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.
Bill Roache arrested over child abuse claims in this life
BILL Roache MBE has been accused of raping a 15-year-old girl in 1967. Roache, 81, is best known for playing Ken Barlow in Coronation Street. Police arrested him at his home in Wilmslow, Cheshire, as part of Scotland Yard’s Operation Yewtree, the investigation into historic sex crimes.
As yet, only showbiz names and connections with that world have been arrested as part of the trawl triggered by the revelations about Sir Jimmy Savile. No politicians, journalists, peers, medics, lawyers, sportsmen or military men have been arrested. Which seems odd, no?
PS – Roache was in the news recenetly for saying we should be more understanding of paedophiles. He told New Zealand TV:
“Paedophilia is absolutely horrendous. Paedophiles should be sought out, rooted out and dealt with.
“But there’s a fringe of people who, particularly pop singers, they have these groupies. These girls who come, they’re sexually active, sexually mature. They don’t ask for their birth certificate, they don’t know what age they may be.
“But they’re certainly not grooming them and exploiting them, but they can be caught in this trap.
“Whether they’re proven guilty or not, we should not be judgmental about anybody, ever. We should always be totally forgiving about everything.”
And:
‘There’s been a pendulum swing after the Jimmy Savile situation. All I am saying is that if you’re accused you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty but if you’re a celebrity you’re pilloried. There should be anonymity for both the accuser and the accusee until such time as there is evidence and then it should come out.”
And:
Roache: “If you accept that you are pure love, and if you know that you are pure love and therefore live that pure love, these things won’t happen to you.”
Interviewer Garth Bray: “To some people that sounds perhaps like you’re saying victims bring things on themselves – is that what you’re saying?”
Roache: “No, not quite, but and yet I am, because everything that happens to us has been a result of what we have been in previous lives or whatever.”
It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me in a previous life, either…
Posted: 1st, May 2013 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment
UN bozo poses with fake Bono
POLITICIANS love hanging around with pop stars don’t they? It gives them the chance to feel vaguely important and they hope that a little cred will rub off on them so they can impress their bosses or voters.
Well, one United Nations dignitary was left trying to prise his foot from his mouth after he tweeted a picture of himself with U2 frontman, Bono (Mr G8). Oh wait. It wasn’t Bono. It was a man dressed up like Bono.
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Posted: 1st, May 2013 | In: Celebrities, Politicians | Comment
Why ‘gay’ John Lennon liked Yoko Ono
WHAT did John Lennon see in Yoko Ono? In The Beatles, Football And Me, Hunter Davies wrote about Lennon’s relationship with Brian Epstein, the band’s manager. They went to Spain together. Writes Davies:
“John wasn’t a homosexual, but he was daft enough to try anything once.”
Lennon’s childhood friend Pete Shotton says Epstein “toss [Lennon] off”.
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Posted: 30th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
Hunter S. Thompson writes to a TV producer
IT’S Hunter S. Thompson Sunday. Here’s how the writer responded to a TV contract:
Spotter: The Live Feed.
Posted: 28th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
Max Clifford on orgies an editor’s threesome and risky sex
IN READ ALL ABOUT IT Max Clifford and Angela Levin wrote about the PR guru’s life.
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Posted: 27th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Max Clifford charged with sexual assault: tabloids weigh-in on PR fixer’s ‘nightmare’
MAX Clifford has been charged with 11 “sex attacks”. The tabloids, which once pumped out Clifford’s PR-laced guff now get to write about the man.
Alison Saunders, Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS London, says:
“We have carefully considered the evidence gathered as part of Operation Yewtree in relation to Max Clifford, who was initially arrested on 6 December 2012 over allegations of sexual offences. Having completed our review, we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest for Mr Clifford to be charged with 11 offences of indecent assault relating to seven complainants.”
“Mr Clifford will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 28 May 2013. We have also decided that there is insufficient evidence to authorise charges in relation to three separate allegations. These decisions were taken in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors and our guidance for prosecutors on sexual offences.
“May I remind all concerned that Mr Clifford has a right to a fair trial. It is very important that nothing is said, or reported, which could prejudice that trial. For these reasons it would be inappropriate for me to comment further.”
Max Clifford says:
“The allegations in respect of which I have been charged are completely false and I have made this clear to the police during many, many hours of interviews. Nevertheless a decision has been taken to charge me with 11 offences involving seven women, the most recent of which is 28 years ago and the oldest 47 years ago. I have never indecently assaulted anyone in my life and this will become clear during the course of the proceedings.
“I am naturally disappointed about today’s decision, particularly because of the distress it has caused my wife, Jo, my daughter, Louise, and all those close to me. However, at least I will now be in a position to fully consider all the evidence against me and to answer the evidence in public and ultimately clear my name in a court of law.
“Since last December I have been living a 24/7 nightmare. A black cloud has been placed over me, obliterating the bright blue skies that I have been fortunate to live my life under for the vast majority of the past 70 years. Fortunately I have and continue to receive wonderful support and understanding from those who knew me, those who know me, as well as people I meet everywhere I go. This has made this nightmare so much easier to cope with and I am extremely grateful for this as you can imagine.”
The charges are:
The charges Mr Clifford is facing in full are as follows:
• One offence of indecent assault relating to a girl, aged 14, in 1966
• One offence of indecent assault relating to a woman, aged 18, in 1974/75
• Three offences of indecent assault relating to a girl, aged 15, in 1977/78
• One offence of indecent assault relating to a woman, aged 19, in 1978
• Two offences of indecent assault relating to a girl, aged 16 or 17, in 1981/82
• One offence of indecent assault relating to a woman, aged 19, in 1980/81
• Two offences of indecent assault relating to a woman, aged 18, in 1984/85
Such are the facts.
Posted: 27th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities | Comment
John le Carré: the cocaine that gave him a painful erection and pissing on Geoege Bush
JOHN le Carré is profiled in the New York Times. In another life, one of Anorak’s writers used to serve him his dinner at the Bacchus restaurant in London’s Hampstead. He was gracious, generous and affable. What else do we know about him?
He says on fox hunting:
“At least they aren’t hunting that poor goddamn thing with drones.”
On MI5:
“It was like working on a great newspaper. They were really funny people, not institutionalized, not too corporate in their minds and often very bright with curious interests.”
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Posted: 26th, April 2013 | In: Books, Celebrities | Comment
Mark-Francis Vandelli is the ‘King of awkward clangers’
OK!’s new columnist is Mark-Francis Vandelli. He’s one of the leading gilded chins on Made In Chelsea, the show that lets anarchists and rebels get to know their enemies movements before the revolution.
Vandelli is billed as the “king of put-downs”, an effete Bernard Manning? He is also the King of “awkward clangers”, a boast that might explain his gait.
OK wants to know what fab paries the 23-year-old with the double-barrelled first name has been to?
“Fabulous parties are few and far between, because synergy between guests is rare. I’ve been to a lot of extraordinary parties, but the best have a positive vibe transfusing through people.”
Hearing that, Anorak would ask him what are the best drugs he’s ever taken at a party are. And if OK! is planning to pay him by the syllable…
Posted: 26th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Omar Borkan Al Gala was kicked out of Saudi Arabia for being too sexy (photos)
OMAR Borkan Al Gala is too sexy for Saudi Arabia. The actor and photographer from Dubai, UAE, wss one of the three men booted out of Saudi Arabia by religious police for being too handsome. The Saudi religious police have branded Al Gala devilishly handsome.
Posted: 26th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities, Strange But True | Comment
Drugs, oxygen and a monkey: Justin Bieber IS a cunningly disguised Michael Jackson
POLICE found drugs and a stun gun on Justin Bieber’s tour bus in Sweden. Lars Bystroem, a Stockholm police spokesman, tells everyone:
“We conducted a search of Justin Bieber’s bus and found a small amount of drugs.”
This sound a lot like Bieber might be changing, or else the mask is falling off? Let’s consider the evidence:
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Posted: 25th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Gwyneth Paltrow: my son Moses Martin is a genius
GWYNETH Paltrow’s son Moses Martin is mega talented. She says his teacher praised the “spontaneous”,”actually brilliant” rap he performed for her birthday.
Moses supposes his farts smell of roses.
Moses supposes erroneously…
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Posted: 25th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities | Comments (3)
Going back to Rochdale – can the town’s image be improved with a song?
ROCHDALE is the town that gave us sex gangs, Cyril Smith and Bill Oddie. Can it recover? Can a song help?
Jimmy Kimmel dupes Coachella festival goers to say they have heard of non-existent bands
HOW goes it with the cool kids at Coachella? Jimmy Kimmel’s pops along to tell the gang about some great band that don’t exist. Are the festival goers fans? Yep. They are:
Posted: 23rd, April 2013 | In: Music, TV & Radio | Comment
When Hunter S Thompson interviewed Keith Richards
HUNTER S. Thompson met Keith Richards for an interview. The trick with all interviews is to make them interesting. Wayne Ewing filmed the meeting. He writes:
“What’s Keith’s room number,” asked Hunter.
“Suite 1017,” I said “But we have to go to Jane’s (his manager) room first and she will take us to Keith. He won’t open the door for anyone. Jane has to get us in. That’s the plan”
“Fuck your plans,” said the Beast who had just replaced the Nervous Fan of Keith Richards that had been with me in the car. “We’re going to Keith’s room.”
“We’ve got to go to Jane’s first,” I insisted..
“Fuck You. We’re going straight to Keith’s,” growled the Beast.
The pigs began to squeal as the elevator opened on the tenth floor. A few squeamish guests opened their doors to investigate the horrible noise, and closed them very quickly when Hunter brandished the sparking cattle prod. At the large double doors of Suite 1017 Hunter turned up the pigs’ volume and hit the cattle prod’s siren, screaming “Keith, Keith Come out,” and damned if he didn’t.
Keith seemed overjoyed to meet his hero, and Hunter was beside, under and over himself with glee as well…
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Posted: 23rd, April 2013 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
RIP Richie Havens
RICHIE Havens had died. Best rememberd as the act that opened the 1969 Woodstock festival in 1969, Havens died of a heart attack in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was 72.
In this Dec. 1975 file photo, musicians Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan perform the finale of the The Rolling Thunder Revue, a tour headed by Dylan.
Richie Havens reprises his 1969 song “Freedom” at a concert at the Bethel Woods Center, Friday, Aug. 14, 2009 in Bethel, N.Y.
Woodstock ’69 veterans Melanie Safka, from, left, Judy Collins and Richie Havens get together at the Bendix Diner in New York, July 26, 1994. The trio introduced a Declaration of Civility and Kindness in honor of the Bethel ’94 concert for the 25th Anniversary of Woodstock.
Liberty Medal recipient filmmaker Steven Spielberg, left, is seen with singer Richie Havens during the medal ceremony in Philadelphia, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009
Posted: 23rd, April 2013 | In: Music | Comment (1)
I was a Led Zeppelin Roadie from 1971-74 – and this is what I remember
IN I was Led Zeppelin Roadie 1971-74, one man rakes over the coals of his memory. You can almost smell the burning. After Spinal Tap’s roadie has finished recalling this and that, you can wonder about memories of Zeppelin here.
Members of the pop group Led Zeppelin and singer Sandy Denny, pose in London in September 1970 after receiving their awards in the Melody Maker Pop Poll. Led Zeppelin, John Bonham, left; Robert Plant, second from left; and Jimmy Page, right were voted top group in both British and International sections, and Robert Plant topped the British male singer section. Sandy Denny was voted Britain’s top female singer. Date: 01/09/1970
Cliff Richard’s music kills plants – Black Sabbath makes them thrive
THE relationship between music and plants has been long muttered about, despite the fact plants don’t have ears. Prince Charlies plays songs to his shrubbery and even Stevie Wonder dedicated an entire LP to our flowering friends.
However, a new experiment has shown that Sir Cliff Richard’s music may actually kill our green cousins.
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Posted: 22nd, April 2013 | In: Music, Reviews | Comments (5)
When Lester Bangs Creemed for Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music
IN 1976, Lester Bangs (Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung) wrote for Creem magazine an article on Metal Machine Music, the Lou Reed album. Like many other writes, he had hangovers:
When you wake up in the morning with the worst hangover of your life, Metal Machine Music is the best medicine. Because when you first arise you’re probably so fucked (i.e., still drunk) that is doesn’t even really hurt yet (not like it’s going to), so you should put this album on immediately, not only to clear all the crap out of your head, but to prepare you for what’s in store the rest of the day.
Speaking of clearing out crap, I once had this friend who would say, “I take acid at least every two months & JUST BLOW ALL THE BAD SHIT OUTA MY BRAIN!” So I say the same thing about MMM. Except I take it about once a day, like vitamins.
In his excellent liner notes, Lou asserts that he and the other speedfreaks did not start World Wars I, II, “or the Bay of Pigs, for that matter.” And he’s right. If everybody took amphetamines, all the time, everybody would understand each other. Either that or never listen or bother with the other son of a bitch, because they’d all be too busy spending three days drawing psychedelic lines around a piece of steno paper until it’s totally black, writing eighty-page letters about meaningless occurrences to their mothers, or creating MMM. There would be no more wars, and peace and harmony would reign. Just imagine Gerald Ford on speed- he might manifest some glimmer of personality. Or Ronald Reagan- a blood vessel in his snapping-turtle lips would immediately burst, perhaps ridding us of that cocksucker. As is well known by now, JFK enjoyed regular injections of Meth and vitamins from happy croakers. ‘Nuff said. Hey may not have actually accomplished anything (except the Bay of Pigs- wait a minute, Lou hasn’t been doing his homework), but he had style and a winning smile.
You want it, don’t you? In 1979 Rolling Stone Record Guide’s Billy Altman called MMM “a two-disc set consisting of nothing more than ear-wrecking electronic sludge, guaranteed to clear any room of humans in record time.”
Now you really want it.
Rolling Stone magazine also compared it to “a night in a bus terminal”.
Paul Morley tells you what to expect:
Containing nothing but Lou’s all-time favourite thing – electric guitar and distorted feedback – MMM was 64 minutes of violent, spitting droning split into four vinyl sides of more or less the same cheerless, inert and shrieking length.
Bangs:
I predict by that time the general public will have grown ears and gotten hip enough to appreciate Metal Machine Music, so this follow-up, which I’m gonna call Triumph of the Will, will be the best-selling LP of all time and those ratfucks in Chicago can suck my asshole along with that little blob Elton John who could use some speed almost as bad as Leslie West but can’t have any of mine, because as I think it was Pat Ast said in that fabulous review of Coney Island Baby in the Soho Weekly News ‘I have seen rock’s future and its name is Lou Reed'”), a double album, you ask? Simple- the two discs are, according to Lou, symbolic of two tits (“There’s never more than two,” he explained), to signify that this is, albeit mechanized, a very sexy album designed to cut in heavily on the hot Barry White market.
Whoah! get back. You all want one:
Here’s Lou, happening:
Hunter S Thompson’s FBI file
THE FBI investigate all kinds of people. They had a file on journalist Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Cody Winchester distilled it:
In 1967, the FBI was keeping close tabs on The People’s Weekly, the communist party’s west-coast newspaper affiliate. They had an informant who knew his way around the circulation department and was feeding them names of subscribers.
Among them, according to newly released records, was Hunter S. Thompson, a high-flying, drug-addled journalist who had just written a book about riding with the Hell’s Angels.
The FBI began gathering string on Thompson, who moved from San Francisco to Woody Creek, Colo. (where, decades later, he would commit suicide).
The agency followed Thompson’s unsuccessful bid for sheriff of Pitkin County, in which the Freak Power candidate memorably shaved his head bald and began referring to the crew-cut sheriff he was running against as “my long-haired opponent.” (Thompson campaigned on promises to rename Aspen “Fat City USA”; to jackhammer the streets and lay down sod; and to legalize drugs for personal use. Profit-seeking traffickers would be put in stocks on the courthouse lawn.)
FBI agents interviewed Thompson’s mailman and other Woody Creek locals. They collected copies of the Aspen Wallposter, a bimonthly newspaper that Thompson edited with the artist Tom Benton; illustrations of a bloody-mouthed Nixon (spelled with a swastika) and “comments regarding law enforcement and the Director” caught the agency’s eye. The Secret Service was alerted.
All this and more is detailed in Thompson’s FBI file, which I got a copy of last week.
Photo: Journalist Hunter S. Thompson lets the camera have a quick look at his usually sunglass-covered eyes near Aspen. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of journalism in books like “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” fatally shot himself Sunday night, Feb, 20, 2005 at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.
Posted: 21st, April 2013 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
Victoria Beckham’s little cookbook of love
VICTORIA Beckham wants to tell you about meal times with her kids:
“You know what [my children] say to me? Because I’m not the best cook, although I try really hard. They always say to me, ‘Mummy, we know that the main ingredient in what you make is love’.”
Spice up your life, Vicky! And use pasta and more meat…
Posted: 19th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities | Comments (3)
Rolf Harris arrested as part of Operation Yewtree
THE Sun reports what many who get their news on the Internet knew: Rolf Harris has been arrested as part of Operation Yewtree, the police investigation set up in light of the Jimmy Savile sex scandal.
It is understood Harris vehemently denies any wrongdoing.
World ends.
1093112
Posted: 19th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities | Comments (9)
Who carries Tom Cruise’s red carpet mobile heating system? (Video)
WHEN Tom Cruise came to Dublin for the premiere of Oblivion, he brought the California sunshine with him. And someone got to carry it in the form of red heater. reports Popbitch. As Tom press flesh and flashed his megawatt smile, behind him a man’s had the job of keeping Cruise warm, lest he go cold and shrivel up. And the heater man’s been warming Tom’s back before. This video from Vienna (you can see the heater at the 2 minute mark).
Posted: 19th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities | Comment (1)
Judy Garland to anti-Thatcher mob: ‘I’ve sung, I’ve entertained, , I’ve pleased you—YOU SONS OF BITCHES!’
WHEN the BBC banned Judy Garland and The Wizard of Oz – it being what Margaret Thatcher would have wanted, or some such malarky (and has the Govrernment made her take an Atos test yet?) – we wondered about the singer.
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Posted: 15th, April 2013 | In: Celebrities | Comments (5)
“Great music is ‘as good as sex'”: Err, no, no it isn’t
THE Telegraph gives us this headline:
Great music is ‘as good as sex’
And illustrates it with a picture of a bird in her pajamas grinning at us under her headphones. Subtle, eh?
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