The Gossip Wrap-Up!

LEAVE TOM CRUISE ALONE

>> Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Tom Cruise (and Scientology) has been under attack for weeks now. It's like there has been a resurgence in the level of hate spewed towards him. Everyday there seems to be another story of something he did (some people are even bringing up crap from 20 years ago). All of these stories are designed to make Tom seem Gay or crazy or Gay AND Crazy. I WANT IT TO STOP.

No, I could care less about Tom. Nor do I care about the 'injustice' of it all. I just know that with each of these stories, I'm going to be subjected to more photo ops of that funny looking kid of his. With every negative story about Tom, we get about 3 "candid" photos of Suri Cruise and her increasingly unattractive mother Katie. I'm tired of those "aren't we the perfect family" photos. Or "isn't Suri adorable" pictures.

Suri Cruise is practically Paris Hilton now.

No offence but why does anyone care about Suri? She's not that cute. Her mother dresses her funny. And she clearly has no friends. Why must we put that on parade? Somebody needs to throw this little high-heeled-wearing-three-year-old into daycare so she can learn to socialize with people so she won't turn out to be a freak like her mother.

Please help a sister out, leave Tom Cruise alone. Thanks.

RIRI LOOKS FAB

While I may not agree with Glamour magazine's decision to award Rihanna "Woman of the Year." I have to admit, she looked fabulous when she picked her prize.

Coming or going RiRi always looks good. That dress is the business. LOVE it!

COVERIN' IT

>> Monday, November 9, 2009

Natalie Portman covers V magazine. I know Natalie is gorgeous. And I hear she has incredible talent. I've only seen 4 of her films, and I have yet to be blown away (but she was great in THE PROFESSIONAL).

So here's the thing. Natalie seems to be on a magazine cover just about every month. And I assume she's promoting some movie. But what movie? I remember CLOSER. I remember V IS FOR VENDETTA, and I remember THE OTHER BOYLEAN GIRL. But has Natalie done anything else since? Do her movies go straight to DVD?

I took the time to "IMDB" Natalie Portman. I understand the problem. Natalie has been busy -making crap.

COVERIN' IT: THE 'LAINEY WILL BE HAPPY' EDITION

What a difference a year makes. We've had 12 months of American Vogue, three covers black women, one cover with models, and zero covers with Victoria 'Posh' Beckham.

Cate Blanchett covers the December 2009 edition of Vogue magazine. I should be pissed, as I'm still begging for the return of the Supermodel, but it's Cate Blanchett. It one must put an actress on a cover, it might as well be her.

I pray Anna Wintour comes to her senses and puts a model on the January cover. Or Rihanna. I'll get a subscription if it's Rihanna!

THE CDAN BLIND THAT STARTED IT ALL (FOR ME)

It is so weird that this weekend I was thinking about this blind.

A couple years back, I stumbled across a piece of this blind item, I think in the comment section of Sandra Rose's blog (someone was claiming Beyonce was a fraud). It led me to to a 20 minute Internet search trying to find the original. It was then that I discovered the blog Crazy Days and Nights.

Crazy Days and Night is celebrating it's third anniversary today. Congrats Enty! I love that blog (even though I'm positive the "Entertainment Lawyer" uses more writers than the Huffington Post does). From CDAN:

Here is what the post looked like almost three years ago, and at the bottom is your clue for today.

***

Let me preface this post, by saying that if this story ever comes out, it would blow the music world up and shake it to its core..This would put the Milli Vanilli scandal and Ashlee Simpson SNL situation so far down the ladder it would be crazy..

Towards the end of last year I had a woman come into my office and she began to explain what she had done and had been doing for several years and it was one of the very few times that I just could not believe what I was hearing..I know the music industry inside and out, and I had never heard of something so extensive and pervasive as this..

This woman (S) came into my office because the payments she had been receiving had stopped and she wanted to either get the money that was owed to her, or expose what she had been doing to the light of day..

S is a sessions/studio/backup singer and is very good..Prior to her involvement in what I am going to describe, she made a very good living singing on commercials and being a backup singer for groups and other solo acts, etc..Like I said she is very good, but she does not really have that "look" which would make her a star, so record companies did not put her out front, but just used her talents..

In late 2000, a man came to her one day and said he needed someone to record some demos because he had written a lot of songs, but wanted a demo to shop the songs to singers and record labels..This is not unusual at all and she had done this type of work before and it paid pretty well so she agreed. What was unusual about her recording of the demos was how much work was put into the actual recordings..It was extensive..Generally there is not much time put into the recordings because you never really know if the song will even sell, and the money spent on recording could be put to better uses..These demos she was recording were actually being treated as if they were going to be released on a CD or to radio..They even did some mixing which was REALLY unusual..

After a few weeks she had recorded about over a dozen songs and she went on her way and was really oblivious to anything else pertaining to it, UNTIL several months later she was in her car and heard her voice coming from the radio, only it was another singer being given credit..(We will call this other singer MV for Milli Vanilli) She could not believe what she was hearing and did not know whether to be excited to hear herself on the radio, confused about the credit given to another singer or just pissed off for the same reasons..

What she did do, was to call the man who had originally come to her and had her record the songs..The man agreed to meet her and gave her a substantial sum of money and promised to keep giving her money every month as long as she kept her mouth shut. MV was taking off..(MV has/had several Top 40 songs and CD's. They could have gone to #1 or languished in the 30's..I really cannot go into much more detail or else it would be too easy to discover) MV was everywhere..on television, radio, awards shows, commercials..EVERYWHERE..meanwhile, S continued to get money every month and kept her little secret to herself..The guy who picked S was VERY lucky..Most singers would have caused a fuss, but S has always been in the background and was resigned to the fact she always would be, and was very happy just taking the $$, and did not want that to stop..

About 9 months go by and S is called by the guy because MV is going on tour and they want S to record some extra mixes and such for the tour..She agrees and does not really do much, but money is money..

Fast forward another year or so and S stops receiving money and after a few months of missed payments, calls the guy who explains that they need S to do another CD and then the payments can continue, but there is no more money unless she does more recordings..

S agrees and records another CD worth of songs which is released several months later and does even better than the first CD. This same process is repeated (I am not going to tell you the number of CD's because again you may be able to deduce and so I will just say the process repeated itself several times)

Well everything goes well for the most part for all these years and then no more payments, and no more calls and she cannot even locate our mystery man..S has not received a payment in six months when she came into my office and related this story..She did not even know the guy's name, but when she described him, I knew who he was and was even more floored than I had been previously..This was just something I had really not heard before..

I had heard of really altering voices in the recording studios and bringing in hired hands for one song or a large portion of a song, but never CD after CD and even doing extra work so a live performance would not sound staged..I told her I needed some time to check into her story and then we could proceed..It took two calls before I got the guy on the phone and he was pissed, scared, angry, threatening, remorseful..everything..It turns out the reason he had stopped making payments was he had been playing some shell games with the money between the record company, MV's earnings and MV's investments and just did not have any additional money..In addition, MV was not sure she wanted to continue on with what had been happening and so our mystery guy might be completely out of the picture..

I actually think the record company to this day has no idea what went on as the Guy was very good at what he does/did and knew how to make sure the record company was always happy..He stayed under budget, toured, made MV available, and made the record company money..

So a meeting was arranged in my office and S and MV finally met face to face..they had never done so, even though it was S who made MV a star..MV was rude to say the least when she saw what S looked like and it really upset me although S being her normal classy self could have cared less..

What we agreed to do that day was to provide S with one lump sum rather than a monthly income which was easier for Guy to pull off and S also agreed to never disclose her role in this drama and MV was on her own for future recordings and tours..

This involved literally millions of CD's and hundreds of concerts all over the world..The one thing I did get out of this beside my fee of course is a Gold Record autographed by S and by MV..I know it is the only one in the world..

***
MV has been or is currently married.

The Gossip-Wrap-Up Guess: I know a lot of people think this is Beyoncé, but here's why I don't. Even if Enty wasn't a lawyer, just some cog who worked at a law firm in Hell Ay, Beyoncé's people would have had this blog shut done in a heart beat. This blind has been oft quoted on many an urban board, with most folks thinking (or wishing) it was Bey. Her "people" would have gotten wind of this, and contacted the law firm where this went down, by now. And CDAN would have been no more. Secondly Gold Record, not Platinum? I think all of Beyoncé's albums have gone platinum.

I used to think it was Aaliyah, or Jennifer Lopez, but both of them did most of their recording on the east coast. Jessica Simpson sort of fits, but she keeps forgetting her songs, which means she's singing live. It's been about two years since I discovered this blind. And I'm still clueless!

THEY DON'T HAVE THE INTERNET IN AUSTRALIA

I've been dissing Britney Spears and her little puppet show of a concert tour since it began. Hell, everyone has. Britney's touring for the money, and her die hard fans either pity her or have no sense, because they're showing up clapping along to our over-medicated former pop idol.

But somehow there are no bloggers in Australia, because after Britney gave her first lip-synced-half-assed performance in that country, there was outrage. People walked out of the concert. Some contacted their local politicians. There is talk about writing a new law requiring concert promoters to state when the artist will be lip-syncing.

To quote one irate (former) fan in Britain's Daily Mail:

'We were led to believe the lip-syncing was necessary because her dancing was so good, so rigorous, she couldn't possibly sing. But her moves were sloppy and stiff, as well as out of time.'

Clearly this girl didn't see Britney perform live at the MTV Music Awards, prior to her big "breakdown". Because Britney's shows have pretty much been the same, only with more costume changes.

Britney Spear's promoter said: Britney is 'extremely upset' over the backlash because 'she's a human being'. B*tch please, Britney may be a "human being" (no other species would want credit for that one) but she doesn't have a clue. Raise your hand if you think Britney's been getting up early to read the reviews? Can Britney even read? That has yet to be proven.

I'M TOO OLD FOR THIS SH*T

>> Sunday, November 8, 2009

The girl from GOSSIP GIRL, the one with the underage sex tape that magically disappeared, has a new music video out. Why Robin Thicke is slumming on this crap, I don't know. Maybe his record company is trying to expose him to a younger demographic. Leighton Meester Featuring Robin Thicke, 'Somebody to Love' Music Video.

Less than thirty seconds in, and I could see all the references the music video director must have made in his treatment, Madonna, Deborah Harry, etc... but given that the song rips those artists off, what choice did they have? This track is hardly inspiring and not at all catchy. But then I heard this type of crappy music the first time around. Maybe you young 'uns will like it.

2 OSCAR NOMS, NO BOX OFFICE

According to Variety, Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicole Kidman are starring in a movie together as a married couple. The pair will team up for THE DANISH GIRL, the story of the relationship between the first post-operative transsexual, Einar Wegener and his wife, Gerta.

At first I thought this must be a Harvey Weinstein project, because only Harvey seems to think you can make a credit card payments with an Oscar. But alas no. Nicole Kidman (aka the producer) is the genius behind this pairing. They should just call it, Box Office Poison, Time 2.

DOES LADY GAGA HAVE A NEW NOSE?

Something about this picture of Lady Gaga has thrown me. Her face looks off. Did Lady Gaga get her nose tweaked (again)?

Here are shots of Lady Gaga earlier this year and two years ago.

GAY MARRIAGE NO, HARDCORE PORN YES?!!!

Do you remember Carrie Prejean? I had forgotten all about Carrie Prejean. But Carrie Prejean is living proof there is a God, and He's vengeful.

Carrie came to fame when she denounced gay marriage during the Miss USA pageant, became an advocate for the Christian Right while still wearing the Miss California Crown and was fired from the Miss USA team for failure to preform her duties. Carrie filed suit against the Miss USA pageant and several people affiliated with the org, for violating her privacy and wrongful dismissal.

Well Carrie has learned the hard way that God loves the gays, but porn stars, not so much.

A surprise settlement to the suit was announced this week. When I read the blurb, I thought Carrie must of made out like a bandit. Nope.

It seems that the Miss USA organization had a trump card. At a settlement meeting, the pageant people busted out 'The Carrie Prejean Sex Tape', in which Carrie appears solo on tape pleasuring herself. To add to her humiliation, Carrie's mother was sitting next to her while they played the tape (I wonder how long it's going to take mom to get that image out of her head). Still no word on when that tape will be finding it's way on the Internet, but I'm sure someone will be uploading it any minute now.

The sad thing is, you can always grow as a person, change your ways, and your beliefs. But sex tapes last forever.