I am SO disappointed. I thought Madonna would release her video for “Bitch I’m Madonna” and the sheer magnitude of Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and… Rita Ora… would be enough to knock Taylor Swift off her game. But after I watched Madonna’s video… nope. If anything, this makes me long for Tay-Tay’s utterly stupid “Bad Blood” video because at least she got her famous friends to SHOW UP for her. Here’s the video for “Bitch I’m Madonna” (incidentally, this song sucks).

Rita Ora, Diplo and Chris Rock are the only ones actually on the set with Madonna. The rest of the cameos are just video clips filmed somewhere else. Beyonce, Miley, Kanye and Katy are literally only on screen for about three seconds total and they have no real connection to the ‘90s rave-nightmare of the rest of the video. Even Minaj – who legitimately contributed a rap in the middle of the song – didn’t even bother coming to the real music video shoot.

And the grillz. My God, the grillz. Madonna is trying so hard to be hip and cool like the youngsters. Her goal at this point is to be referred to in a scathing takedown for being “ratchet.” Seriously, that’s her endgame. She would love it if Salon or The Daily Beast wrote a thinkpiece called “Is Madonna too ratchet?” Then she would be cool. Instead, the headlines are basically “Taylor Swift wins, Madonna’s new video is a budget mess.”

Photos courtesy of WENN, Madonna’s IG.

Iggy Azalea’s new life, post arena tour cancellation, looks so relaxing. She’s been doing a lot of shopping and gets papped riding horses all the time. Her career continues to go south, and that’s okay for now. Iggy didn’t handle the pressures of stardom very well. I’m doubtful she’ll ever score a song as popular as “Fancy,” but who knows.

Iggy has a new interview with an Aussie morning show, Today, where she talks about being confident in one’s skin. She sounds like she’s full of it (you can see the video here). Iggy pretends like her recent plastic surgery (nose job and chin implant) never happened. She previously spoke out about her cellulite, which is how she approaches things here. People still can’t stop thinking about how different Iggy looks now, so these words ring false:

On her self-esteem: “Some days I want to crawl into a cave because I don’t feel confident at all, and then other days I feel great. I think it’s like that for all human beings, not just young women. I think being confident 100 percent every day is something to aspire to, but I don’t think it’s humanly possible for anybody.”

What is confidence? “Having that honest moment with yourself and … embracing your flaws.”

[From Today Show – Australia]

The show praised Iggy for being candid about her newish bolt ons, as she “totally owned her decision like a boss.” Yeah, I’ll give credit for owning up to her boob job before the media noticed anything was amiss. She still hasn’t admitted to her obvious cosmetic work, which is her prerogative. No one can make her admit getting work done, but she’s telling people to embrace their flaws! Iggy’s only mentioned getting a “laser skin peel thing,” and she’s done far more than visit a spa.

Iggy has been interacting a lot with random fans on Twitter. She revealed that her wedding to Nick Young will be more traditional than her tacky engagement ring. We’ll see.

@LeoRising15 hmmmm im def wearing white or ivory. i do want a pretty traditional style wedding.

— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) June 15, 2015

This tweet gave me a chuckle.

im cheating on target with amazon prime.

— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) June 17, 2015

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN

Norman Reedus is sex on a stick to many of you. I’m more into clean cut guys (Matt Damon, Joel McHale, Chiwetel Ejiofor) but I can see it if you’re into that kind of dude. For many women, Reedus lost the hot when it recently came out that he was dating a 21 year-old model. The model was 20 when they met. Reedus, 46, has since moved on to dating his former costar, Emily Kinney, who is slightly more age-appropriate at 29. I think of Kinney as much younger than that as I know her as Beth from Walking Dead. It seems wrong to me that Beth and Daryl are together. He was like a father figure to her on the show and she’s so young-looking that Reedus looks like he could be her dad. Apparently it’s on though, and Reedus has been seen supporting Kinney at her music shows. (Her music is pretty bad, from what I’ve seen.)

If you are waiting to watch the last season of Walking Dead, there are spoilers below

“They had a connection early on in the show,” says a source close to the duo, “but the romance developed recently. They’re still pretty guarded about it.”

After Kinney’s character, Beth, was shockingly killed off in 2014, she and Reedus, 46, who plays zombie hunter Daryl, stayed in touch through texts, appearances at fan conventions (the two are scheduled to appear at the Walker Stalker Con event in Orlando, Fla., on June 27 and 28), and at Kinney’s music gigs. Says the source, “He was one of the first to support her at her concerts when she was still on the show.”

Recently, the dad of 15-year-old Mingus (his son with model Helena Christensen) cheered on the singer-songwriter, 29, at her May 21 show in Decatur, Ga. An eyewitness tells Us a few die-hard Dead fans noticed Reedus in the audience and got excited. “For some time everyone wanted two of the most beloved Walking Dead characters to be together, but of course, Beth was killed off,” says the observer.

“She always called him the sweetest guy on the set,” says the first source. When Kinney discovered she’d been written off the show, Reedus was among the first to be in touch, she revealed to Us in December 2014. “Everyone reached out, though I remember Norman texted me—he’s so sweet.”

[From Us Magazine]

As US mentions, Reedus has a 15 year-old son from a previous relationship with model Helena Christensen, so he hasn’t always dated women who are over 15 years younger than he is. Also, Kinney is almost out of her 20s. That’s something. That baby face though. Daryl saves Beth from drinking her first peach schnapps, they’re not meant to be together romantically.

Update: Reedus’s rep denied to TMZ that his client is in a romantic relationship with Kinney. TMZ has a photo of the two out together in Georgia and Reedus’s rep says their relationship is “strictly platonic.”

photo credit: WENN and AMC

Here are some photos of Mindy Kaling out and about in NYC yesterday, where she was making the rounds on talk shows to promote Pixar’s Inside Out. Mindy voices “Disgust” and she’s really been doing a good job talking up the film. She seems really pleased with the final product and let’s face it, Pixar knows what they’re doing and the film will probably be a huge hit and win tons of awards. So here are some highlights from Mindy’s various appearances.

She wants to be Photoshopped. When Mindy appeared on The View, they chatted about her InStyle cover and she said: “When I was on the cover of this magazine, I think people were excited because I don’t look like a lot of women who tend to be on the covers of magazines…A lot of times when you’re not super skinny and you’re on a cover of magazines and stuff like that, the idea is like, ‘Oh, we’ll just let her be…we’re gonna get credit for letting her be really natural and real.’ But I’m like everyone else, whereas I’m like, ‘You can Photoshop me as much as you want!’”

She tried a child abuse “joke.” Jezebel made this into a thing, like Mindy made a terribly inappropriate joke about child abuse, but I think George Stephanopoulos sort of set her up with an awkwardly worded statement about how the film “makes you feel like you’re inside this 11-year-girl.” And Mindy just says, “….in a profoundly wholesome way.” That’s it.

ABC US News | World News

Mindy believes sex scenes are a lot of fun. In her newest memoir Why Not Me?, Mindy chats about how much fun she has filming sex/romantic scenes and that all actors lie about how much fun they really are. She writes, in part: “I am here to tell you they’re all lying. Every last one of ’em. Obviously onscreen sex is not actual penetrative sex, but, as any religious high schooler will tell you, simulating sex can be pretty damn enjoyable as well.” As for all of the crew standing around watching you grind on some dude, Mindy writes: “The more, the merrier! Most of those people are artists whose job it is to make sure your physical imperfections are cloaked in mysterious shadows. By the end of the shooting day, you’ll wish there were more people there.”

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

Courtney Love isn’t the most coherent tack in the box. Everyone knows she’s nutty, and the world shrugs its shoulders. Oh look, there’s Courtney dancing in the corner while blaming the world for her financial woes. She hasn’t done that in awhile, and she’s even working steadily as an actress again. Courtney’s still the person who casually discusses doing heroin while pregnant, and she’ll always be a mess.

We’ve talked a bit about Montage of Heck, the Kurt Cobain documentary supported by both Frances Bean Cobain and Courtney. There’s also another new doc (Soaked in Bleach) making news, and Courtney isn’t happy. This film takes a much different position, which accuses Courtney of murdering Kurt. Yeah, they’re totally going there. The doc relies heavily upon evidence from sketchy private investigator Tom Grant. He’s spoken out against Courtney many times and even wrote a book about Kurt’s death. Grant is presently tweeting up a storm about Soaked in Bleach. Courtney’s lawyers sent cease-and-desist letters to theaters, warning them not to show the picture. You can see the letter here with some details from Deadline:

The widow of the Nirvana frontman was a very vocal supporter of the recent HBO documentary Montage Of Heck, but she’s no fan of another film about her relationship with her late husband. The legal team representing Courtney Love has issued a cease-and-desist order against theaters showing the controversial Benjamin Statler-directed docudrama Soaked in Bleach, a look at the death of Kurt Cobain that was ruled a suicide in 1994.

“The Film falsely presents a widely and repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory that accuses Ms. Cobain of orchestrating the death of her husband Kurt Cobain,” writes the Hole singer’s attorney in the order. “A false accusation of criminal behavior is defamatory … which entitles Ms. Cobain to both actual and presumed damages.” No complaint has been filed with the courts as of yet.

From Suburban Hitchhiker and Daredevil Films, Soaked In Bleach centers on private investigator Tom Grant, hired by Love to find Cobain after he left a substance abuse treatment center in Los Angeles on March 30, 1994. During the period between the musician’s disappearance and the April 8 discovery of his body, Grant recorded many of the conversations he had with Love. Those recordings, paired with re-enactments, make up much of the film, though documentary footage as well as interviews with people close to the matter also are used.

The film revives the highly controversial claim that Cobain’s death was a homicide and that Love might have had a connection to it. It covers similar ground to Nick Broomfield’s 1999 documentary Kurt & Courtney. Seattle police re-examined evidence in 2014 and said the death still was ruled a suicide.

[From Deadline]

Deadline received a further statement from the distributors of this film, Emerging Pictures. They believe their film “presents a compelling case for re-opening the investigation into Kurt’s death.” They also claim victory and say only a few theaters (out of an entire nation full!) caved to Courtney’s request. I don’t see how this is possible, since Emerging Pictures’ films usually only open in a few theaters. The whole idea of this new documentary seems “off” to me. Why does the world need to resurrect a conspiracy theory that’s been put to rest (at least twice) by Seattle police? And who would fund such a project?

Some other (unrelated) Courtney news. She almost played Harley Quinn in an unmade movie called Batman Unchained. This would have been the third bat movie directed by Joel Schumacher. When I first skimmed the story, I thought the report meant she was up for the Margot Robbie role in Suicide Squad. Nope, this would have been a late 1990s movie. Courtney would have been an interesting choice back in the day.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN

Buzzfeed published a really fascinating analysis of just how In Touch Weekly managed to change the gossip around the Duggars by doing some old-fashioned leg work and genuine investigative reporting. In Touch broke the Duggar family’s scandals wide open, and it will be interesting/funny to see if the Duggars actually do try to sue Bauer Media. But within this Buzzfeed piece, there’s some interesting little tidbits sprinkled in, about how gossip is cultivated, the narratives being driven by the editors, and how certain stories are “sourced.” If you like the insider-y media gossip stories, this is a good read – go here for the full piece. Some assorted piece of information:

In Touch & other tabloids will pay for gossip tips: “The money,” of course, is what In Touch and the rest of the tabloids are willing to pay for tips, documents, and leads — a practice that’s frowned upon in mainstream American journalism circles, but an accepted and long-standing tradition in Europe, where the National Enquirer began poaching reporters from in the 1970s. Today, the National Enquirer homepage lures tipsters with the promise to EARN BIG BUCK$$$$!; In Touch’s “Hot Celebrity Tip Box” makes no mention of payoffs, but current Editorial Director David Perel acknowledges that they do pay for certain stories, and part of In Touch’s stigma stems from its willingness to pay for truly worthwhile tips and stories.

The Golden Age of Gossip, 2002-2008: In Touch piqued that fascination by manufacturing elaborate, multipart, melodramatic narratives — the stuff of soap operas. Which made sense: The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Richard Spencer, came directly from Soap Opera Update. Several former employees remember Spencer laying out a four-act cover drama for what would happen between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at the beginning of each month — a pregnancy, for example, followed by a breakup scare, a reconciliation, and then marriage rumors.

How In Touch (and other tabloids) source their stories: The beats of the drama may have been fictionalized, but it was easy to find sources — including rival publicists, other celebrities, former friends, estranged family — to support the claims. Still, according to Jo Piazza, who served as executive editor at In Touch from 2012 to 2014, “the majority of the stories were true…They were double-sourced. It’s just that those sources were celebrities and publicists,” and then referred to as “a source close to the family” or “a friend.” It’s not that In Touch made things up; it’s that the publicists and family members and celebrities themselves did.

Kim Kardashian used to give tips to In Touch: Several former employees confirmed that before Kim Kardashian’s sex tape with Ray J was leaked in 2007, Kim served as a source for In Touch stories, providing a steady stream of information on Paris Hilton. (A spokesperson for Kardashian states that the claim is “absolutely false.”)

In Touch isn’t paying for Duggar tips: In the three weeks since first breaking the scoop, In Touch has chased the story relentlessly. And while In Touch acknowledges paying for stories, it seems that payoffs had no place in the Duggar scoop: just attention to the tip hotline and old-school legwork. Egusquiza (who refused to comment for this story) told The Advocate that “one tipster led to another, and then another,” but the smoking gun — and what differentiated the scoop from tipster-supported fodder that makes up so much of In Touch — was the documents.

[From Buzzfeed]

I totally believe Kim used to tip off In Touch Weekly about Paris Hilton. I also believe Kim – and other members of the clan, mostly Kris Jenner – still “tip off” the tabloids about certain stories too. Also, you’ve got to love what’s unspoken about In Touch’s “double-sourcing” technique. Basically, they’re saying that if a celebrity or publicist had an axe to grind about another celebrity, they would just use whatever they said.

The Buzzfeed piece also answered some questions I had about just how quickly In Touch managed to turn around their reputation by going full-throttle at the Duggars. Last year, Bauer started shifting around senior editors and David Perel, a tabloid veteran from Star and the National Enquirer, was brought in. Perel had overseen the Enquirer’s John Edwards story, which was a journalistic scoop for that tabloid. When Perel came to In Touch, he started replacing the soap-opera writers with tried-and-true tabloid journalists with backgrounds in investigative reporting. So, that explains it.

Covers courtesy of In Touch Weekly.

Congratulations are in order for Jack Osbourne and Lisa Osbourne.

The reality star, 29, and his wife, 28, have welcomed their second child – daughter Andy Rose Osbourne – on Saturday, June 13 Hello! reports.

The newborn – who weighed in at 6 lbs., 11 oz. – joins big sister Pearl Clementine, 3.

The couple announced the pregnancy in Feb., with a snapshot of Pearl cuddling mama’s baby bump.

Jack and Lisa, who were wed in 2012, experienced a late-term miscarriage in 2013.

Baby Andy is the second grandchild for Sharon Osbourne and Ozzy Osbourne.

US Weekly reports exclusively that Charlize Theron and Sean Penn have broken off their engagement. Apparently it was Charlize who shut it down last month after the two were in Cannes for Mad Max and then Vienna for the Life Ball. They looked fine in photos from that event but afterwards, some peo…      

US Weekly reports exclusively that Charlize Theron and Sean Penn have broken off their engagement. Apparently it was Charlize who shut it down last month after the two were in Cannes for Mad Max and then Vienna for the Life Ball. They looked fine in photos from that event but afterwards, some peo…      

US Weekly reports exclusively that Charlize Theron and Sean Penn have broken off their engagement. Apparently it was Charlize who shut it down last month after the two were in Cannes for Mad Max and then Vienna for the Life Ball. They looked fine in photos from that event but afterwards, some peo…