to light up a few times a day. Sheen reportedly sees a future in a smoke-free facility as an impossibility.

“Charlie realizes that any deal with jail time now means he can’t smoke,” an insider revealed. “He says he can’t go without it. And (his wife) is still not clean and needs rehab. That’s got Charlie worried about the kids, so now he’s willing to take probation.”

But is a judge willing to give it to him? That approach regarding the children might gain favor with the court, but it’s hard to imagine the can’t-stop-puffing slant will get Sheen very far.

ShamWow’s Vince promotes Eminem
Talk about an unexpected career turnaround. Disgraced and back again chamois pitchman Vince Offer, aka Offer Vince Shlomi, is somehow suddenly hot once more. Recently, Offer — of ShamWow fame and violent encounter with a prostitute infamy — received a shout-out from Snoop Dogg on Katy Perry’s latest track, and now he’s back in the ad game thanks to a viral promo video he filmed for Eminem.

As MTV News reported, a change in expected drop date for Eminem’s “Recovery” album (now out June 21) meant the rapper needed to spread the word. Evidently he couldn’t think of a better way to encourage fans to be the first to buy the new recording than to have Offer slice and dice his way through a high-pressure “EmWow” pitch.

The ad works as an attention-grabbing piece of pop culture, but the less said about the fictional tie-in product, the ShamPon, the better.

Dish on the fly
It looks like the lucrative world of paid partygoing and maybe starring in an upcoming movie just isn’t all it used to be for Lindsay Lohan. It’s either that or the actress has suddenly turned to tweeting ads just for the fun of it, as earlier this week, LiLo’s Twitter posts went from mostly random to mostly endorsements. Well, even the endorsements seem random, unless there’s some hidden connection between mail-order meals and sunglasses. … “Little People, Big World” star Matt Roloff assured TMZ that he is, in fact, alive and well. Apparently some fans of the reality-TV dad weren’t so sure after seeing him collapse cold at the close of the show’s fifth season finale episode Monday night. “Although having a dizzy case of vertigo … I am very much alive and healthy and would like to thank all my friends and fans for their concern,” Roloff said. Just goes to show those “will he survive?” cliffhangers don’t really work so well with non-scripted programs and their oh-so-vocal stars.

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Piers Morgan in talks with CNN for a evening show

by admin on Jun.16, 2010, under Celebrity Gossip

British TV personality Piers Morgan is in talks with CNN for a potential evening show, sources on both sides of the Atlantic reported.

According to the New York Post, the “America’s Got Talent” and “Britain’s Got Talent” judge is being wooed by CNN for a “possible panel show.” The star could reportedly join the network in its open 8 p.m. slot, or as a replacement for Larry King himself on “Larry King Live.”

Meanwhile, the UK’s Telegraph reported that Morgan will step in for the 76-year-old King for a new show akin to his British series “Piers Morgan’s Life Stories.”

Such a move would make Morgan — a former editor of The Mirror — the first British journalist to earn a nightly American primetime show.

However, the Telegraph noted that taking on the new project would mean leaving “Britain’s Got Talent,” which a source told the paper he has already discussed with Simon Cowell, the executive producer of that show.

“[Piers] has his blessing,” the source told the Telegraph, adding that the shift could come in the fall.

King’s “Live” ratings are down 43 percent from the same period in 2009, according to the New York Post.

When reached by Access Hollywood on Sunday, a CNN rep would not confirm nor deny the Morgan reports.

“We aren’t commenting on the Piers Morgan speculation, but we are talking to many people about the 8 p.m. hour,” the rep told Access.

Morgan himself had no comment when reached by Access.

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Shawn Johnson was being stalked

by admin on Jun.14, 2010, under Celebrity Gossip

A judge found a Florida man guilty of stalking Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson on Friday and later determined he was legally insane at the time of the crime.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor found Robert O’Ryan guilty of felony stalking and burglary charges and two misdemeanor concealed weapons violations. The verdict came after four days of testimony and evidence.

Pastor, considering the evaluations of two psychiatrists, ruled that O’Ryan was legally insane at the time of his arrest last March. He likely will serve his sentence in a state mental hospital after a court-ordered evaluation.

He had faced up to four years in state prison and two years in county jail. He had waived the right to a jury trial and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

O’Ryan did not react to Pastor’s verdict. Johnson was not present.

“It’s the right result,” prosecutor Wendy Segall said after the verdict.

Segall argued that O’Ryan harbored a dangerous obsession to meet and marry Johnson, who won an Olympic gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He was arrested last March on a studio lot where Johnson was performing on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

A search of O’Ryan’s car parked near the studio turned up two loaded guns, a bulletproof vest, duct tape and zip ties and numerous writings to Johnson. He had driven from his home near Jacksonville, Fla. to Los Angeles in the hopes of meeting the athlete.

Johnson testified on Thursday that she was scared of O’Ryan, whom she had never met. She said she considered quitting “Dancing with the Stars” and moving back to Iowa, but she remained on the show and got a bodyguard. She won her season of the show.

O’Ryan’s attorney, Judith Greenberg, argued that O’Ryan didn’t have any criminal intent and did not plan to harm Johnson.

“It was clearly an insanity case from the beginning,” Greenberg said after Pastor’s rulings. “Insanity is a crude weapon for the defense. Perhaps the case shouldn’t be in the system.”

She said the process has “a very negative consequence” for many defendants. Throughout the trial, she spoke about how O’Ryan was a well-educated engineer who lost his job as he succumbed to schizophrenia.

He is due back in court on July 13 when Pastor will consider the results of his mental evaluation.

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Souleye marries Alanis Morissette

by admin on Jun.11, 2010, under Celebrity Gossip

According to People, the Canadian singer married rapper Souleye, 30, whose real name is Mario Treadway, in a small ceremony in Los Angeles on May 22. The couple’s close family was reportedly in attendance at the intimate ceremony held in the singer’s home.

Morissette’s rep confirmed the news to the mag, saying she wed just a week before her 36th birthday on June 1.

The singer was previously engaged to Ryan Reynolds. Morissette was also previously linked to “Full House” star Dave Coulier, who, after many years of speculation, told the New York Daily News in 2008 that the singer’s breakthrough hit, “You Outta Know,” was about their rocky relationship.

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Don Cheadle named UN spokesman.

by admin on Jun.07, 2010, under Celebrities

Actor Don Cheadle has become a spokesman for the United Nations environment program.

He was appointed Saturday in Rwanda’s capital as a U.N. Environment Program Goodwill Ambassador and vowed to fight climate change and promote environment conservation.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner announced the appointment, saying that Cheadle would help raise green awareness among millions of people around the globe.

Cheadle also named a baby gorilla Zoya, a name chosen by internet users as part of a UNEP awareness program.

In 2004, Cheadle starred in the film “Hotel Rwanda” which told the world about the Rwandan genocide in 1994 that claimed the lives of more than 500,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The Rwandan government, however, was critical of the film.

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Rue McClanahan dies at 76

by admin on Jun.04, 2010, under Celebrities

Rue McClanahan, the Emmy-winning actress who brought the sexually liberated Southern belle Blanche Devereaux to life on the hit TV series “The Golden Girls,” has died. She was 76.

Her manager, Barbara Lawrence, said McClanahan died Thursday morning at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital of a brain hemorrhage.

She had undergone treatment for breast cancer in 1997 and later lectured to cancer support groups on “aging gracefully.” In 2009, she had heart bypass surgery.

McClanahan had an active career in off-Broadway and regional stages in the 1960s before she was tapped for TV in the 1970s for the key best-friend character on the hit series “Maude,” starring Beatrice Arthur. After that series ended in 1978, McClanahan landed the role as Aunt Fran on “Mama’s Family” in 1983.

But her most loved role came in 1985 when she co-starred with Arthur, Betty White and Estelle Getty in “The Golden Girls,” a runaway hit that broke the sitcom mold by focusing on the foibles of four aging — and frequently eccentric — women living together in Miami.

ABC file

“The Golden Girls” stars, clockwise from left, Rue McClanahan, Bea Arthur, Betty White and Estelle Getty.

“Golden Girls” aimed to show “that when people mature, they add layers,” she told The New York Times in 1985. “They don’t turn into other creatures. The truth is we all still have our child, our adolescent, and your young woman living in us.”

Blanche, who called her father “Big Daddy,” was a frequent target of roommates Dorothy, Rose and the outspoken Sophia (Getty), who would fire off zingers at Blanche such as, “Your life’s an open blouse.”

Fellow “Golden Girl” Betty White called McClanahan a close and dear friend.

“I treasured our relationship,” said White, who was working in Los Angeles on the set of her TV Land comedy “Hot in Cleveland” on Thursday. “It hurts more than I even thought it would, if that’s even possible.”

McClanahan snagged an Emmy for her work on the show in 1987. In an Associated Press interview that year, McClanahan said Blanche was unlike any other role she had ever played.

“Probably the closest I’ve ever done was Blanche DuBois in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ at the Pasadena Playhouse,” she said. “I think, too, that’s where the name came from, although my character is not a drinker and not crazy.”

Her Blanche Devereaux, she said, “is in love with life and she loves men. I think she has an attitude toward women that’s competitive. She is friends with Dorothy and Rose, but if she has enough provocation she becomes competitive with them. I think basically she’s insecure. It’s the other side of the Don Juan syndrome.”

The We TV cable network said it would honor McClanahan with a marathon of “Golden Girls” episodes featuring Blanche on Friday night. The Logo network said it would replay all episodes of “Sordid Lives,” her last TV series, on Sunday.

Vicki Lawrence worked with McClanahan on “Mama’s Family.” Lawrence called her “a consummate professional, an actor’s actor.”

“It was my good fortune to get to work with her on the first season and a half of ‘Mama’s Family.’ When she got stolen away from ‘Mama’s Family’ to do ‘Golden Girls,’ I cried,” Lawrence said in an e-mail.

After “The Golden Girls” was canceled in 1992, McClanahan, White and Getty reprised their roles in a short-lived spinoff, “Golden Palace.”

McClanahan continued working in television, on stage and in film, appearing in the Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau vehicle “Out to Sea” and as the biology teacher in “Starship Troopers.”

She stepped in to portray Madame Morrible, the crafty headmistress, for a time in “Wicked,” Broadway’s long-running “Wizard of Oz” prequel.

In 2008, McClanahan appeared in the Logo comedy “Sordid Lives: The Series,” playing the slightly addled, elderly mother of an institutionalized drag queen.

During production, McClanahan was recovering from 2007 surgery on her knee. It didn’t stop her from filming a sex scene in which the bed broke, forcing her to hang on to a windowsill to avoid tumbling off.

McClanahan was born Eddi-Rue McClanahan in Healdton, Okla., to building contractor William McClanahan and his wife, Dreda Rheua-Nell, a beautician. She graduated with honors from the University of Tulsa with a degree in German and theater arts.

McClanahan’s acting career began on the stage. According to a 1985 Los Angeles Times profile, she appeared at the Pasadena (Calif.) Playhouse, studied in New York with Uta Hagen and Harold Clurman, and worked in soaps and on the stage.

She won an Obie — the off-Broadway version of the Tony — in 1970 for “Who’s Happy Now,” playing the “other woman” in a family drama written by Oliver Hailey. She reprised the role in a 1975 television version; in a review, The New York Times described her character as “an irrepressible belle given to frequent bouts of ‘wooziness’ and occasional bursts of shrewdness.”

She had appeared only sporadically on television until producer Norman Lear tapped her for a guest role on “All in the Family” in 1971.

She went from there to a regular role in the “All in the Family” spinoff “Maude,” playing Vivian, the neighbor and best friend to Arthur in the starring role.

When Arthur died in April 2009, McClanahan recalled that she had felt constrained by “Golden Girls” during the later years of its run. “Bea liked to be the star of the show. She didn’t really like to do that ensemble playing,” McClanahan said.

McClanahan was married six times: Tom Bish, with whom she had a son, Mark Bish; actor Norman Hartweg; Peter D’Maio; Gus Fisher; and Tom Keel. She married Morrow Wilson on Christmas Day in 1997.

She called her 2007 memoir “My First Five Husbands … And the Ones Who Got Away.”

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