Celebrities Category
Celebrity news & gossip from the world’s showbiz and glamour magazines (OK!, Hello, National Enquirer and more). We read them so you don’t have to, picking the best bits from the showbiz world’s maw and spitting it back at them. Expect lots of sarcasm.
Coronavirus cure update fakery: Emma Bunton still working on it
Former Spice Girl Emma Bunton admitted today that she has still not found a cure for coronavirus Covid-19.
Spotter: @FakeShowbizNews
Posted: 15th, May 2020 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Clap for the NHS with Nigel Farage
Every Thursday since (how long has it been now?) people have been coming onto the street to clap for the NHS. If you can’t clap, either download the Clapp App (TM) or bang a spoon on your saucepan or tin hat. And, as in Stalin’s Russia, no-one wants to be the first to stop clapping. Everyone’s doing in. Here’s Nigel Farage:
Anyone know what he’s tapping out in Morse Code?
Posted: 1st, May 2020 | In: Celebrities, News | Comment
A Supercut of Social Distancing in Wes Anderson movies
Wes Anderson was right. Social distancing is the way to survive the modern world. Luis Azevedo has created this supercut of characters in Anderson’s movies practicing sound social distancing techniques.
Boris Johnson’s daughter in Prada headband storm
When they invented prime ministers, they also created Prime Ministers’ children. Unlike the SADDOS (sons and daughters of stars) who can mime, pose and pout in their instagram branded knickers as they work on their celebrity status, the politicians’ kids can either join the Party or find their own way. Carol Thatcher went into Golliwogs, for her brother Mark it was Africa, and Euan Blair went into the boozer and then vomited over Leicester Square. Lara Walker-Johnson went to Oxfordshire and bought a Prada headband. We know all about her purchase because Laura wrote about for Vogue magazine in a story entitled How Time-travelling To My Teen Wardrobe Helped Me Understand Who I Am Today. It’s the kind of vapid tosh made to reassure the unconvinced that minted toff Meghan Markle’s editing of the expensive magazine that advertises expensive things was not a seismic moment in race relations.
“I’m trying my best not to buy more clothes right now, uncertain about future financial prospects and conscious it isn’t the time to splurge,” says Lara in Oxfordshire. The posh always name the county they’re visiting not the village or town. A town has windows, public transport and numbered doors. A county has sprawling mansions, bridle paths and land. “But, I must confess, I did buy two headbands,” she adds, “one black and fluffy, from Shrimps, and one pink and from Prada – that I’ve been drooling over for months.”
The critics some fast. “Lara who, according to her website, is a fashion writer,” snipes one writer, adding: “I have no idea what her future financial prospects are, but her recent accessories acquisitions make me think that she’ll be okay.” The mind boggles to think what the backstory will do to the bands’ resale value. “In a moment when economic inequality, globally, and in the U.K., has never been more conspicuous – and when so many peoples’ lives are in her father’s hands – I might have kept this confession to myself.”
Two headbands in and Boris Johnson is King Herod.
In the Daily Mirror, Lara’s purchases are given no lesser importance: “Meanwhile, more than 100 NHS and care staff have died after testing positive for COVID-19 – as keyworkers beg the government for more vital PPE to protect themselves on the frontline.”
Meanwhile is the literary split screen. There’s Lara shopping online for fancy goods and a fashion philosophy while below her the huddled masses look up beseechingly and wonder if all this coverage of to-die-for Prada headbands means Lara will never need buy one again, and if they make face masks?
Posted: 29th, April 2020 | In: Celebrities, Fashion, News, Politicians, Tabloids | Comment
Ross Kemp saves the nation by pulling on PPE and strolling through an intensive care ward treating coronavirus patients
By now you’ll be wondering what Grant Mitchell, aka Ross Kemp, is up to? Have pretended to be a soldier on EastEnders, the BBC’s fly-on-the-wall documentary on London life, fearless, selfless Ross Kemp now goes to war against the coronavirus in Milton Keynes.
Ross Kemp is real. No-one bothered to make him up.
Posted: 12th, April 2020 | In: Celebrities, News | Comment
This comment on Jamie Oliver’s coronavirus cooking wins
Jamie Oliver says ‘Keep Cooking and Carry On’…
Keep cooking and carry on…
Posted: 8th, April 2020 | In: Celebrities | Comment
John Prine sings Sam Stone
Chicago folk musician John Prine (10 October 1946 – 7 April 2020) recorded Sam Stone “to say something about our soldiers who’d go over to Vietnam, killing people and not knowing why you were there”. He told Rolling Stone in 2018: “And then a lot of soldiers came home and got hooked on drugs and never could get off of it. I was just trying to think of something as hopeless as that. My mind went right to ‘Jesus Christ died for nothin’, I suppose.’ I said, ‘That’s pretty hopeless.’” Sam Stone was voted the 8th saddest song of all time in a Rolling Stone readers’ poll. It’s beautiful:
Make Your Own Vinyl Records with an Easy Record Maker
You don’t need a factory to make vinyl records. Japanese artist Yuri Suzuki has crested the Easy Record Maker:
To cut a record, you simply play audio through an aux cable and lift the cutting arm onto a blank disc. Once the record is cut, you can instantly play back your recording through the tone arm and the in built speaker!
More like cute your own records — look at how wee this thing is:
Spotter: Kottke, Design Week
Posted: 6th, April 2020 | In: Music, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Eddie Large died with Coronavirus not from it
Eddie Large died “with” Coronavirus, says the BBC. The entertainer, one half of the Little and Large comedy duo, contracted the virus in hospital. He had been suffering with heart failure. So how does the Mirror report on the death of the 78-year-old? Not well. Eddie Large’s death is presented as part of the “Coronavirus Crisis”. “Eddie’s heart wasn’t strong enough to fight the virus.” But the virus didn’t kill him.
Eddie Large was not killed by Covid-19. Well, not unless you read about his death in the Mirror:
The Mail says Eddie Large “death in hospital from coronavirus while being treated for heart failure”. It adds: “Mr Large, who was famous for his singing and impressions, is the most famous Briton to be killed by coronavirus, which has now claimed almost 3,000 lives in the UK with deaths hitting 500-a-day.” Deep into the story we’re told: “The father of three had a successful heart transplant in 2003 – but it appears that the organ began to fail before his death, leading to his hospital admission in Bristol.”
The Sun notes: “The comedian had been suffering with heart failure and contracted the deadly virus in hospital.” To say nothing of heart failure being deadly, which it doesn’t.
Eddie Large’s son, Ryan McGinnis, wrote on Facebook:
“It is with great sadness that Mum and I need to announce that my dad passed away in the early hours of this morning. He had been suffering with heart failure and unfortunately, whilst in hospital, contracted the coronavirus, which his heart was sadly not strong enough to fight. Dad had fought bravely for so long. Due to this horrible disease we had been unable to visit him at the hospital but all of the family and close friends spoke to him every day. We will miss him terribly and we are so proud of everything he achieved in his career with Syd and know that he was much loved by the millions that watched them each week.”
Eddie Large: Edward Hugh McGinnis (25 June 1941 – 2 April 2020).
Posted: 3rd, April 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Kate Winslet gives tips to keep you safe during the coronavirus pandemic
Kate Winslet is well placed to keep you safe during the coronavirus pandemic. As Sky News tells it, Winslet starred in the film Contagion about a hypothetical virus outbreak. All of you who think EastEnders is a fly-on-the-wall documentary about London life stay tuned. After this look out for Winslet telling us to maintain a youthful complexion into your second century of living (see the Titanic CCTV footage from 1912).
People have been grateful for Kate’s expertise and selfness willingness to educate:
It’s not a Sky News production. GQ explains:
In addition to [Matt] Damon and Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, and Jennifer Ehle have also filmed PSAs, which were made with the help of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns teamed up with the school’s Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a professor of epidemiology who also served as an advisor for the chillingly realistic 2011 movie.
“The Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University reached out to the cast and asked us if we’d have a virtual reunion and do some PSAs,” Damon explains. “Everything you’re going to hear from us has been vetted by public health experts and scientists.”
It’s only real if a famous face says it is.
Posted: 1st, April 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment
Mega-rich TV evangelist executes judgement on Covid-19
US televangelist Kenneth Copeland will slay the coronavirus by channelling God’s powers. It’s the smackdown we’ve been waiting for:
Here’s Kenneth explaining why God made private jets:
Posted: 31st, March 2020 | In: Celebrities, News, Strange But True | Comment
Coronavirus: Daily Mail wants to isolate GMB presenter Susanna Reid
The Daily Mail is hot on news and more news on the Coronavirus. It’s worried about the wellbeing of the aged (its readers). So the front page carries sage advice: “We CAN show mums out love this Sunday by self-isolating Susanna Reid.” Tough on her. But hard to argue with.
Posted: 19th, March 2020 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comment
Back to The Future’s Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox meet for Parkinson’s poker night
‘All in with Christopher Lloyd at Michael J. Fox Poker Night!’ To help the Michael J. Fox Foundation in its quest to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease, Michael J. Fox met his Back To The Future co-star Christopher Lloyd for a night of charity poker.
Posted: 7th, March 2020 | In: Celebrities, Film, News | Comment
Lawyer creates 68 billion musical melodies by algorithm so you can never be sued for copyright infringement
Two lawyers think if every piece of 12-note musical melody can be created by an algorithm then all music is publicly owners and nobody gets sued for copyright theft. So lawyers Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin came up with a way to record all melodies because, as they see it, only a finite number of melodies can exist.
Riehl explained more in a Tedx Talk. The crux is that music becomes copyrighted the moment it’s recorded and anyone can be sued for “subconscious infringement”. You can be an unwitting thief if a melody in your song sounds like a melody in one of thousands of songs that formed your musical appreciation. The other argument is that hasn’t Riehl just infringed the copyright of thousands of songs?
You can test the theory flicking through one of the 68 billion melodies created at allthemusic.info.
Posted: 4th, March 2020 | In: Key Posts, Music, Technology | Comment
Read the Rolling Stone essay that became Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
You can read for free the 23,000-word essay for Rolling Stone that Hunter S. Thompson turned into Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Thompson’s tale begins with the death of Ruben Salazar (March 3, 1928 – August 29, 1970) at an anti-Vietnam War protest. During the rally, Salazar was struck by a tear-gas projectile fired by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy. The story of Salazar’s killing became Thompson’s story Strange Rumblings in Aztlan.
Thompson strayed off subject. Waylaid by a jaunt to Las Vegas for the Mint 400 desert race for Sports Illustrated, the story fanned out. The eventual 23,000-word piece appeared in the November 1971 issue of Rolling Stone as ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream.‘
Spotter: OpenCulture
Posted: 1st, March 2020 | In: Books, Celebrities, The Consumer | Comment
Coronavirus: Mission Impossible filming stopped; Tom Cruise defeated by virus
Time to rewrite the latest Mission: Impossible film. Filming in Italy for the seventh outing for Tom Cruise and Can Do gang has been stopped because it’s impossible to take on the coronavirus and win. Not so much Mission: Impossible, as Mission: Likely to Succeed Pending A Risk Assessment.
“Out of an abundance of caution for the safety and well-being of our cast and crew, and efforts of the local Venetian government to halt public gatherings in response to the threat of coronavirus, we are altering the production plan for our three-week shoot in Venice,” say Paramount in a statement.
“During this hiatus we want to be mindful of the concerns of the crew and are allowing them to return home until production starts. We will continue to monitor this situation, and work alongside health and government officials as it evolves.”
Plans for the film series’ diminutive lead actor Tom Cruise to take on a coroanvirus is hand-to-hand combat are said to be premature.
Posted: 26th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Film, News | Comment
Harvey Weinstein: all the facts in your red-hot dailies
The Guardian says Harvey Weinstein “face jail after being convicted of rape”. You might have thought he’d face a holiday in the Bahamas, but the Guardian has the scoop.
In other newspapers facts on the trial of a fallen Hollywood mogul, the British press are equally on form. How long is Weinstein going to prison for?
The Times: 29 YEARS!
The Mail: 25 YEARS!
Such are the facts…
Posted: 25th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, News | Comment
Harvey Weinstein goes down
Harvey Weinstein will never w**k in Hollywood again. The onetime movie producer has been found guilty of third-degree rape and a criminal sexual act in the first degree. He was acquitted of of predatory sexual assault. He had denied all charges. And there’s to be a sequel. Weinstein still faces charges of rape and sexual assault of two women in 2013.
Posted: 24th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, News | Comment
Maria Snoeys-Lagler’s fabulous found photo album
To a thrift store in Belgium thrift store, where a lost album of phots is on sale. Inside are photographs of a woman with A-listers: Bruce Willis, Johnny Depp, Harrison Ford and others. We know their names. But we didn’t know the who the woman was until some detective work. It’s Maria Snoeys-Lagler, a former member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) who got to choose winners at the Golden Globes Awards.
Maria Snoeys-Lagler died in 2016 at the age of 87, which possibly explains how this particular photo-album ended up in a thrift store.
Spotter: Flashbak
Posted: 19th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment
Why Caroline Flack died – by the people who knew her least
When Caroline Flack was found dead in her home, the vulture business went to work. On Twitter, many decided that with the news still fresh and facts about the TV presenter’s death largely unknown, it was the ideal moment to pass judgement.
The story leads the tabloids. Each has a hot take on why Caroline Flack died, not least of all the Mail, which calls her “troubled”, the Sunday Mirror which shrouds the awful news in the shocker ‘Death By Valentine’ and the Express which considers the location and style of home her home newsworthy (Flack dies in “London flat”).
On Twitter, a heated debated was triggered over who was behind Caroline Flack’s death:
Journalists:
Sun journalist Dan Wootton:
ITV:
Media:
Twitter:
Social Media:
The Law?:
The Law:
Such are the facts.
Posted: 16th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Dresden: Kurt Vonnegut remembers the World War Two bombing
Kurt Vonnegut (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) survived the allied bombing of Dresden during World War II. It inspired his novel Slaughterhouse Five.
The Allied onslaught on the German’s industrial and transportation hub was brutal. On 13 February 1945, British aircraft began the attack on the eastern German city of Dresden. In less than half an hour, warplanes dropped 1,800 tons of bombs. More then 25,000 people died in the firestorm. “Dresden was one big flame. The one flame ate everything organic, everything that would burn,” Vonnegut wrote. The city became “like the moon now, nothing but minerals. The stones were hot. Everybody else in the neighbourhood was dead.”
In 1983, Vonnegut recalled his time in an underground meat locker as a prisoner of war in Dresden for the BBC – ‘And So It Goes’:
Posted: 13th, February 2020 | In: Books, Celebrities, Key Posts, News, The Consumer | Comment
Prince Harry and Meghan: ghost voters and big banks
In January, Prince Harry (not HRH) sat down for talks with Saad-Eddine El Othmani, prime minister of Morocco, Peter Mutharika, president of Malawi and Filipe Nyusi, president of Mozambique at the UK-Africa investment conference. It was one of his last jobs as a working royal. The Mail says that after the formal chats: “The VIPs then rushed to a private room at the Intercontinental Hotel for an informal ‘catch-up’ chat – but unusually they insisted no No 10 or Palace aides were present to ensure the talks were kept private.”
What could they have to talk about they don’t want the commoners to know? Private Eye reports that Mr Nyusi might not be everyone’s cup of fair-trade, organic tea. His election last year was, we’re told, marred by “violence and a climate of fear”. Votes in Gaza province “exceeded the number of dual inhabitant by 300,000”.
Observers noted several incidents across the country where people were found trying to enter polling stations with extra ballots marked for Frelimo.
On Friday, the US embassy expressed “significant concerns regarding problems and irregularities” during the voting and counting which “raise questions about the integrity of these procedures and their vulnerability to possible fraudulent acts.”
The European Union’s election observation mission said “an unlevel playing field was evident throughout the campaign. The ruling party dominated the campaign in all provinces and benefitted from the advantages of incumbency.”
The Eye quips: “Just the sort of ‘progressive’ type a modern real wants to rub shoulders with.” But, of course, Harry did it out of duty. It was a State-run function.
Another Harry appointment, one attended in a private capacity with his wife Meghan, was hosted by JP Morgan in Miami. A “source” told the New York Post’s Page Six, the couple “headlined” the bank’s Alternative Investment Summit. “It was all very hush-hush, with a lot of security,” we’re told. The Mirror says Harry and Meghan could have been paid £400,000 for supporting the event.
JP Morgan:
In November 2013, JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, agreed to pay a then-record $13 billion fine to federal and state authorities in order to settle claims that it had misled investors in the years leading up to the financial crisis.
Trying to earn enough money to maintain your lifestyle might not be all that easy for post-royal Harry and Meghan, a couple so ethically right that he says buying fruit in plastic is “a dirty habit”. Spin the wheel, and hold your nose. Or retain as nurses.
Posted: 12th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Money, News, Politicians, Royal Family | Comment
‘Tough Guys For Trump’ – Larry David’s epiphany
Larry David has yet to appear in a Bernie Sanders sketch. But he’s in one written for Twitter by Donald Trump.
In this skit, David is seen driving a small, foreign-made car. The liberal New Yorker, star of fly-on-the-wall documentary Curb your Enthusiasm, is wending his way along a sun-dappled road in California when his bad navigation skills and disregard for his fellow Americans causes him to drift and cut up a law-abiding biker.
The biker pulls up alongside.
David, sensing the error of his ways, is converted. In a moment of real epiphany he pulls on a ‘MAGA’ hat and vows to help the biker ‘Make American Great Again’. The buyer nods in brotherhood, politely advises David to “be more careful next time” and drives on.
Unless…
Posted: 12th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Brave Phillip Schofield and celebrity cocks
Stephenie Lowe, wife of TV presenter and father of her two children Phillip Schofield – he just came out as gay – tells the Sun she loves him “as much today as I ever have”. One day earlier, Schofield had told the Sun: “I was confused by what it was. I thought maybe I was bisexual. But over time I realised and started coming to terms with it.” Stephanie had “known for a while” that he was gay.
And that’s pretty much it. It’s a private matter. Only a fool would wish either of them ill. And to be clear, consensual gay sex is love. It’s easy to grasp if you’re capable of acknowledging the stretches and reaches of human desire. We can empathise with the awkwardness of dawning self-realisation, the confusion of growing up gay in a world where we just want to fit in, just as we can comprehend the thrill of holding secret desires and the excitement deceivers find in illicit sex.
But that’s not to say some of the rush to praise a private matter in the public forum doesn’t warrant comment. Schofield’s been called “brave” by various celebs, one going as far as to say Schofield is possessed with the “the heart of a lion”. What kind of lion was left unspecified – the one on the road to Oz, the one in the C. S. Lewis wardrobe or how about the one on the telly ripping into a zebra below David Attenborough’s Voice of God?
And is anyone wondering what reaction would be like if Holly Willoughby (married to a man; mother-of-three), Schofield’s This Morning co-host, came out as gay? If she did, would the liberal, celebrity love for “brave” Phil be countered? TV Phil can continue to do the ice dancing show and the cake making but should we put Holly on DIY and politics? Which of them fronts The Morning’s parenting segment? The one question to take them this story and the ensuring narrative is: would you treat a gay TV presenter any differently than a heterosexual one?
Posted: 10th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment
Stuart Lubbock: Michael Barrymore gets monstered
Some matters never get closure. The story of Madeleine McCann is one. Another is the death of Stuart Lubbock, who died at just 31 on March 31 2001. His name hit the headlines because his body was found in the pool at TV entertainer Michael Barrymore’s Essex home. Lubbock had “suffered serious sexual injuries”, says the BBC. An inquest in 2002 delivered an open verdict. So much for the facts.
Police recently renewed this efforts at finding out what happened. Det Ch Insp Stephen Jennings says: “I believe that [Stuart] was raped and murdered that night. One or more of those party-goers are responsible for that serious sexual assault on Stuart Lubbock.”
What a police office believes is not worth much. Police officers are in the business of gathering evidence. And first time out the police believed Stuart Lubbock’s death had been an accident.
What’s changed?
The Sun says police “say they have new information in connection with his ‘rape and murder'”.
An Essex Police spokesman goes on the record: “Following our renewed appeal for information about the rape and murder of Stuart Lubbock we have received a number of calls with information. We will follow up all lines of inquiry.”
So it was rape and murder? And the renewed hunt is a success?
The BBC adds: “In 2007 Barrymore was arrested in connection with the death but was later released without charge and his arrest found to be unlawful.”
The Sun notes:
The entertainer has continuously denied any wrongdoing but police insist Stuart was raped and murdered.
What an odd sentence, no? Barrymore is not being accused of wrongdoing. However, that “but” seems to make a link between Barrymore’s innocence and what they believe. Why is it all in one mushed into one sentence? Barrymore says he is “100% innocent”. He is. Facts are what are needed – not belief.
Posted: 9th, February 2020 | In: Celebrities, News | Comment
