Time Magazine’s annual Time 100, or the Most Influential People in the World issue, is out this week. Per usual, the Time 100 is broken down into five categories: the Titans (represented with a Kanye West cover), the Leaders (Jorge Ramos cover), the Pioneers (Misty Copeland cover), the Artists (Bradley Cooper cover) and the Icons (featuring a cover with the Notorious RBG, Ruth Bader Ginsberg). You can see Time Magazine’s Time 100 package here – they always go all out, and they always get friends/admirers to write about the featured people.

This year’s Time 100 includes the above people, obviously, plus Amy Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Pope Francis, Kim Kardashian, Laverne Cox, Lorne Michaels, Ina Garten, Reese Witherspoon, Emma Watson, Samantha Power, Alexander Wang, Lee Daniels and more. So… Time has gone full KIMYE. They gave Kanye his own cover – plus Elon Musk wrote about Kanye’s influence – and they included Kim on the list, with a write-up from Martha Stewart (of all people). How does that make you feel about Time?

Personally, I hate the fact that Bradley Cooper was chosen as the face of The Artists. Seriously? On a list of artists that includes Alexander Wang, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chris Pratt, Kevin Hart, Julianne Moore and John Oliver? With that kind of list of artists, you’re going to put BRADLEY COOPER on the cover? But my disgust with B-Coop’s ascent has been well-documented. I just don’t get how he keeps getting Oscar nominations for playing the same character time after time.

Covers courtesy of Time Magazine, additional photo by WENN.

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A photo posted by Nicki Minaj (@nickiminaj) on Apr 15, 2015 at 10:00am PDT

Nicki Minaj has been keeping a relatively low media profile (compared to her usual attention-seeking antics) lately. Also out of character – Nicki generally doesn’t say much about her personal life, but now she has a big annoucement. According to E!, Nicki is engaged to fellow rapper Meek Mill. This happened fast. They’ve been making googly eyes at each other on Instagram and haven’t been together long. Nicki previously dated Safaree Samuels for 14 years. TMZ reported on their dramatic breakup that happened last fall. Nicki (allegedly) attacked Safaree’s car with a baseball bat during an argument.

Nicki’s been dating Meek for less than six months. The exact timeline isn’t certain, but Nicki flashed her huge engagement ring on Instagram. What do you think?

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A photo posted by Nicki Minaj (@nickiminaj) on Apr 15, 2015 at 4:13pm PDT

I think it’s pretty awful, yet it’s completely Nicki’s style. This is like Lady Gaga’s ring, only worse. Heart-shaped rings are fine, but this looks like costume jewelry. Nicki’s taste always runs towards flashy though. Her engagement ring should be no exception. Her wedding dress (if she makes it that far with Meek) should be a disaster.

E! confirmed the big news with a Nicki insider, who says, “Both Meek and Nicki have been spending amazing quality time together lately and have gotten extremely close these past few months. It may seem like it all is happening very quickly but Nicki and Meek are in this 100. They truly love each other.” E! also spoke with a jeweler who eyeballed this ring as “a 15-carat fancy yellow heart modified brilliant cut diamond mounted in platinum with a double halo of white pavé diamonds.” The estimated cost runs about $500,000. Ouch.

Photos courtesy of Nicki Minaj on Instagram, Fame/Flynet & WENN

As we reported yesterday, Kelly Rutherford has lost a federal custody battle for her two children: son Hermes, 8, and daughter Helena, 5. Kelly’s legal argument centered around her claim that, by ordering the children to live with their father, a German man residing in Monaco, the custody judge had deported them. The federal court disagreed, stating in part that “the children have not been deported… [they] retain their United States citizenship.” The children live with their father, Daniel Giersch, who he was deported from the US in 2012 and is no longer allowed to travel there following a tip to the State Department from Kelly’s former divorce lawyer. Giersch is supposed to apply for another Visa but reports indicate that he has not followed up.

This may not be Kelly’s final legal option. Her friend, ABC News anchor Dan Abrams, indicated in an interview with Good Morning America yesterday that Kelly can still appeal to the California court system (Abrams previously wrote an editorial advocating for Kelly’s children to be returned to her and has appeared with her on other talk shows.) Kelly’s lawyer also indicate that she would continue to appeal. She told Fox News that “What we don’t understand is why they had to be sent to a foreign country. It’s an unprecedented cause and we’re not giving up…we will never give up.”

In her pre-taped interview with GMA, Kelly expressed her dismay at the ruling and stated that “Parents know — everyone knows it’s not right.” She also said that she cries frequently and that she misses things like “being able to bring them from school and pick them up from school, dress them, hug them, smell them.” It does sound devastating.

Kelly has a new interview with Hello! Magazine, and she expresses many of the same sentiments. She’s really hurting and upset. However she also claims that she’s taken the high road.

“I feel empty,” she said of decision.

“Just because kids don’t vote and pay taxes doesn’t mean they don’t have rights to be raised in their own country,” she shares exclusively in a sit-down interview at The Mark Hotel in New York just days after the ruling. “It’s a humanitarian issue. It’s a constitutional issue.”

“It doesn’t make sense. How did this even happen,” says Kelly. “At the end of the day, I’m a mother and a citizen of this country no matter what I do for a living. What I’m asking for is help.”

The actress fears her celebrity status may actually have hurt her in this case. “It’s a big misconception especially because of the character I played. Lily van der Woodsen and I had a big difference in money,” she explains of her wealthy, entitled Gossip Girl role. “[Daniel] just sued me until I had no more money.”

Kelly had to file for bankruptcy and her dwindling funds make it difficult to see her children, she says. “I go to visit them as often as I can afford to go, about once month to every six weeks,” she continues, having just returned from seeing them in France a few days before. “The longest I went was eight weeks because I couldn’t afford to pay my rent.”

Despite her heartbreak, the star’s number one priority is her children. “I want my kids to look back on this time and say, ‘Thank god mom didn’t say horrible things about dad and took the high road,’” she concludes. “Eventually they’re going to read about this and I want them to be healthy through this. They look to us to be the rock always and I take that responsibility seriously. Overall they know they’re loved.”

[Hello! Magazine]

Here’s the thing, her children don’t have just one country, “their own,” as Kelly puts it, they have two. Kelly’s children may have been born in the US but they are also German citizens due to their father’s nationality and they are free to live anywhere in the EU. This is not a “humanitarian” or a “constitutional” issue, this is a custody issue. Her kids are living with their family, including their father and paternal grandparents, in Monaco. This is the only way they could see their father unless they personally traveled to him. I don’t doubt that it’s very hard for Kelly to deal with not seeing her children, but I do think she’s totally full of it when she claims to have taken the high road.

According to People Magazine, during her custody battle, she “stated on the record that Daniel was dealing drugs and weapons in South America, which under the Victory Act is considered terrorism. Just the accusation is enough to revoke his visa.” Her own lawyer also tipped off the State Department. I get that she wants to have her children with her, it must be horrible not to see them, but she has not been taking “the high road” at all. Also, I read that her ex was ordered to pay for her flights to and from Monaco. I guess that’s not the case or that it doesn’t cover all her expenses.

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

View image | gettyimages.com

Late last year, Brandi Glanville stepped out to some events looking… crazy Botoxed. It’s mean to say, but it was very, very noticeable. Star Magazine’s sources said last November that Brandi had a few Botox sessions that “went too far” and she was “embarrassed” about how frozen and puffy she looked. Just FYI: I don’t think she only gets Botox. There are fillers in her cheeks too. Well, in December, she claimed she hadn’t gotten any “new fillers or Botox this year” which made absolutely no sense. Now she’s coming clean. A little bit.

Brandi Glanville has admitted she’s had ‘tons’ done to her face. The 42-year-old discussed her changing looks on E!’s new celebrity plastic surgery talk show Good Work which aired on Tuesday. That same evening, the reality star made an appearance on the final reunion episode the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on Bravo.

On Good Work, Brandi was asked by host Ru Paul whether she had ever done anything to her face. With characteristic directness she replied: ‘Yeah, tons…fillers and botox and I’ve definitely made some mistakes but it’s hard to watch yourself get older on television. You look and think – maybe I shouldn’t have done that and maybe I need to do this.’

The Celebrity Apprentice star, who is known for her outspoken behaviour, added: ‘I’ve definitely over-filled and I’ve definitely had some bad Botox where your eyes drop but, y’know, there’s no shame in my game.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I don’t have as much of a problem with it when people admit that they’re hitting the ‘Tox. My biggest criticism in Brandi’s case is that I think she should stop crying poverty because it’s clear that she has plenty of money to spend on injectibles. Too much money, frankly. I really wonder if Brandi would look SO different if she stopped messing with her face? I think she would look pretty much the same, just not as puffy and waxy. But hey, it’s her face, her money and her life. If she thinks this looks good… I guess we just have to accept that.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Christopher Eccleston has always seemed like a Cillian Murphy-type of actor… to me. What I mean is that even when Eccleston is supposed to be playing a sympathetic or even “good” character, I still think the character is probably a psycho. It’s something about the eyes and the intensity. Eccleston just comes across like an intense guy who excels at playing bad guys. It’s not the worst thing in the world. Anyway, Eccleston has a new interview with Radio Times about why his tenure as Doctor Who was so short and why it’s tough for him to be a working class Northern lad in an industry that only wants to hire the posh blokes like Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne.

Why his Doctor Who had a Northern accent: “I wanted to move him away from the RP (received pronunciation) for the first time because we shouldn’t make a correlation between intellect and accent … although that still needs addressing… I still feel insecure, like a lot of my working-class contemporaries. I had a sense acting wasn’t for me because I’m not educated. I was a skinny, awkward-looking bugger with an accent, as I still am.”

Inequality and classism in British culture: “British society has always been based on inequality, particularly culturally. I’ve lived with it, but it’s much more pronounced now, and it would be difficult for someone like me to come through.”

Posh actors: “You can’t blame Eddie Redmayne, Benedict Cumberbatch and others taking their opportunities but it will lead to a milky, anodyne culture. To an extent that’s already happened. I confess I don’t watch much film or television drama but I’m aware of the predominance of white, male roles. It’s not just about the working class. There’s not enough writing for women or people of colour. It frustrates me when they insist on doing all-male Shakespearean productions – a wonderful intellectual exercise, maybe, but it’s outrageous because it’s putting a lot of women out of work.”

[From Pajiba & Radio Times]

I had to look up the word “anodyne”. In case you didn’t know it either, it means “not likely to provoke dissent or offense; inoffensive, often deliberately so.” And he’s absolutely right. I love seeing Benedict and Eddie and Tom Hiddleston and hell, even posh bloke Tom Hardy in more films, but it would be great if the British film & television industry could focus on telling stories that aren’t just about posh, educated white blokes. Hollywood should learn the same lesson, although many British working-class actors and British actors of color have said that they’re actually offered more opportunities in America than Britain.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Here are some photos of Kim Kardashian launching the ‘Kardashian Beauty Hair’ line at Marionnaud in Paris yesterday. Her dress is all one piece, in case you were wondering. There’s a cut-out at the waist and the top and bottom are connected at the sides, then there’s a tie-back. Overall, this kind of dress is made for someone built like Taylor Swift. We’re supposed to be able to see the cut-out, and the faux-bandeau is supposed to “sit up” a lot higher than we’re seeing on Kim. So, basically, another styling failure. Why does Kim always make it so complicated? Granted, it’s more difficult to dress someone curvy AND short. But Kim makes it so much harder on herself. Here’s my something nice: I don’t hate the fabric at all. If this had straps and no waist cut-out, this might have been a good look.

Here are some other Kimye stories percolating through the system:

*There was a rumor that Kim and Kanye were going to renew their vows in Paris. We’re coming up on their first wedding anniversary and while I’m sure it’s going to get crazy and superficial, Gossip Cop says that Kimye will not be renewing their vows in Paris. Sad.

*I’m starting to wonder what Kim and Kanye will wear to the Met Gala. They’ve gone to the Met Gala two years in a row – I’m sure they’ll be going this year. And I’m sure that Kim’s dress is going to be hideous.

*Various media outlets are running “exclusive first looks” at Kim’s book of selfies. These first looks are nothing special if you spend any time looking at Kim’s Instagram.

*You know how Kim and Kanye had North baptized in Israel this week, and Kimye went to dinner with the mayor of Jerusalem and there were photos? Well, “ultra-orthodox” media outlets edited Kim from the photos. Because she’s a p0rn star. Seriously.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

It’s always a good day when I get to write about Viggo Mortensen. And surprisingly, this story isn’t all about some movie I’ll never watch or about Viggo’s political views (okay, it’s not ENTIRELY about his politics). Viggo is (still) promoting his film Far From Men, which he’s been hyping at various film festivals for months now. The film got a VOD release and it will have a limited theatrical release on May 1. But really, Viggo is great because even when he’s promoting a particular film, he rarely stays on-message and ends up talking about lots of different things. Like how he was offered Wolverine in the first X-Men movie. Like what he thinks of the murder of Walter Scott. You can read the full interview here. Some highlights:

Viggo was offered Wolverine: “I was offered Wolverine, actually, for the first movie—I guess it would’ve been for the franchise then. That was just before I got Lord of the Rings. I was flattered. I remember going to that meeting with the director, Bryan Singer, with my son who was a total comic book expert. He was about 10 at the time. Henry came, and Singer showed us all these models and storyboards, and Henry was instructing the director, saying, “Oh, you’re going to change this thing right here.” I believe it coincided with another project, and I couldn’t do it.”

He was offered other big films: “Every once in a while I’m offered something like that. I was offered two different parts in the last Superman movie they made [Man of Steel], but I wasn’t available to do that either. And The Huntsman in Snow White and the Huntsman, which isn’t a comic book but is almost like a comic book…. They changed it a lot. When they offered it to me, it was a different story and seemed more justified to be called Snow White and the Huntsman. The movie they ended up making should have been called Snow White and the Wicked Witch. The original script was a lot funnier and there was a longer apprenticeship. It was almost like The African Queen a little bit.”

On the murder of Walter Scott: “South Carolina. Yes, I’ve been following it. That was great what happened there, that he was caught on video, but let’s see what they do. Look at what happened in Ferguson or Staten Island, where the guy was choked to death. That was all caught on a phone, but the guy wasn’t even taken to trial! Because all these things have been happening, it’s going to be hard for that police department in Charleston to let the guy get away with it.

Privacy, technology: “What Edward Snowden has warned about is the equivalent of what George Orwell was warning about, and I think that documentary Citizenfour is equivalent to 1984 in its importance. And I think Snowden is like Winston Smith—the character who fights Big Brother. There are serious issues with it, not just the trivial, “Get out of my face with that camera, it’s so irritating,” but it can also be good. I think young people are also learning things very fast, and if they want to, it’s good for getting out the vote and making people conscious of what’s going on, but they’re great tools to inform.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Viggo also goes on a lengthy discussion about social media, saying that it bugs him that people aren’t “present” in the world, that they’re always checking in with social media and all of that. He says he doesn’t believe Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are the end of civilization, but they need to be used differently and people need to be able to take a break from them.

I’m surprised that Viggo is so open with discussing the films he’s passed on – I honestly didn’t know he was up for Wolverine, or Man of Steel, or Snow White and the Huntsman. He would have made an interesting Wolverine, but I’m not sure Viggo would have stuck with the character like Hugh Jackman has. What was Viggo offered in Man of Steel? I could see him getting offers for Jor-El (Russell Crowe) or General Zod (Michael Shannon). That’s just my theory, I don’t know what he was offered. But I’m glad he refused SWATH. That would have been bad.

Photos of Viggo at a February event in Barcelona, courtesy of WENN & Fame/Flynet.

When Gwyneth Paltrow is criticized, she usually doubles-down. Like, she can’t even believe that the peasantry has the audacity to question her about ANYTHING, so she goes overboard in justifying or explaining herself. But not this time. Gwyneth has literally done the least amount of work involved with the Food Bank Challenge or the SNAP Challenge or whatever we’re calling it. She proudly posted a photo of what $29 worth of food stamps would get you at the grocery store (so many limes!) and… that was it. She posted that photo on April 9th. She abandoned the challenge within days (if not hours). She went out to lunch with friends over the weekend, and now People reports that Gwyneth and her boyfriend went out for a romantic dinner of veal tongue and rabbit legs (?????).

Gwyneth Paltrow and producer Brad Falchuk took their romance tableside on Tuesday. The actress, 42, and the Glee co-creator, 44, dined at the L.A. restaurant Animal, which featured a barbecue-themed menu on Tuesday of pig ears, veal tongue and fried rabbit legs.

“They were sitting together, very cozy and romantic,” says the observer at the eatery. “He was totally rapt by everything she was saying. They were totally on a date.”

The dinner followed Paltrow’s announcement on April 9 that she had accepted the Food Bank for New York City challenge to bring attention to the struggles faced by families that live on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, which Congress has slashed twice during the past 18 months. It’s unclear whether Paltrow is still participating in the campaign, which involves living off a $29 food-stamp budget for a week, or $1.38 per meal.

[From People]

It’s not “unclear”. Gwyneth is not doing the challenge, if she ever was. And that truly surprises me – I figured Gwyneth would devote a Goop-post to her “challenge” and tell us all how she managed to make some lovely lime-soaked rice (or something) and it was amazing and obviously that means she’s so much better at all of this than the (fat) peasants. Instead, she gave up and just phoned it in. “Darling, just take a photo of some limes, I’m going to lunch with my lover.”

After I wrote that ^^ Page Six published their version of the same story, only they got Goop’s rep to say: “She already finished the challenge last week but only got around to posting the photo of the groceries on [Thursday].” So, basically, it’s what I said – Gwyneth only posted a photo of what she thought $29 worth of food looked like and then went on with her life. Page Six also noted that at this fancy BBQ event, it didn’t even seem like Gwyneth ate anything, despite the fact that she likely spent $85 just to attend.

Meanwhile, Gwyneth got HEAPS of criticism for even deigning to pay lip service to this challenge. The NY Post had a scathing essay about Gwyneth pretending to be poor, like she’s Marie Antoinette. Even Time Magazine called it “poverty tourism” and declared the whole Gooptastrophe to be “gross.”

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.

Jemima Kirke (of Girls) wishes to open a discussion on abortion. This is a surprisingly common medical procedure, but many women never tell. According to Planned Parenthood, 3 out of 10 U.S. women will have an abortion before they turn 45. Yet no one talks about it because the associated stigma is huge. There’s one clinic in my state, and the building is constantly surrounded by protestors. And that’s only the public side of things. The private shame of women who have abortions leads to them keeping it almost a complete secret.

Jemima opened up in a PSA for the Center for Reproductive Rights. Jemima (now 29) discusses how she had an abortion at age 22. She was a college student at the time and couldn’t support a child. She doesn’t regret her decision, but she does lament the stigma surrounding reproductive rights. Jemima hopes for a less politicized treatment of these rights when her daughters grow older. It’s not looking good in that regard. Oklahoma and Kansas just passed more restrictions on abortion, and who knows what other states will join them. Here’s the transcript of Jemima’s PSA:

“In 2007, I became pregnant with my boyfriend at the time. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be attached to this person for the rest of my life. My life was just not conducive to raising a healthy, happy child. I just didn’t feel it was fair. So I decided to get an abortion, and I went to Planned Parenthood in Providence, Rhode Island where I was at school. Because I couldn’t tell my mother that I was pregnant, I had to pay for it out of pocket. I did have to empty my checking account, what I had in there, and get some from my boyfriend. I realized that if I didn’t take the anesthesia, I would be able to afford to do this. And the anesthesia wasn’t that much more, but when you’re scrounging for however many hundreds of dollars, it is a lot. I just didn’t have it. It’s these obstacles, and it’s the stigma that makes these things not completely unavailable, and that’s the tricky part. We think that we do have free choice, and we are able to do whatever we want, but there’s these little hoops we have to jump through to get there.

I’ve always felt that reproductive issues should be something that women especially should be able to talk about freely, especially amongst each other. And I still see that today. I still see shame and embarrassment around terminating pregnancies, getting pregnant, I still see it. So I have always been open about my stories. Always shared them, especially with other women. I have two daughters, actually. I have a step daughter who’s 8 and I have my younger one who is 4. I’m already anticipating their issues with self esteem, their issues with their body, the whole luggage that comes with being a woman. So I would love that, when they’re older, when they’re in their teens and 20s, that the political issues surrounding their bodies are not there anymore … I would hate to see them fight for rights.”

[From Center for Reproductive Rights on YouTube]

Jemima isn’t complaining about the price of an abortion. She simply had trouble affording one as a college student; and she wishes the stigma of abortion wasn’t so great that she couldn’t tell her own mom. (Not incidentally, E! did some research on the clinic Jemima used. The prices range from $500-800 with sedation costing more. Nowadays, RU-486 is usually cheaper than a surgical abortion but not by much.)

Aside from the cost, more and more restrictions are being passed on abortion, which will only increase the difficulty of getting one. Jemima’s correct — if women are supposedly free to choose, then why are there so many restrictions?

Here’s Jemima’s PSA video.

Photos courtesy of WENN

I’ve been a little bit worried about Jeremy Renner. The promotional tour for The Avengers: Age of Ultron has started, and I’m worried that Renner is going to get a lot of questions about the situation with Sonni Pacheco, his now estranged wife (they’re not divorced yet, but they will be soon enough). After all the sketchiness that’s gone down – much of it public! – how could Renner possibly avoid those questions? Turns out, I completely underestimated the ability of friendly media outlets to whitewash the whole situation. So far, Renner hasn’t been asked about it at all. Instead, he gets to answer questions from Ellen DeGeneres about how much he loves being a dad to daughter Ava Berlin.

Chatting with Ellen DeGeneres for an episode of her talk show airing Wednesday, April 15, Jeremy Renner joked that fatherhood had essentially ruined him for everything else in life.

“It is the greatest thing in the world. I mean, it really kind of changed my perspective on a lot of things,” Renner, 44, told the comedienne, adding that his little girl is at a “great age” and “talking a lot.”

“It’s kind of screwed my career in a lot of ways,” he quipped. “Because I don’t really care about it so much ’cause I care about her so much. She’s like number one in my life. And now I get to do movies on the side. Daddy’s my best role to date, I think.” After a round of applause from the audience, he cracked, “And all I had to do was have sex. That’s amazing.”

The one drawback? Constant traveling. “I do a lot of flights back [when I’m working],” he explained. “I did like 40 flights back from London to here pretty much every other week to see her, sometimes for eight hours, and then [I] fly back.”

Fortunately, little Ava has plenty of other relatives to keep her company when Renner is away. As the actor revealed to DeGeneres, he’s the oldest of seven kids — the youngest of whom is the same age as his daughter!

“My dad had my brother the same week I had my daughter,” he shared. “So it’s kind of like my dad’s having his own grandkids…I mean, it bodes well for me, I guess. I can still, you know, make things happen later on in life.”

[From Us Weekly]

Yes, Renner’s dad just welcomed his seventh kid the same week Renner welcomed Ava Berlin. I get the feeling that Renner’s family is pretty much all-over-the-place, you know? Compared to the rest of his family, Renner’s relatively sane and successful. As for Renner positioning himself as a devoted father who would take 40 London-to-LA trips so he could see his daughter on the weekends? Smart. He’s positioning himself well for an extended custody battle, if it comes to that.

Photos courtesy of WENN.