Fan Fare
Entertainment behind the scenes
Goodbye Speidi. Or just another Heidi and Spencer game?
Speidi is no more.
(Maybe)
Heidi Montag, the plastic surgery enhanced star of MTV’s “The Hills”, has filed papers for a legal separation from her husband of 14 months, Spencer Pratt.
Montag conveniently managed to get herself photographed leaving a Santa Monica court house on Tuesday clutching a bundle of papers which quickly made their way to the TMZ.com website. Montag, 23, cited irreconcilable differences for the split and, we’re told, “filed the legal docs in her own handwriting”.
Montag first moved out the home she shared with the scheming Pratt a couple of weeks ago saying she “needed some alone time.” But with no divorce or other papers to back up her claims, friends and much of the media weren’t buying the split and saw it more as a publicity stunt. Moreover, she moved in with her “Hills” friend Jennifer Bunney, with whom she just happens to be filming a new reality show about… relationships.
Despite some of the more outrageous claims about Pratt’s behavior from the Heidi camp (controlling, isolated her from friends etc.), Montag pointedly filed for separation rather than divorce. And separations can be undone.
A kiss — just a kiss? Or a scandal?
Back in the 1940s and the “Casablanca” era, a kiss was famously “just a kiss”
Not any more.
It’s been seven years since Britney Spears and Madonna notoriously locked lips in a live MTV Music Video Awards show. But women kissing women (or just pretending to) is still making front page news, whether it’s Miley Cyrus on a “Britain’s Got Talent” performance last week, or Sandra Bullock at the MTV Movie Awards show this weekend.
(And let’s not even revisit the Adam Lambert male-on-male kiss furor last November)
But while Bullock’s apparently rehearsed smooch with Scarlett Johansson was mostly seen as just good fun, Miley Cyrus’ kiss (that she now protests wasn’t really a kiss although it may have looked like it) with a female dancer has not gone down so well, especially with fans of the Disney teen star.
Cyrus, 17, has found herself making plenty of headlines in the past few weeks as she tries to carve a new, more grown-up image since finishing shooting the final series of Disney Channel’s tween hit series “Hannah Montana.”
Y is it so hard to let people live. People. Most of the time we dont show interest in every day peoples lives, but once we noe its a celebrity everyone wants to add their 2 cents.
Audrina Patridge talks about new slasher film “Sorority Row”
Hollywood starlet and tabloid favorite Audrina Patridge takes to the big screen in horror movie “Sorority Row,” which opens September 11.
She plays a sorority girl who ends up being the victim of a prank gone wrong — which later sparks a killing spree at the sorority.
She talked with Reuters about the film and her upcoming reality TV show on MTV, which you can read here.
In the video below, she shares what her favorite horror movies are, talks about her character in “Sorority Row” and dishes on bonding with her fellow castmates.
It turns out, Patridge said, that on the set there was none of the cattiness that colors “The Hills,” the top-rated reality series on MTV that made her a celebrity. Click below to watch the video.
In the article as printed through Yahoo News, the following exchange is reported:
> Q: Tell me about your new series.
> A: “My new show. Well, as soon as we’re done filming these bonus episodes for “The Hills,” then I segueway into the new show with (producer) Mark Burnett and I’m also going to be producing on it.
Please tell me that someone will discuss either with Laura or Patricia Reaney (listed as the editor) the word “segue”. Perhaps Miss Patridge said something like “seeg-way” but they still should have managed to get the word right. Thanks.
Will Russell Brand’s British invasion finally hit America?
British comedian Russell Brand has been talking about invading America for some time. In truth, he’s no stranger to American shores, having last year hosted the MTV Video Music Awards and starred in the movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” But he has never become as big in the United States as he is in Britain. On Tuesday, MTV announced that Brand would host the cable channel’s awards show again this year, giving the shaggy haired comedian another opportunity to break through with American audiences.
As the New York Times said in a book review this year on Brand’s memoir, the 34-year-old comic is an acquired taste.
“It’s too soon to tell if the comedian Russell Brand will be another of those British exports — like the Arctic Monkeys, Marmite, the comic magazine Viz and the fiction of Angela Carter — that are just too tangy and exotic to make much of an impression on American audiences,” the New York Times reviewer wrote.
“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” made a respectable $105 million at worldwide box offices, but only $63 million of that came from the U.S. and Canada, according to figures from Box Office Mojo. Brand received mixed reviews for his job as host last year of the MTV Video Music Awards, in which he teased the Jonas Brothers about their no sex purity ring and called then President George W. Bush a “retarded cowboy.”
Brand, who dresses like a rock star and is known for his stream-of-consciousness, foul-mouthed comedy style, is a leading entertainer in the UK as a comedian, columnist and as a television and radio presenter. He still seeks a big breakthrough in the United States and will need more appearances like September’s MTV Video Music Awards to gain name recognition. It’s clear that he wants more U.S. fans. Last year, he told the Los Angeles Times, “… This is an American age, so I have to be able to perform for America.”
Will this latest version of Russell Brand’s British invasion take with American audiences? Or should he stick closer to home?
This guy is extremely funny, sardonic, has incredible improvisational skills, seems honest & open as evidenced by his book (which was hysterically funny) and is above all SMART. Sorry if Hollywood’s fragile ego couldn’t stomach his comments on the MTV awards but they were dead on. America is drowning in its own banality as evidenced by what we have on television. Watch Russell Brand on youtube in “Doing Life Live” and you’ll see a whole new level of brilliance. Along with Led Zeppelin and Ricky Gervais, Russell Brand is proof that Britain produces the best of the best.
Music awards shows falling by the wayside
The indignity just keeps piling up for pop stars these days. Fans are either pirating their records, or just not bothering to listen to music anymore. The labels are cutting back wherever they can. And now there are fewer opportunities for pats on the back and shiny statuettes.
Several key shows have quietly fallen by the wayside in recent years, including the Billboard Music Awards (last held in 2006) and the Soul Train Music Awards (last held in 2007).
Others never really got going, such as British music newspaper NME’s attempt to export its popular show to America. The Stateside version of the NME Awards kicked off last year in Los Angeles with a Jane’s Addiction reunion (above), but 15 months later no plans have been announced for a sequel.
A year ago, The Who were honored in Los Angeles during VH1′s 3rd annual “Rock Honors” tribute concert, a successor to sister network MTV’s “Icon” tributes, which ran for four years until 2004. VH1 says there will be no “Rock Honors” this year, but it is bringing back its “Divas” concert series in New York in September after a five-year hiatus.
The three biggies are still a go: the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 13, the American Music Awards in November, and the Grammys on Jan. 31.
Why does this discussion see the great importance in Award Shows evaporating when the realproblem is what may be a desintigration over the years in the Music Industry. We have not developed from an A&R standpoint anyone even a country mile away considering musical ability from the singers of one decade, the 1970′s. Back then we had Dionne Warwick, Rita Coolidge, Karen Carpenter, James Taylor, War, Kool and the Gang and the lists goes on. Nicollete Larson who was a back up singer was a better vocalist than any singer out there today. We have become enveloped in the cheap night out of amatuer night and that is what has corrupted the industry. It is low cost TV entertainment with a huge profit but little quality. Put a Midnight Special hour against them and more pros, even oldies on the set and the Industry willone day again feature Smokey Robinsons and Sarah Vaughns making 15 track perfect blu rays all over the place.
MTV resuscitates the video star
The old refrain was that “video killed the radio star,” but more recently it’s been commonly said that the “Internet killed the video star” by putting music clips a mouse click away on Web sites such as YouTube.com.
In the new media landscape, cable channel MTV, a unit of Viacom, has filled its schedule with reality television shows instead of the music videos it aired nonstop in the 1980s, when it revolutionized the music industry. On Monday, the company announced that it would go back to airing music videos, but only between 3 and 9 a.m., when few viewers are tuned in.
The news was reported in the New York Times. MTV canceled “Total Request Live,” a long-running video countdown, last fall. The show was the last bastion for music videos on the channel, but it performed badly in the ratings. Now, MTV says it will bring back music videos with a block called “AMTV,” in an effort to keep up with changing viewer patterns.
Airing the music videos in the morning is a relatively low-risk proposition for MTV, because those hours do not generate high advertising revenues anyway. Will MTV stick with the music videos that made it famous, or will “AMTV” go the way of “TRL”? Only your remote knows for sure.
Lauren Conrad ready to walk away from “The Hills”?
Has Lauren Conrad had enough of life as a reality TV star?
“It’s coming to a point where I love this show so much, but I’m ready to kind of walk away…I’ve been doing it for five years now. Five years on TV is a really, really long time,” Conrad, 22, said of life on MTV’s “The Hills” and its predecessor “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County”.
Asked by Extra about the media attention on her relationships, Conrad said; “It makes it more difficult. It’s more difficult when not only everyone knows about your problems, but they make them worse because things escalate and things get twisted…. It’s hard to have an actual friendship be torn apart in the media.”
Is L.C. talking about her famous feud with former BFF Heidi Montag? Or her split with boyfriend Jason Whaler a couple of years ago.
And if Lauren quits “The Hills”, could the show survive?
Understandable. Life in front of the camera is clearly nonstop. Though, life AFTER the camera could go either way. “Celebs” often drop off the face of the earth (sitcoms/reality) OR go over the deep end. Lauren seems down to earth, as do many other Hills stars. Chances are though, she’ll turn around and crave that limelight again…
Britney Spears to skip performance on MTV’s VMAs
It appears the emotional scars from Britney Spears’ much maligned performance on MTV’s Video Music Awards last year haven’t healed quite yet. After weeks of ”will she or won’t she” speculation about whether Spears will perform again this year, her manager told Ryan Seacrest on Monday that she will not.
“Britney Spears will not be performing at the VMAs this year. I’m telling you officially and unequivocally,” said manager Larry Rudolf on Seacrest’s KISS-FM morning radio show in Los Angeles.
Who could forget Britney, who used to steal the show with her song and dance performances, clumsily teetering around the stage last year with a bad hair weave and ill-fitting lingerie outfit? It was so bad, it was good.
When Spears recently appeared in a series of tongue-in-cheek VMA promo commercials – complete with a 9,000-pound live elephant in the room-alongside this year’s host, British comedian Russell Brand – rumors swirled that she would seek redemption by performing again at the upcoming show on Sept. 7.
And while Rudolf’s words to radio and TV personality Seacrest seem to be firm, given Spears’ rollercoaster of a life this past year, anything could still happen. Rudolf could not be reached for comment or confirmation but Gina Orr, a spokeswoman for Spears’ label Jive Records would neither confirm or deny that Britney will be absent from the VMA’s stage.
Orr emailed us a statement saying only, “Contrary to media reports, Britney was never slated to perform on this year’s VMAs. She’s in the middle of recording her next album, which is going amazingly well, and her focus remains on the studio.”
But it doesn’t say she won’t perform and when pressed for a firm answer, Orr said the statement was all there was to be said. So, in the words of TV pitch people everywhere, “stay tuned.”
I could have really used the laugh since her last VMA performance was pure comedy. Hopefully they will stick a more talented performer in the opening spot.
Tila Tequila falls out of “Love”
Is there trouble in paradise at Tila Tequila’s house on MTV?
The provocative 26-year-old reality television star told celebrity magazine In Touch Weekly she wants out of a third season of “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.”
“MTV asked me to do another season, but I don’t want to do that right now,” Tequila said in an interview posted on the magazine’s website on Wednesday. Tequila said she wants to move on from the popular show to pursue other interests.
The program centers on bisexual Tequila and a motley crew of male and female contestants who compete for the affection of the Asian-American calendar girl. Eventually, Tequila chooses a lover. In last season’s final episode, Tequila picked Kristy Morgan — a former Playboy model — as the season winner, only to have Morgan reject Tequila’s romantic advance.
A source at MTV said plans for a third “Shot at Love” are still up in the air. “It hasn’t been determined yet,” the source said.
