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By the time that Comedy Central special finally comes to the paradoxically less funny Canadian counterpart, the Comedy Network, it’s already old. It’s over. It’s ready for the History Channel.
Not this time. This time, up-and-coming comedy star T.J. Miller is bringing a bootleg copy of his new Comedy Central special to screen for patrons of his late show at the Comic Strip on Saturday night – which happens to be the night of the premiere of the show in America. So Edmonton, of all places, will get to see fresh television comedy at the same time as all those hip Americans – who’ve been pretty funny lately.
Q: If you could be any (other) celebrity, who would it be and why?
A: I think it would be pretty fun to be Paris Hilton and totally flip the script and come out with: “You know, I just realized there’s no reason I should be famous. So I’m going to ask that everybody stop paying attention to me.” Or Kim Kardashian: “It turns out I really shouldn’t have had a show at all. I want to apologize that I’ve been so entitled and forced this reality show on you.”
Q; Best heckler story?
A: In Atlanta, this man charged the stage and wanted to fist fight me because he felt I was making fun of his wife.
Q: Do you remember what you said to make him do that?
A: I was making fun of his wife. She was drunk and shouting out dumb stuff, just being rude and selfish. It’s all based in selfishness: “Look at me! I want to be part of the show! I don’t care about anyone else in the room!” And I asked her politely to stop and I asked her again and finally she said that her infant child had died recently. Which is, well, tragic – but also completely inappropriate to tell a roomful of strangers at a comedy show. I had to do an entire show after this women megalomaniacally told everyone that her son just died. At that point, she’s not ready to go outside. She needs to be in counseling still. At the end of the show I do these characters and I did this one that was vaguely about her being selfish, that everybody has things to deal with in their lives, everyone has experienced tragedy – that’s why we go to comedy shows. So her life situation is not so much more important than anybody else’s that she should selfishly take over the entire show. And then this guy in camo trucker’s hat wearing shorts and a Bud Light T-shirt wasn’t particularly pleased with my assessment of the situation. He ran right on the stage. I was ready to fight him, but the bouncers stopped him just in time. That was pretty exhilarating.
Q: Other comics have said that it’s impossible to get the better of a female heckler. Do you think that’s true?
A: It’s tough. Most comedians are not very good at dealing with hecklers. They have stock lines that they use: “Shut up, you cunt!” You can’t say that. “You stupid bitch!” You’re just being as rude as that person. You can’t call names. The way I deal with hecklers is not like that. I just recontextualize their behaviour and shame them into stopping. And also when I make fun of people, it’s not mean. It’s usually just effective. But that’s sort of my forte. One of the things I do is deal with hecklers. That’s the only reason I think I do well in England. They come out there: “Hey, nice face! You fucking Yank!” They’re terrible. It’s not even a show in some parts of the UK. It’s just a drunken brawl where one person was given a microphone.
Q: Do you bring it on yourself?
A: I talk to the audience. I do a lot of crowd work and I riff a lot, but that’s quite different. The reason audiences do it for me is that I’m riffing so much and when people yell things out, I make it funny. I’ll tease that person for yelling out what they thought it was funny. And some people think, “Hey, if I yell something out, that helps the show.” It’s a tricky thing.
Q: Do you have a joke you’ve dropped that you were sad to let go?
A: My first few years I did comedy, I closed with this bit about these families on four person bicycles that all seem so happy all the time, but you just wonder: does all that happiness dissolve when they get to a hill? Dad’s yelling, “Hey, Jeremy, are you pedaling back there? God damn it, pull your weight!” It used to be my closer, then it didn’t work so well, so for the last five years I’ve been trying to bring it back, but I can’t do it. No one else has a joke about four person bicycles.
Q: Do comics steal jokes from each other all the time or is there a code?
A: Oh, yeah, there’s a code. There’s not one comedian I could be friends with who is a known thief.
Q: Then why do we hear so many of the same jokes from different comedians?
A: This teacher in Chicago, Ali Farahnakian, he owns The Pit in New York City, he said this thing once: “We’re all looking for the same Easter eggs.” When you arrive at the same place as other people it’s because you’re on the same hunt. Did we steal this from Ari Shaffir: “We’re going to build a wall to keep the Mexicans out. Who’s going to build it?” That’s a joke lot of people came up with. Did Leno steal from Fallon and Kimmel or did Kimmel steal from Leno in the joke about the dumb news story that day? We’re all living the same life.
Q: Do you have to be a pessimist to be a good comic?
A: You have to question things. You have to be able to look at your surroundings and find out what’s absurd about them. If you’re just floating along, saying, oh, this is really good, it wouldn’t work. “Have you been in a grocery store? Everything’s lined up perfectly! It all works so well, you get through the line, everything’s relatively reasonably priced.” That wouldn’t work for stand up.
Q: What’s the difference between kids today and when you were a kid?
A: I am interested in the idea that pornography was only consumable en masse in my generation and this generation has an even higher tier of pornography accessibility than I had. I often think about how pornography has affected guys and their sexual relationships with women. It’s going to be a weird world for kids that when they were 13 had one of their own buddies show them a video of a girl fucking a horse. Once you see that, you can’t get it out of your head.
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US X Factor host Steve Jones has denied rumours he is dating stunning singer Nicole Scherzinger.
The Welsh heart-throb, said he and the Pussycat Doll are more like brother and sister.
Jones, 34, has been linked to X Factor judge Nicole, 33, following her surprise split with Formula One ace Lewis Hamilton.
But he joked: “We were just texting each other about the show last night. She never mentioned that we were seeing each other.
“That’s ridiculous. We have a definite brother and sister thing going on.”
Former model Jones has a reputation as a ladies’ man.
He has been linked to Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, Halle Berry and former Heroes star Hayden Panettiere.
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Everything changes this weekend.
Moments after the last bad boy is come for by Cops on Fox network affiliate stations nationwide Saturday evening, the Ultimate Fighting Championship will step onto a stage unlike anything it has seen before. The one-hour special UFC on Fox (9 p.m. ET) will present just a single bout, but what a bout it is: undefeated Cain Velasquez defending his heavyweight championship for the first time against Junior dos Santos. Now, UFC president Dana White is a salesman, no question about it. But he’s a truth teller, too, when he pumps up the importance of Saturday night’s fight at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. “This is, without a doubt,” he said the other day, “the biggest fight in UFC history.”
You can interpret that statement in many ways, and it is not hyperbole in any context. As a fight, there’s nothing bigger than one in which the heavyweight championship of the world is at stake. That used to be the case in boxing — rest in peace, Smokin’ Joe Frazier — and probably will be again someday. (You think fans are clamoring now for Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather? Imagine if those little guys each went 220 pounds.)
Well, in mixed martial arts, the heavyweight division is healthier and more intriguing, with enough big, tough guys to create matchups exhilarating enough to overshadow even the greatness of champs, like Georges St-Pierre, Jon Jones and Anderson Silva. The bigger they are, the harder they maul.
Beyond that, if you assess this UFC on Fox event purely as a moment in sports history, it is unmatched by anything that has come before it in the octagon. Sure, combat sports fans might be watching college wrestling meets or their kids’ karate classes this weekend if not for the Forrest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar slugfest in the finale of the first season of The Ultimate Fighter back in 2005. There’s no denying that thrilling three-rounder’s role in solidifying the UFC’s place on TV, and therefore its survival as a viable — and soon to spread like wildfire — sports entity, but that was cable TV. How does that compare to the entry into network TV made possible by UFC on Fox? Well, Spike is a phone booth, Fox is the biggest stadium in the league.
Within the past year, the UFC has been to Germany, Australia, Brazil, England and three cities in Canada. One of those cities north of the border, Toronto, drew a record 56,000 fans. At the risk of doing Dana’s sell job for him, let’s just say this sport is growing faster than it can be fitted for a new suit. Network TV takes that growth to a whole new level. Millions will be watching Saturday, and a good many will be seeing the UFC for the first time.
Want to make a good first impression? Cain vs. Junior is the best bet the UFC has.
These are not simply big guys but high-octane big guys. According to Fight Metric, which keeps statistics for the UFC, Velasquez and Dos Santos are the organization’s top two fighters — in any weight class — in terms of landing a steady stream of significant strikes. Cain is the best of all, connecting with an average of 7.46 significant punches, kicks or other strikes a minute, while Dos Santos is next, at 6.79. No one else is within a strike. So expect to see leather flying, and then expect to hear the thud of it landing. And that’s just the fisticuffs. Be prepared for kicks and knees and the whole arsenal of MMA striking, and grappling as well.
Having said all of that, the UFC nonetheless has work to do in developing an audience beyond the folks with closets full of black TapouT t-shirts. To many in the non-MMA public, Cain and Junior are no better known than Kimbo Slice, the last fighter to headline a network event (2008’s EliteXC event on CBS), since he at least had a big following from his street fighting videos. Of course, Kimbo was basically the bare-knuckles version of the Paris Hilton sex tapes, while Velasquez and Dos Santos are the real deal. And Fox has been incessantly hyping their showdown, practically between pitches during the World Series and at every break in the action during NFL telecasts. And every promo trumpeted that this is for the heavyweight championship. Which means something.
Cain Velasquez by the numbers 386: days since his last fight (KO of Brock Lesnar, Oct. 23, 2010). 61: Percent of his strikes that have landed over his career (according to Fight Metric), putting him second (behind Anderson Silva) in UFC history. Dos Santos, generally considered a superior striker, has landed less than 50 percent. 8: Knockouts among his nine victories, six coming in the first round. Junior dos Santos by the numbers 2: Consecutive decisions (wins over Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin) after his first 11 victories were stoppages: eight KOs, two strikes-related submissions (a hurt Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic verbally quit, the other tapped out from exhaustion) and one guillotine submission. 10: Victories (among his 13) that have ended in the first round (all but the two decisions and the third-round verbal submission by Cro Cop). 83: Percent of takedown attempts avoided. (Velasquez is fourth in UFC career stats in successful takedowns, at 82 percent.)
Since numbers don’t tell the whole story …
What we should expect: Expect action. Expect some hard punches to land. And beyond that, if we’re lucky, maybe a little back-and-forth. Neither Velasquez nor dos Santos has ever been put in serious trouble in a UFC fight, but now, in facing each other, they’re both going to be in with someone with the speed, power and athleticism to do damage. Will this bout be won by the first guy who lands a big shot? Or will the one who’s initially rocked show the resiliency to come back with some heavy leather of his own? I think there’ll be some give and take . . . and, if the champ has his way, some takedowns as well.
Why we should care: Duh! It’s the heavyweight championship. It’s the first UFC fight on network television. It’s the end of the world as we know it (and Dana White feels fine).
A couple of pieces of barely relevant trivia Tank for the memory: If Cain Velasquez is Exhibit A of today’s state-of-the-art heavyweight — lean, athletic, versatile — then a well-known, if not so accomplished, example of old-school MMA for big guys would be Tank Abbott. With a belly that would make Roy Nelson jealous, and a one-dimensional barroom-brawling style, the “pit fighter” from Huntington Beach goes all the way back to UFC 6. He’s still fighting at small-time fight events in California, with an 11-14 record. One of his losses came to Paul Buentello (KO, 43 seconds) in a Strikeforce main event back on Oct. 6, 2006 — the same card on which Velasquez made his MMA debut, a TKO of Jesse Fujarczyk at 1:58 of the first round.
Mamouth upset: Joaquim “Mamute” Ferreira. That’s the answer to an MMA question if there’s a Brazilian version of Trivial Pursuit. Mamute, which is Portuguese for “mamouth,” is the only fighter to defeat Junior dos Santos, doing so via armbar in a 2007 bout in Sao Paulo. It was a rematch of a matchup won by dos Santos some seven months earlier, when Ferreira submitted because of exhaustion (or at least was tired of being beaten up) in the first round. Ferreira (11-7) still is active, fighting as recently as last Saturday in a loss (first round, guillotine choke) to Damian Grabowski in an MMA Attack event in Warsaw, Poland.
Fighting words “Dos Santos is a great opponent. He’s very dangerous.”
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Even on a traffic-free Sunday, with cars running at high speeds on EDSA, it would be difficult to ignore the giant billboard depicting real estate tycoon Donald Trump, with his signature hairstyle. That intense gaze of a multibillionaire American tycoon seems to put a stamp of global “street cred” on The Trump Tower Manila of Century Properties soon to rise in Makati City—the very reason that the imposing billboard has been put up.
It’s not just Donald who’s making a marketing presence in the country and lending internationally recognized names to property developments. Celebrity socialite Paris Hilton has personally endorsed the Azure Urban Resort Residences, which will feature the Paris Beach Club, while Gian Giacomo Ferraris, chief executive officer of iconic lifestyle brand Versace, has thrown his support for The Milano Residences Manila, another Century Properties venture, which will feature the Versace Home within the project. Hilton and Ferraris have already made the rounds in Manila a few months ago, while Donald Trump is arranging a visit soon, according to a reliable source.
Inquirer Property asked analysts their view of the emerging trend of international endorsers for local projects.
Prof. Enrique M. Soriano, program director for the Real Estate Center for Continuing Education at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business, shared that “licensing or franchising international brands or engaging iconic personalities is an acceptable strategy, especially when you are targeting OFWs [overseas Filipino workers], expats and the premium market, but ultimately, it is the combination of the three pillars that can make or break projects. These are excellent and innovative developments, customer centricity and organizational efficiency.”
Architect Froilan L. Hong observed that “the present battle of big billboards with big names in real estate developments is one indicator of the fierce marketing strategies to catch the residual market for high-end condominium developments as well as resort developments. The high-end markets have thinned out and what we are seeing is a mad rush to sell them fast.”
Hong added: “Everything is very fluid in this present situation,” noting that the US, European and Japan economies are down. According to him, the economic contraction in these markets may have stimulated the big-name endorsers to look this way.
Paul Vincent Chua, associate director, valuation and advisory services and head of consultancy and research of Colliers International, said “these endorsements, as well as the use of their names, make the project very unique in a market where a lot of similar developments have come out in recent years offering the same if not overly used design concepts and lacking in any character.”
Real estate educator and engineer Enrico Cruz said that “real estate projects are not like clothes or perfumes or handbags where endorsement of celebrities can tremendously favor sale.”
“In real estate projects, the best endorsers are the real estate brokers from whom buyers depend on for their buying decision and the developer’s reputation. Good projects will sell even without endorsement by celebrities and brokers,” Cruz added.
Alejandro S. Mañalac, chairman of the National Real Estate Association, stressed: “It is very important to note that these famous international personalities are not just endorsers but are actually involved in the projects bearing their brands.”
Mañalac added: “Having the trust and confidence of these respected brands and actually carrying their names on the project bring more than prestige and pride of ownership to the investors and residents. Before an internationally renowned and prestigious brand allows any company to officially carry its name, not only will the aspiring company be under strict scrutiny, but they will have to pledge that that they will abide by all the rules and comply with the high standards consistent with their guaranteed quality anywhere in the world. This only means that when you buy a particular brand of a certain product in Europe, in the United States or even in the Philippines, you can be sure that you will be enjoying exactly the same quality and standard.”
Based on Colliers International’s data, Azure Residences was able to sell 76 percent of the project before the announcement of Paris Hilton’s design of its beach club. It sold an additional 10 percent, or roughly 300 units, within two months after the announcement.
Although celebrity endorsements are good strategies, Soriano said it should not stop there. He described it as a battle of perception. “Under an extremely competitive marketplace, perception can be short-lived if you don’t support it with the two other pillars: customer centricity and organizational efficiency.”
Chua said a major disadvantage of tying a project with a celebrity is that if the celebrity or icon suddenly was embroiled in events that would result in the celebrity’s negative image in the international scene, then in the local context, that brand would be tarnished as well.
“So this means, choosing whom to partner with is critically important. On the flipside, for foreign brands to partner with a local company, they would also do their own due diligence, since if the local developer does not deliver on its promise to buyers, then that diminishes the reputation of the celebrity endorser as well,” Chua noted.
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Champagne-spraying celebrities, from Paris Hilton to Bruce Willis, are to lose their favourite Riviera watering hole after authorities ordered the closure of a St Tropez beach club that has become notorious for its excess.
La Voile Rouge is considered the birth place of the beach club scene, but will be closed after repeatedly violating noise limits. For the past 45 years, the select stretch of sand on Pampelonne beach has been awash with beautiful people, actors and billionaires looking for summer fun and a place to showboat. Stars would have their Bugattis parked by valets as they dined on fish with a sea view or enjoyed a massage on a private lounger with their mega-yachts moored nearby.
Opened in 1966 by Paul Tomaselli, it was also the first beach club to have topless guests.
The list of regular celebrity visitors includes Roger Moore, Cindy Crawford, Kate Hudson, Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson. Calm early in the day, the ambience heated up by mid-afternoon with the Voile turning into a full-blown “nightclub” by early evening.
Among the high points was a chocolate cake and champagne fight between Sylvester Stallone and friends at the height of his fame in the 1980s.
Willis arrived on a yacht in 1996, and started serving behind the bar. A few drinks later, he was dancing on the tables and has been a regular since.
The bills were not for the faint-hearted. “I once had a client who spent euros 250,000 (pounds 200,000) in a day,” one former employee told Le Figaro. “It was a birthday party for 100 people, each with a magnum of Cristal Roderer and behind another 300 bottles to party through the night. That was La Voile Rouge.”
Last year Paris Hilton, the hotel chain heiress, reportedly spent euros 300,000 in one afternoon of debauchery as friends sprayed her with champagne at more than euros 2,000 a bottle.
The club’s owners have, for the past 11 years, been locked in a legal battle with the council of Ramatuelle, which has administrative control of Pampelonne beach.
An application by the club to renew its lease was denied after a flurry of complaints from residents.
They said that the parties and incessant music was disturbing their peace, as was the constant whirr of helicopters flying in celebrities too impatient to take the slow boat from town.
The club’s founder issued a several appeals, and was still fighting the order to leave at his death in 2005. His son Ange took up the battle until last year, when he handed the premises over to his younger brother Antoine.
But on March 25, a Toulon administrative court ruled the club was illegally occupying public land and ordered it to close.
Despite the ruling, it was business as usual this summer, with 500 guests served per day at the club.
On Oct 3, the family’s final appeal failed and this week gendarmes started dismantling the club, taking chairs, beach mattresses, parasols and furniture.
“In a next step, the buildings will be demolished, the public maritime domain liberated and the beach restored,” said an official.
“We are shocked by this decision,” said Ange Tomaselli. Jean Roch, the owner of the St Tropez nightclub VIP-Room. went even further: “It’s a holy site, not just for St Tropez but for the whole world.”
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Ashton Kutcher (born February 7, 1978) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for playing Michael Kelso on the Fox sitcom “That ’70s Show.” In 2005, Kutcher married actress Demi Moore.
Actor Ashton Kutcher attends GQ’s Gentlemen’s Ball Presented By Gentleman Jack, Land Rover, Movado, and Nautica at The Edison Ballroom on October 26, 2011 in New York City.
Call it the end of an era. Ashton Kutcher is turning his Twitter over to his management team in the name of responsibility after an embarrassing flub.
On Wednesday night Ashton criticized Penn State’s decision to fire legendary head football coach Joe Paterno before he knew about allegations the coach had helped cover up the a now infamous sexual abuse scandal. Upon realizing his mistake, Ashton pulled the Tweet and issued an apology, but the incident shook him up, and he decided to temporarily stop Tweeting. Later on Thursday he posted a link to a statement explaining some new changes to his Twitter feed.
“Up until today, I have posted virtually every one of my tweets on my own, but clearly the platform has become too big to be managed by a single individual,” he explained in the first line of the statement. He goes on to explain how he made the mistake and wraps things up thusly: “While I will continue to express myself through @Aplusk, I’m going to turn the management of the feed over to my team at Katalyst as a secondary editorial measure, to ensure the quality of its content. My sincere apologies to anyone who I offended. It was a mistake that will not happen again.”
While it’s great that Ashton is taking such a responsible course of action, it’s somewhat disheartening to see Twitter’s pioneering celebrity step back from the platform. Instead of getting the (sometimes inappropriate) Ashton whose unfiltered thoughts offered an interesting insight into the actor for his fans, we’ll now get just another carefully managed and sanitized Twitter feed like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton’s accounts.
Check out Ashton’s full statement below: Up until today, I have posted virtually every one of my tweets on my own, but clearly the platform has become too big to be managed by a single individual. When I started using twitter, it was a communication platform that people could say what they were thinking in real time and if their facts were wrong the community would quickly and helpfully reframe an opinion. It was a conversation, a community driven education tool, and opinion center that encouraged healthy debate. It seems that today that twitter has grown into a mass publishing platform, where ones tweets quickly become news that is broadcast around the world and misinformation becomes volatile fodder for critics.
Last night after returning home from work, I walked by the television and simply saw a headline that Joe Paterno had been fired. Having no more information than that, I assumed that he had been fired due to poor performance as an aging coach. As a football fan and someone who had watched Joe’s career move from that of legend/innovator to a head coach that fulfilled his duty in the booth, I assumed that the university had let him go due to football related issues. With that assumption (how dare I assume) I posted a tweet defending his career. I then when about my evening, had some dinner, did a little work, and about an hour later turned on ESPN where I got the full story. I quickly went back on my twitter account and found a hailstorm of responses calling me an “idiot” and several other expletives that I’ve become accustom to hearing for almost anything I post. I quickly retracted and deleted my previous post; however, that didn’t seem enough to satisfy people’s outrage at my misinformed post. I am truly sorry. And moreover am going to take action to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. And as an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more deeply saddened by the events at Penn State.
A collection of over 8 million followers is not to be taken for granted. I feel responsible to deliver informed opinions and not spread gossip or rumors through my twitter feed. While I feel that running this feed myself gives me a closer relationship to my friends and fans I’ve come to realize that it has grown into more than a fun tool to communicate with people. While I will continue to express myself through @Aplusk, I’m going to turn the management of the feed over to my team at Katalyst as a secondary editorial measure, to ensure the quality of its content. My sincere apologies to anyone who I offended. It was a mistake that will not happen again.
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Linfield College senior Zach Farrington, from Juneau, a defender on the Wildcats soccer team, was recognized as an honorable mention selection to the 2011 All-Northwest Conference Men’s Soccer Team.
“He was a great leader his senior year,” head coach Ian Lefebvre said. “He has been a talented player each year he has been here and he has grown a lot since his freshman year. I couldn’t have picked a better captain for this year.”
The all conference selection was announced Wednesday by the league’s sports information directors.
Farrington started 16 matches for the Wildcats and logged 1,436 minutes while contributing one assist. He took eight shots and four shots on goal.
Farrington graduates with the third-most minutes played in Linfield program history, totaling 4,653 minutes over four years.
“I only had the opportunity to work with Zach for the last two season,” Linfield College assistant coach James Maine said. He was a captain his senior season and a great leader at that! He knew exactly when to be stern and was always right on time with his unique style of humor. His willingness to work hard on the field was infectous to his teammates and as so, he demanded the best from himself and his teammates. His play and personality will be missed in this program, but I’m sure he will make his stamp on the world!”
Farrington is a 2008 Juneau-Douglas High School graduate where he lettered three years for the Crimson Bears and was twice an all-state selection, helping JDHS win a state championship in 2008 over South Anchorage after runner-up finishes to South in 2007 and 2006.
Farrington, a biology major, is a four-year starter for Linfield. As a junior he started 16 matches in 2010 and was an all-Northwest Conference honorable mention selection; played in 11 matches as a sophomore in 2009 and registered one assist; and started 16 contests as a freshman in 2008.
Linfield finished seventh in the Northwest Conference with a 1-12-1 record in league play, 2-14-1 overall.
Pacific Lutheran College’s Spencer Augustin was named NWC offensive player of he year after scoring a league-best 19 goals. PLU’s head coach John Yorke was named NWC coach of the year. Whitworth College’s Brian Sherpe was named defensive player of the year.
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Max Markson has revealed that he is “proud” of Didier Cohen.
The celebrity agent, who was fired from the Australian version of Celebrity Apprentice along with teammate Cohen earlier this week, said that labelling the model as a “self-confessed cocaine addict” in his desperation to avoid elimination was not his “finest moment”.
Markson told The Daily Telegraph: “[Didier is] an inspiration to kids. He came off the streets in LA, to have turned his life around… I’m proud of him, I like him.”
“I’m proud and privileged to have worked with him. It was a brain snap in the middle of the boardroom and I was under pressure. I’ve apologised to him. If the show offended anyone, there’s no way I want people to think ill of Didier – or me.”
Markson said that he recently received a text message from Celebrity Apprentice boss Mark Bouris praising him for his efforts on the show.
He also listed his best attributes, saying: “I’m passionate, enthusiastic and focussed and those to me are the keys to success.
“People have always had a love/hate relationship with me, now there’s just more people who love me and more people who hate me.”
Since Markson apologised for his slurs against Cohen yesterday, the model said that his drug use is in his past and that he has no time for Markson’s comments.
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Stars of this year’s ‘I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!’ will be greeted by 10,000 cockroaches at the start of the show.
Producers want this series to be the toughest yet so the celebrities – including Mark Wright, Dougie Poynter, Lorraine Chase and Willie Carson – will come face-to-face with the creepy crawlies when they meet each other for the first time.
However, the stars won’t win anything as the experience won’t count as a trial.
Executive producer Chris Brogden said: “We always like to do something big and new for our launch show. This year we are surprising our celebrities with a challenge that isn’t a trial. It will see all of them come into contact with 10,000 cockroaches.
“That will be a big shock for them on day one.”
However, one celebrity that may miss out is Freddie Starr after the comedian failed to enter the Australian jungle with the other contestants.
A source told The Sun newspaper: “It is unclear why Freddie never made it. Bosses hope he will still be able to go in but for now only nine contestants will be on show.”
If Freddie – who had a triple heart bypass last year – fails to make it, he could be replaced by Pat Sharp.
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As Chris Brown’s F.A.M.E. tour goes into full swing this Fall, backlash against the internationally-known R&B entertainer continues to mount. Despite the popularity of Brown’s single “Yeah 3x”, a electropop tune that has become quite a staple in dance clubs nationwide, the 22-year-old’s career seems to be permanently marred by his domestic assault of former-girlfriend and fellow entertainer Rihanna back in February 2009.
“Dude is a retard for hitting a woman,” says Eric Dowdle.
“I will never listen to him again,” admits Ashley Ross. “That guy is a dick.”
“He is a ‘bag o’ douche’!” insists Kasie Rogers.
And that is only the tip of the iceberg. This past March, Brown infamously hurled a chair through a window overlooking Times Square after an interview with Robin Roberts on ABC’s Good Morning America. He then allegedly became violent in his dressing room, ripped off his shirt, had a confrontation with producers and security, and stormed out of the building shirtless. Many people feel that if Chris Brown were not a celebrity, he would have been thrown in jail long ago.
“Can someone please tell me why people still like Chris Brown?!” Kady Walls rages. “He beat a woman, as in kicked her [butt] black and blue. Whomever can still like an artist who beats his girlfriends is [freaking] stupid.”
Chris Brown is not the only celebrity to receive this sort of treatment. Just Google the name “Lindsay Lohan”, and a string of the troubled 25-year-old actress’s misdemeanors, felonies, and thefts floods the computer screen. Somehow, Lohan has served hardly any jail time, has partied her way through rehab, and has failed to complete her numerous community service opportunities.
Despite all of this, Lohan is still a free woman, and can be seen partying it up in a tank top and hot pants every weekend in Hollywood. Perhaps if Lohan did not have a large (although rapidly declining) income and star status, she would have been forced to personalize a jail cell by now.
“Americans need to get their priorities straight,” Terrance Howard warns. “It is the same with athletes. Kobe Bryant [allegedly] raped someone, but no one seems to remember that.”
In a poll conducted by SodaHead.Com, 79 percent of participants felt that celebrities are unfairly awarded special treatment all of the time. Paris Hilton, Kid Rock, Nicole Richie, Winona Ryder, Michael Vick, and Charlie Sheen are just a few other celebrities who have received arguably nothing more than a slap on the wrist for their bad behavior.
“The repercussions for celebrities are pretty much nonexistent,” Oliver Bryant agrees. “If you or I did even half of the things that celebrities get away with, we’d be locked up faster than Chris Brown can say, ‘Look At Me, Now’.”
Disturbingly, it seems that celebrities like these often receive additional special treatment or a stronger fan base as a reward for their misdoings.
“Chris Brown has received a well-deserved amount of [crap] for beating up Rihanna,” admits Tyler DeLaney, “but it bugs me how, in the end, it only made him more famous.”
While Brown’s career seems to have hit a high point despite many people seemingly want to ban him from entertainment for his misdeeds, Lohan was arrested October 19 for a probation violation and has a hearing scheduled for November 2. Only time will tell what her punishment will entail. Most America is willing to bet…nothing.
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