Is Kenley is becoming the most annoying person ever on “Project Runway”?

After weeks of dissing the designs of other contestants, laughing out loud at her fellow designers and arguing with the judges, Kenley seriously ticked off  the gracious Tim Gunn and then rounded off Wednesday night’s music inspired challenge by blaming Leanne for failing  to sell her supposed hip-hop style outfit down the runway.

In five seasons of the show, we’ve never seen the charming Gunn so obviously angry at a contestant as he was when he pleaded with Kenley, a stubborn fan of 50s fashion, to listen to advice and cut the sarcasm. 

Even after forcing Gunn to lose his composure, Kenley insisted she was going to follow her own instincts and commented snarkily to the camera that Gunn knew less about hip-hop street style than she did.

Her exit looked inevitable after the judges made clear to everyone but Kenley herself that her high-waisted jeans and leather jacket combo had miserably missed the hip-hop mark.

But to add insult to injury, Kenley survived to pout and argue another day while humble Suede got “Auf’d” after three weeks in the bottom three.

It’s not the first time that the Project Runway producers seem to have opted for keeping the drama rather than the designer.  With no love lost between Kenley,  her fellow designers,  the judges and the much respected Gunn,  you have to wonder whether Kenley and her ego deserve to make it to the final at Bryant Park.

With just four designers left, who do you think should win  — Leanne, Jerell, Korto or Kenley?

   
Oprah Winfrey is going to the Big Easy — at least in the fictional world of animation — by joining the cast of an upcoming Disney movie set in New Orleans during the jazz age. 

  
In “The Princess and the Frog,” which is set for release in late 2009, Winfrey will play the mother of the main character Princess Tiana, who in turn will be voiced by “Dreamgirls” star Anika Noni Rose.
    
The talk show queen has a dozen acting credits in her career, including voice work for  last year’s “Bee Movie.”
    
“The Princess and the Frog” marks Disney’s first return to traditional animation since its 2004 “Home on the Range,” which earned mixed reviews. The movie made $104 million worldwide, less than its production budget, according to Box Office Mojo. 
     
    

Radio stations were supposed to start playing Britney Spears’ new single “Womanizer” on Monday. But instead the pop star’s record label pushed back the release by a week. 
    
The last minute delay comes after a 37-second segment of “Womanizer” was leaked and played on the Web site of a Nashville, Tennessee, radio station on Friday. The leak had a short life that day, as Spears’ record label, Zomba Label Group/Jive Records, told the station to take the song off its site.
    
Wendy Washington, a spokeswoman for the record company, said on Monday that the single’s release was pushed back.
    
“Yes, the mix is being finalized and is expected to be done within a week,” Washington said.
    
The leaked segment of “Womanizer” was not an immediate hit with commentators on the Web. The site Hollyscoop.com said the fake song “Candy From Strangers,” posted online last week by a Spears impostor, was more catchy than the leaked song from Spears herself.
    
The single is off Spears’ album “Circus,” which is scheduled to be released on the pop star’s 27th birthday on Dec. 2.
    
Spears has a lot riding on the album, because after a turbulent public meltdown last year she appears to have gotten her life back on track, giving her the chance to make what could be the biggest comeback in years in the rollercoaster music business. 
 (Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)    
     
    

 Was it Britney, or wasn’t it?
    
Two songs that sounded like new work from the revitalized pop princess circulated briefly on the Internet this week, but only one of them was real.

Less than 40 seconds of a song called “Womanizer” made its way to the Web site for Nashville, Tennessee, radio station 107.5 The River on Friday  – but it was soon taken down.

 It appeared a couple of days after ”Candy From Strangers” circulated online, with a vocal track that some commentators said sounded deceptively like Spears.

Wendy Washington, a spokeswoman for Zomba Label Group/Jive Records, said the leaked preview of “Womanizer” was a Spears song and not a fake.  It is the first single off her upcoming new album  “Circus” and is expected to be released to radio stations on Monday.

“A radio rep played a rough mix of ‘Womanizer’ over the phone for a Nashville radio station, 37 seconds of this rough mix was recorded by someone at the radio station and that is what this leak contains,” Washington said in a statement. 
     
Spears, 26, is climbing back after a public meltdown that dominated show business headlines for much of the past 18 months, but last week she won three trophies at the MTV Video Music Awards.  
    
(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

 You’ve heard them at the Obama campaign rallies and speeches for months, and now  all those Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer and Los Lonely Boys songs that warm up the Democratic Party crowds have been put together on one album.

 Billed as the first-ever presidential campaign compilation, the 18-song disc “Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement” also includes excerpts from speeches given by Barack Obama and goes on sale exclusively on the campaign’s official Web site on Friday.

 All proceeds from digital downloads ($24.99) and the old-fashioned CD ($30) will go to the Obama-Biden campaign, said Hidden Beach Recordings, which is behind the project.

 Hidden Beach CEO Steve McKeever said the diverse artists contributing “underscores how deeply inspiring this campaign has been across boundaries.”

 The recording includes Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”, Mayer’s “Waiting on the World To Change,” and Los Lonely Boys’ “Make It Better”, as well as new material by Lionel Richie and John Legend.

 Absent from the list however is Barbra Streisand, one of Obama’s biggest singing supporters.

  Presumably “The Way We Were” doesn’t have the right vibe for  “Change We  Can Believe In.”

The New Kids On the Block kicked off their international reunion tour in Toronto on Thursday to a packed arena of screaming women (and a few men) — teeny-boppers all grown up.

Mothers brought young daughters, wives brought husbands, the majority came with girlfriends. Age didn’t stop fans from releasing their inner teenager as they relived the nostalgia and screamed for the boys — er, men — from Beantown. For many, the New Kids tour in 1990 was their first concert experience, while others had to wait nearly 20 years to see them live for the first time.

In the first of three shows in Toronto (we love ‘em up north), Donnie Wahlberg, Joey McIntyre, Jordan and Jonathan Knight, and Danny Wood offered up a mix of old and new and proved they’ve still got “The Right Stuff” even after 15 years (including a few classic moves). Fans were treated to hits from five of their earlier albums as well as about half a dozen songs off “The Block”, their latest studio album released two weeks ago.

During the show, the group shared with fans a gold plaque they just received for the album, which entered at No. 2 on The Billboard 200 chart.

An emotional Donnie introduced “Click, Click, Click” with a tribute to local singer-songwriter, Nasri, who wrote the song that inspired and set into motion the reunion few thought would ever happen.

Sure, there were some cheesy elements, but fans didn’t care (or notice) — the New Kids know how to entertain and the deafening crowd couldn’t get enough.

(Writing by Solarina Ho)

 The drama is not over yet for Britney Spears.

 More than a year after being charged for driving without a California license, authorities have set an Oct. 15 trial date for the pop singer on the relatively minor offence.

 It’s always possible that case could be settled before then, but so far that has not happened — prompting speculation on the Internet that Spears is being treated harsher than most in her situation.
    
 Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the L.A. City Attorney’s Office,  said those facing the same charge as Spears typically settle the case by agreeing to probation and a fine.
    
 ”We’re just looking for a fair outcome to this case. If they want to take it to trial then that’s where we’ll go,” Mateljan said, referring to Spears’ legal team. “We’re treating it like any other case.”
    
 The case stems from an Aug. 6, 2007, incident in which Spears scuffed another car in a parking lot as she was being trailed by dozens of paparazzi at a time when she was going through a very public meltdown. 

 She had a driver’s license from her home state of Louisiana and obtained one in October 2007 for California, as well as reaching an out of court settlement with the person whose car she hit.

(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

Brad Pitt has donated $100,000 to fight California voters’ attempt to eliminate the rights of gay couples to marry.

Pitt’s donation to the No on Prop 8  campaign is the largest single donation so far by a celebrity to the bid to defeat the anti-gay marriage California ballot measure in November, organizers said.

“Because no one has the right to deny another their life even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn’t harm another, and because discrimination has no place in America,  my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8,” Pitt said in a statement.

The California Supreme Court struck down a ban on marriage in May but state voters will decide in a voter referendum in November whether to abolish those new rights.

Chad Griffin, political strategist for the No on 8 campaign, said he hoped Pitt’s contribution would encourage other celebrities to put their hands in their pockets. “The entertainment industry should view this contribution as a challenge,” Griffin said.

Many lesbian and gay couples marrying in Califronia have asked friends and relatives to donate to the campaign instead of buying wedding gifts.

Chat show host Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia de Rossi married in Beverly Hills in August and former “Star Trek” crew member George Takei married his long time partner Brad Altman in September.   

Lynne Spears has taken much of the blame for the recent woes of daughters Britney and Jamie Lynn, both in her memoir “Through the Storm” and in a television interview.

“As a mother, don’t we always blame ourselves?” she said. “I took a lot of the blame. I took all the blame. The personality I have, it’s always my fault.”

Lynne has been heavily criticized lately for everything from being a pushy stage mom, profiting from her daughters’ fame, bad parenting when Jamie Lynn got pregnant at 16, and appearing to sit on the sidelines while Britney was shaving her head, attacking paparazzi with umbrellas and making a hash of raising her two young boys.

But is she being too hard on herself?  It wasn’t Lynne who had unprotected sex with her teen boyfriend. Nor did Lynne decide to have two babies within 12 months and then find she had taken on more than she could cope with.

When should kids start taking responsibility for themselves? And what about their fathers? Little has been said about recovering alcoholic Jamie Spears and his role in the phenomenal rise and fall of two daughters.  Jamie Spears, now divorced from Lynne, has stepped up his role this year, taking control of Britney’s business affairs and winning much of the credit for her stunning return to something more like the pop star she was five years ago.

But why do moms always get the blame?

After pop star Pink’s rant last week against Sarah Palin, Lindsay Lohan declares she can no longer keep biting her tongue when it comes to the most talked-about woman in American politics.

“Is our country so divided that the Republicans best hope is a narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe? “, asks Lohan, 22, in her MySpace blog.

The “Mean Girls” star says she is beset by “Fear, Anxiety, Concern, Disappointment, and Stress” the more she learns about the Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate.

And what upsets her most are Palin’s views on gay rights, abortion and sex before marriage. “Is it a sin to be gay? Should it be a sin to be straight? Or to use birth control? Or to have sex before marriage? Or even to have a child out of wedlock?” asks Lohan, whose own sexuality is currently the cause of much speculation given her close friendship with British DJ Samantha Ronson.

The blog is signed with an “xoxo” (love and hugs) from both Lindsay and Samantha, although Ronson reminds fans that as a non U.S, citizen she doesn’t have a vote on Nov. 4,  but she is a bit worried about her green card.

Lohan’s not the first celebrity to plunge into politics and she won’t be the last. But her concerns about gay issues seem to have increased the closer she gets to Ronson although Lohan’s forthright opinions haven’t yet extended to coming clean to curious fans about the exact nature of their friendship.

So is Lindsay a lesbian or isn’t she? And does it matter?