I love playing the long blind riddle game. Just to get a little inside baseball for a minute, those are the ones I get the gloatiest about. Because they come without a set of leading photos. And they’re unexpected… until they gradually reveal themselves. Sometimes it takes a few months. Sometimes…      

I recently discussed Azealia Banks’ Playboy interview where she alienated almost everyone. She ranted against America, fat people, straight people, gay people, athiests, and men. The piece was an epic mess, and that’s exactly what Azealea wanted to happen. That’s the weird thing about Azealea. She’s a thinker and an occasionally insightful one, but her delivery of any message is awful. She ends up insulting everyone and ruining any tiny ounce of truth that comes out of her mouth. And it’s impossible to give her any credit (for anything) when she regularly spouts anti-Semitic and anti-homosexual rants on Twitter. The last I heard about Banks, she was sending out photos of various body parts to male bloggers who criticized her Playboy interview. No joke.

This new Billboard interview is slightly more nuanced. For one thing, Banks quickly dismisses her foil, Iggy Azalea, with a simple, “she just sucks” and moves onto other topics. Perhaps Banks is learning to not dig herself into the deepest of holes. I won’t deny that Azealia Banks is an incredibly talented rapper. She’s also an incredibly unpleasant, hateful person. So there’s plenty of WTF in this interview:

The responses to her Playboy interview: “It’s the responses to what I say that prove my point. I was making a joke because American culture is very gluttonous. We’re very, like, Big Gulp. You want Cup O’ Noodles? Here’s 24 in a box. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but who cares? When you fail, you’ve got to fail fast.”

On her issues with labels: “I felt like a caged animal. I’m this twentysomething who just became a millionaire, and I’m just like, ‘F***, where’s my album?’ Things started to blend together, and I was driving myself past certain points of insanity.”

Her work process: “I drink, I smoke weed, I don’t really bathe. I might go off … talk to myself in the mirror for hours. It’s a sort of psychosis. I work during witching hours, 3 a.m., 4 a.m., when the dead writers, the failed writers and the failed musicians who are dead are roaming around.”

She wants reparations: “That’s the only way black people are going to move forward. I get what people like Pharrell are saying, like, ‘Oh, you just have to work hard, but we aren’t given the tools.’ But he’s implying that he is the first and only person to ever try, and if you try like him, then you can get to the top of the ivory tower. It doesn’t work that way. You and I, Pharrell, we have assimilated. We’re the most nonthreatening black people. Well, obviously, I’m very threatening. But I’m harmless. I wouldn’t, like, run you over with my f***ing car.”

On Barack Obama: “He’s so fine. Those big-a** white teeth and ears hanging off his head? I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I want to f*** the president.’”

Her usual bedmates: “I sleep with my security guards. I love security guards. They’re these big meathead bald white guys with blue eyes. And I have had sex with a lot of my female friends. It’s a proximity thing. It’s why I am going to call my next record Business and Pleasure, because I’m always mixing the two.”

[From Billboard]

A few of Banks’ associates chime in during the interview to call her “a tortured artist.” I think she’s incredibly self-defeating.

Banks has more to say, including her expanded feelings on Kendrick Lamar’s statements about Ferguson. The rest of the interview is bizarro-land. She talks about doing witchcraft on an ex-boyfriend and gives tips on cooking chicken soup. She insists that she’s not anyone’s idol, but it would sure be nice if people “celebrated” her because she’s a celebrity. Did you see the part up there where Banks claimed to be a millionaire? Ha. If she hadn’t gotten herself canned from two record contracts, that could be true.

Photos courtesy of Ramona Rosales/Billboard & WENN

Happy Birthday Manon, the “young and cool” aunt, with love from Mélissa!

To Jenn from Michelle – Happy 30th Birthday! Love the “Riggins” in your life. He has a great face!

“Happy slightly belated birthday to our beautiful, sweet, funny and lovely Andrea. Your friends in gossip and EARS h…      

Dear Gossips,

Have you seen the Game Of Thrones-Sesame Street parody yet?

“The monster is blue and full of errors.”

It’s so smart. It’s always so smart. I think, um, it might be smarter (and funnier) than Funny Or Die.

Finally though. Finally we’re almost there. Season 5 in 5 slee…      

Did you know that Octavia Spencer writes books? She writes the Randi Rhodes, Ninja Detective tween series. The second book in the series has just been released, and Octavia was apparently doing a book signing at The Grove in LA last week, only it didn’t go so well. Allegedly. Here’s the thing: I’m willing to make the leap and say it’s perfectly possible that Octavia Spencer was a total diva at a book signing. But I cannot sign off on the level of vitriol being leveled at her in this Daily Mail article, even if they are just quoting from named and unnamed sources. Here’s the Mail’s piece on the situation:

Octavia Spencer shocked and angered hundreds of fans at a recent book signing, acting like an ‘ungrateful b****,’ say eyewitnesses who were so incensed with the actress’s behavior they stormed out and demanded refunds. Spencer was at Barnes & Noble bookstore at The Grove in Los Angeles last week to autograph copies of her children’s book ‘Randi Rhodes Ninja Detective — The Sweetest Heist in History.’ But before the night was over people were dragging their kids out of line, demanding refunds on the books and stormed out of the store in disgust.

‘Octavia was mean, rude and horrible to everyone,’ former Octavia fan, Angel Guzman explained to the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview. ‘Initially, there was a Q & A but Octavia acted like she was forced to be there and she took her anger out on all of us, including the kids. Octavia’s answers were short and blunt and there were times she rolled her eyes to the back of her head like she couldn’t believe someone could ask such a stupid question. It quickly became a very uncomfortable situation for all of us. It was clear they just needed to proceed to the autographs because Octavia was not responding well at all to the questions.’

Octavia was scheduled to autograph her books from 7-9 p.m. but she was complaining the moment she arrived about the space they put her in, the ‘tiny glass of water’ she was given, that her feet were hurting so she took a long bathroom break, leaving everyone to wonder if she left or not.

‘Octavia was acting like a diva. She was mad because the event coordinator gave her a small glass of water but she wanted a large liter of ‘good water’ and demanded to know why she was being treated this way,’ Guzman continued. ‘All of this happened in front of everyone who has been standing there for at least an hour, with their restless kids, waiting for her to show up. Octavia didn’t acknowledge the crowd in any way; she just showed up and started to complain. But when the she finally started to sign the books is when things went from bad to worse.’

Ordinarily, celebrities allow their fans to take a picture with them at these book signings, but Octavia said no touching, no coming around the table to take a pic with her and she also refused to have small talk with anyone — just give her the book to sign and keep it moving. And she didn’t even want to ask the customer what was their name, they had to tell the assistant standing nearby their name, she wrote it on a sticky pad and handed it to Octavia, who then signed the book and slid it over to the edge of the table for pickup, like it was a fast food window.

After watching Octavia being abrupt and rude to several people one woman grabbed her 8-year-old and stormed off yelling, ‘This woman is an ungrateful, nasty b****! I’m getting a refund on this stupid book. If she talked to me or my child like that it would get really ugly in here so it’s best we get our money back and go home before something jumps off.’

[From The Daily Mail]

As I said, I’m willing to travel down this path and say that Octavia was maybe having a bad night, or maybe she was tired of being treated like communal property, or hey, maybe she didn’t want people touching her and she wanted to keep the autograph line moving quickly because she wasn’t expecting so many people. But the level of vitriol is… unsettling. You know who else was reportedly a major diva during her book tour? Lea Michele. But we didn’t have eyewitness accounts calling Lea an “ungrateful, nasty bitch.” That’s really over-the-top, right?

Oh, and Octavia responded to this story on her Twitter, writing:

Gotta laugh when ppl would acutally believe that you were rude to a child… at YOUR CHILDREN’S BOOK SIGNING.

— octavia spencer (@octaviaspencer) April 6, 2015

Huh.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Above and below are the latest photos of Bethenny Frankel at the beach in Miami. They’re from this weekend and last week. We seem to get new photos of her in a bikini once a month, or roughly corresponding with her promotional schedule. Bethenny was a guest on The Today Show yesterday. She’s one of many celebrities promoting books out this spring, and hers is a self-help tome called I Suck at Relationships So You Don’t Have To: 10 Rules for Not Screwing Up Your Happily Ever After. A woman involved in a contentious, public divorce who has short, high profile flings with younger men has published a relationship book. Radar has some salacious details from the book, which include Bethenny’s tips for self pleasuring. It’s TMI but that’s her thing, and she’s not wrong.

In her Today Show interview, Bethenny explained that she wrote a relationship book because she “learned more from my mistakes than from my successes.” She also claimed “I can still give advice on something that I’ve made a lot of mistakes in” and added “do as I say not as I’ve done.” I guess celebrities can do just about anything regardless of whether they have a clue about it or not.

She says she has a gift for writing
I do feel that, when I’m going through something, I write. It’s kind of like it pours out of me… so now I’m going through something, if I can help people and talk about what I’m going through and express it, which I do think that I have a gift for, I think it’s great. And I really do love this book so much and all of the practical advice in it.

Claims she was offered Shark Tank, Cinderella and DWTS
People say that because of the failure of my talk show I had to come back [to RHONY]. I was offered Shark Tank and Dancing With the Stars and Cinderella, but I wanted to go home again. I really never thought I’d go back. It had gotten to a point where I didn’t enjoy it anymore. Now I’m so glad that I waited, because I’m really enjoying it. I respect the women, I respect what everyone’s going through… Some of [the women] I’ve known for so many years and it feels like I’m going back to high school.

On criticism of her weight
People do comment a lot. I do say ‘yeah, I am thin.’ I mean, I have a brand called Skinnygirl, so it’s not a big giant mystery. You can’t please everybody. You try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody. Sometimes I do agree that I look too thin, especially when I’m tired, especially when I’m haggard. I do eat. There are nutritionists that comment that I don’t even weigh a hundred pounds. I weigh 115 pounds. I’ll be happy to get on the Today show scale.

“People don’t talk about people that are overweight”
People don’t talk about people that are overweight. If someone thought you were overweight imagine being like ‘wow, that person looks really overweight’ and keep talking about it, that wouldn’t be nice. But that’s not something I’m going to complain about.

[From The Today Show via US Weekly]

People do talk about celebrities who are overweight. Look at the idiots who are bashing Kelly Clarkson after she had a baby. As far as Bethenny’s weight, she is 5’7? tall, so at 115 pounds her Body Mass Index is 18, which is under the 18.5 cutoff for being in the normal weight range. She is technically underweight. I know that the BMI guidelines are inadequate for measuring lean body mass, etc, but if anything they err on the side of labeling very fit, muscular people overweight. As for Bethenny’s argument that she runs a company called “Skinny Girl,” she’s used that one before. Plus she’s written a diet book, she constantly stages bikini photo ops, she’s posed in her daughter’s clothing on social media, and she’s compared herself to a skeleton. She wants the validation that comes with people calling her skinny.

Oh and I watch Shark Tank. I doubt Bethenny has the business skill or the capital to be on the investors panel.

Here’s Bethenny’s Today Show interview:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Photo credit: FameFlynet

Yesterday, I wrote about Mindy Kaling’s douchey brother Vijay and how Vijay claims he did a half-assed social experiment by “pretending to be black” to see if it was easier for him to get into medical school. To hear Vijay tell it, his social experiment was a wild success because one medical school accepted him, even though Vijay had claimed to be African-American (with a name like Vijay Jojo Chokal-Ingam). Anyway, Vijay sounded like a douchebag and – just my opinion – pretty racist. I wrote at the end of the post, “Ugh. Mindy, come get your brother.”

Here’s the thing: I actually like Mindy a lot and I think she has interesting and often thought-provoking things to say about race, feminism, sexism, sizeism, the media and Hollywood power. Does Mindy get it 100% right all the time? No, but I believe she actually deeply considers what she says publicly and I believe she really is a tolerant and small-l liberal woman. Yesterday, I would have said that Mindy was probably justifiably horrified by Vijay’s “experiment”. And as it turns out, she is. She’s throwing him under the bus, publicly:

Mindy Kaling’s rep tells Us Weekly: “Mindy has been estranged from her brother for years. She was not aware of his decision to apply to medical school under a different name and race.”

[From Us Weekly]

Ouch. Just… ouch. Considering the brevity of the statement, I have to think that this is Mindy’s attempt to cut all ties altogether. She’s not her douche-brother’s keeper. We shouldn’t judge her on his shenanigans. Still, that’s got to be hard for her. She and Vijay lost their mom several years ago too, and it’s a loss Mindy still feels very deeply. It must suck to not have a relationship with her brother now too.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.

To promote her new album, Rebel Heart, Madonna covers the new issue of Cosmopolitan. Cosmo actually sent us the image of Madonna’s first Cosmo cover (from back in 1990) too. I personally don’t think they should have chosen Madonna-in-the-mask for this 2015 cover, but whatever. Madonna still wants to be seen as a provocateur, which apparently involves Mardi Gras masks. Here are some highlights from her interview:

On longevity in her career: “Popularity comes and goes. You need to know who you are, what you stand for, and why you’re here.”

On sexuality and ageism: “Don’t be fooled, not much has changed – certainly not for women. We still live in a very sexist society that wants to limit people. Since I started, I’ve had people giving me a hard time because they didn’t think you could be sexual or have sexuality or sensuality in your work and be intelligent at the same time. For me, the fight has never ended.”

On collaborating with Kanye West on her album Rebel Heart: “It’s a little bit of a bullfight, but we take turns. He knows that he’s walking into a room with a person with a strong point of view, and I do too. I listen to what he has to say, take it in, and he listens to what I say and takes it in. We didn’t agree on everything, but he has good ideas.”

On internet haters: “You can hide behind your computer or your phone and say whatever you want – you’re not known. Could you say it to my face? Would you say it to my face? I doubt it.”

[From Cosmopolitan]

The “would you say it to my face?” question has always intrigued me. Like, I don’t think I would have a problem telling a celebrity to their face that their outfit is ugly. I’m sort of blunt/rude like that. But would I tell Madonna to her 2015-Face that she needs to stop with the plastic surgery? Eh. I would probably chicken out.

As for Madonna’s continued conversation about sexism… her fight sometimes feels dated. And it feels like she only cares about how sexism affects her, not the plight of women everywhere. Is sexual agency a feminist cause? For sure. But is that the main crux of feminism? No.

Photos courtesy of Ellen Von Unwerth/Cosmopolitan and vintage cover by Francesco Scavullo.

HBO’s Going Clear documentary (which is still airing, and you should watch it) revealed Scientology’s horrendous history and ongoing practices to the masses. One of the worst jobs in the world right now would be to manage Scientology’s social media accounts. People are watching the doc and using the Scientology hashtag, which is awesome to watch. The effect on the CO$ should be lasting. Recruitment numbers will be practically nonexistent, and the cult will have to try its hardest to hold onto current members.

One dude who isn’t going anywhere … John Travolta. We talked about how Going Clear details the cult’s “black PR package” on Travolta. The cult filmed all of John’s auditing sessions, so they can threaten him with the release of info if he leaves. The sad thing is that people would support John if he gave CO$ the boot. It would be the best possible thing he could do for his image. But I don’t think Travolta wants to leave. He’s happy maintaining his organized marriage and endless praise for the cult. He’s claimed to heal car crash victims with Scientology assists. John has also endorsed CO$ drug rehab programs, which (under the Narcanon brand) have seen many patients die during treatment. Narcanon is a fraudulent means of sucking vulnerable addicts into Scientology. John doesn’t care about those claims. For him, nothing but sunshine comes from L. Ron Hubbard’s teachings. Here’s John’s new interview with the Tampa Bay Times:

Has he watched Going Clear? “No, I haven’t, and I don’t really care to.”

On renewed calls for him to speak out against CO$: “I haven’t experienced anything that the hearsay has (claimed), so why would I communicate something that wasn’t true for me? It wouldn’t make sense, nor would it for Tom, I imagine.”

His take on the CO$: “[It] has been nothing but brilliant for me. I’ve been so happy with my [Scientology] experience in the last 40 years that I really don’t have anything to say that would shed light on [a documentary] so decidedly negative. I’ve been brought through storms that were insurmountable, and [Scientology has] been so beautiful for me, that I can’t even imagine attacking it.”

On his Scientology assists: “I’ve helped so many people through hard times. Loss of children, loved ones, physical illnesses. Through many tough, tough life situations I’ve used the technology to support them and help them. It’s always worked. So, why would I even approach a negative perspective? That would be a crime to me, personally, to do that.”

[From Tampa Bay Times]

Well I’ll give Travolta one tiny ounce of credit — he’s a lot less abrasive than Danny Masterson when questioned about his slavish devotion to a cult. Travolta is laying it on thick (again) because he’s always wanted to displace Tom Cruise as the face of Scientology. David Miscavige may never agree, but Travolta has shown himself to be the star pupil. He’s the only high-profile CO$ member who’s cheerleading after Going Clear. There’s virtually no chance of Tom saying anything about the film. He knows better than to stick his finger out and call someone “glib“ ever again.

Travolta will never leave the cult. His main residence is in Ocala, Florida, which is a 2-hour drive away from the main CO$ headquarters in Clearwater. He travels for training and audits several times per week. As a celebrity, Travolta enjoys a coddled CO$ existence, and he can ignore all the bad stuff Scientology has to offer. He’s happy to maintain that illusion.

P.S. In case you missed it, SNL did an amazing Scientology sketch last weekend.

Photos courtesy of WENN

Here are some assorted photos of Kristen Stewart leaving LA over the weekend, plus some pics of K-Stew and her girlfriend Alicia Cargile from two weekends ago (I just never got around to publishing those). Can I just say? I’m really enjoying Kristen’s hair these days. She chopped it off last year and she’s been growing out some shaggy transition styles for the past few months and it looks SO cute. Anyway, Kristen is still giving interviews about her Cesar-Award-winning performance in Clouds of Sils Maria. She spoke to the Associated Press a few days ago about some of her dialogue about how her character reads celebrity gossip online.

Kristen Stewart has moved on from Twilight, and the actress’ role in Clouds of Sils Maria gives her an opportunity to mock gently the tabloid chaos that surrounded her at the height of the blockbuster franchise’s popularity. Telling the Associated Press about a scene in which her Hollywood assistant character casually reads gossipy stories about a starlet, Stewart says, “I had to seriously harness the glee that was exploding across my face when I was saying some of those lines. I don’t think that’s what the movie is fully about. It’s not a commentary about the insane nature of the media in the States, especially. But no one knows about that more than me.”

Stewart is currently in the midst of a long series of smaller, independent roles, including her award-winning performance in Clouds of Sils Maria. “I’m having more fun now than I ever have,” she says. “These movies go by (she snaps her fingers). We made Camp X-Ray in 20 days. It’s just better when it’s faster.”

And it’s a lot different than the experience of making the Twilight films, which came with built-in fans and their expectations. “Because of the lack of expectation of any of these [more recent] movies, there were no moments that people had read in a book that were the most important thing in their lives,” explains Stewart. “I really let go.”

The interviewer notes that Stewart nods when it’s suggested Twilight is now far from her thoughts. She says, “Completely. I only have to think about that when someone asks me.”

[From Gossip Cop]

She always just takes it a touch too far. “No one knows about that more than me”?? Jennifer Aniston would beg to differ. As would Angelina Jolie. And John Travolta, Julia Roberts and Oprah Winfrey. And Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and the Kardashians. Granted, Kristen was a tabloid-cover fixture for several years and if she had said “It was really bad for me and so many other celebrities,” there would be no problem.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.