62 posts from March 2008

LOS ANGELES - It was the best of both worlds at Saturday's Kids Choice Awards for Miley Cyrus, who took home trophies for favorite female singer and TV actress and rocked the show with a spirited performance of her hit song, "GNO — Girls Night Out."It was also a slime spectacle for the Nickelodeon children's television network, which broadcast the 21st annual show live from UCLA's Pauley Pavilion in front of 10,000 screaming fans, almost all of them teens and preteens.Akon crashed a dune buggy into giant containers of Nickelodeon's trademark green slime, Usher blasted a sumo wrestler several yards with slime fired from a cannon and supermodel Heidi Klum, attached to a bungee cord and wearing a specially equipped "butt spike belt," flung herself into a wall covered with slime-filled balloons."Don't try this at home," boxer Laila Ali said as Usher turned the cannon on the sumo wrestler.The slime stunts and other assorted foolishness — which included a soundtrack of celebrities burping as an instrumental version of the Village People song "YMCA" played in the background — took up so much time that presenters never got around to announcing three awards.In the categories that were announced, teen heartthrob Drake Bell was another double winner, collecting his third consecutive orange blimp-shaped trophy for favorite TV actor and another for favorite TV show for "Drake and Josh.""Drake and Josh" upset Cyrus' hit program "Hannah Montana" in the TV show category.Other winners were Eddie Murphy for favorite voice from an animated movie for "Shrek the Third," "American Idol" for favorite reality show and, one of the biggest crowd favorites of the night, the Jonas Brothers for favorite music group. The ever-polite Jonas Brothers each offered brief thank-yous. Chris Brown won for favorite male singer.Ryan Seacrest accepted the reality show award saying he looked forward to presenting it to "two of the three" of the show's judges.Cyrus, in a black dress with silver spangles, ...

LOS ANGELES - Rihanna and Chris Brown both walked the orange carpet at the Kids' Choice Awards. Separately."We're not in a relationship or anything," Brown told The Associated Press before Saturday's slime-filled ceremony.Rumors have been swirling for weeks the R&B singers are dating, but Brown was quick to squash such gossip, insisting he was single and Rihanna was just a friend. The 18-year-old "Kiss Kiss" crooner, clad in a custom-made orange hoodie emblazoned with a blingin' Nickelodeon logo, later collected a trophy for favorite male singer.Rihanna, 20, bypassed the press line before the awards ceremony, strutting down the carpet in a polka-dot corset top.Source: AP

LONDON - Flashing lights, swarming paparazzi, a mysterious second car at the crash site, and a multi-tentacled conspiracy allegedly directed by the husband of Queen Elizabeth II — jurors have much to sort through in reaching a judgment on the deaths of Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed.Nearly 11 years after the tragedy that shook the world, testimony has ranged far and wide in an extraordinary coroner's inquest, without shedding much light on claims that they were victims of a plot. The coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, is expected to begin his summation Monday, which may take days before going to the jury.The key question for the jurors is whether the car crash in a Paris road tunnel on Aug. 31, 1997 was an accident.Mohamed Al Fayed has not budged from claiming that his son and the princess died at the hands of British security agents, acting at Prince Philip's behest.French police concluded it was an accident, caused in part by speeding and by the high alcohol level in driver Henri Paul's blood. A British police investigation concurred.More than 240 witnesses have testified since the inquest began on Oct. 2, including Diana's close friends and former butler, Philip's private secretary and a former head of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. Al Fayed's late bid to force the coroner to summon Philip to testify, and for written questions to be put to the queen, was summarily rejected by a higher court.There has been evidence that Diana feared dying in a car crash, but that she also had speculated about death in a helicopter or airplane crash; there was testimony that she feared Philip.The basic scene is familiar: the couple's car slammed into a concrete pillar in the Alma tunnel, after apparently having a glancing collision with a white Fiat Uno, as they were pursued from the Ritz Hotel by photographers. Some witnesses said they saw flashes of light in the instant before the crash; other witnesses didn't notice any. Al Fayed's claim is that flashing light...

NEW YORK (Billboard) - 50 Cent has more than 1 million friends on MySpace, but if the rapper ever decides to leave the social network, he'll be leaving behind those friends, too. So like a growing number of artists, he's started his own social networking site.On Thisis50.com, fans can create profiles and friend lists just like on MySpace, but 50 Cent has direct access to the site's users and their e-mail addresses.More and more acts, from Kylie Minogue to Ludacris to the Pussycat Dolls, are launching their own social networks, which are becoming a sort of next-generation version of artist Web sites.The social networking component gives fans a reason to hang out on a site and visit more often than they would a standard Web site. And artists can sell advertisements on their sites and offer downloads and merchandise for sale -- options they don't have on MySpace or Facebook. Plus, they own the content and data on how fans use their site, which they don't get on other social networks."The thing that separates Thisis50 from MySpace is we control the e-mail database," says Chris "Broadway" Romero, director for new media at G-Unit Records, which handles Thisis50. "We can e-mail members if we want to."Thisis50 isn't meant to be a fan club, but rather a platform for 50 Cent to showcase his music and music he likes, and comment on news and user profile pages. Ludacris' WeMix.com, on the other hand, is more of a hub for aspiring artists to upload their music.The artist networks aren't meant to replace MySpace or Facebook, which tend to attract a broader audience and more users."(Artists) think about MySpace and Facebook as funnels for their own social networks," says Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, a company that provides social networking tools for Thisis50, Sara Bareilles and others. "They take and use services where they don't know the users, don't have access and don't have full control, and funnel those fans to something they do control."TWO-WAY COMMUNICATIONThe key to ge...

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - On a recent Monday morning, Mariah Carey flew the red-eye from New York to Los Angeles, stopped by Ryan Seacrest's morning radio show to chat, recorded a background vocal track for the song "I Stay in Love" for her upcoming album, then recorded a video for Wal-Mart's "Soundcheck" series, which will be used as bonus footage online and played in stores.By the time all of this was done, it was just past noon. Her afternoon consisted of another radio interview, and in the evening she returned to the studio to work on mastering the album, "E=MC2" -- due April 15 via Island Def Jam.If "E=MC2" scores big, Carey could find herself in elite chart company. She's currently tied at No. 2 with Elvis Presley for the most Hot 100 No. 1 singles, with 17. The Beatles hold the crown with 20.The busy singer recently spoke with Billboard about the new album.Q: "E=MC2" crosses a lot of genres. There are a few ballads, but there's definitely some hip-hop and even some gospel-tinged songs and a bit of a reggae beat.Mariah Carey: I'm really a festive person, and that's what came across with the "Mimi" album. I hate it when people are like (uses a dramatic voice): "She's taking a new direction with hip-hop." I'm like, "Will you please freakin' research?" I've been doing this for a long time -- working with (writer-producer) Dave Hall on "Dreamlover," using the "Ain't No Half-Steppin"' loop.I think that it was Q-Tip -- he said this to me in '97 --that I was really the catalyst for so many of these artists who are now trying to infuse (songs with hip-hop). It was just digging in the crates with Dave Hall and coming up with, "Hey, let's use this loop!" And from then on, I did it anytime I could. The next was "Fantasy," which was a groundbreaking moment for me, the ability to be able to work with Puffy (Sean Combs).Right now everything is kind of merged together because pop is such a nebulous format, in my opinion. You'll hear a hip-hop record next to sort of a rock...

NEW YORK - Madonna wants the media to leave Britney Spears alone. "They need to step off," she told the "Yo on E!" satellite radio show. "For real ... Let's go save her." Madonna, 49, said her daughter, Lourdes, 11, feels the same way."She knows Britney, (but) she doesn't really watch TV or read gossip stuff," the pop star said in the interview. "I think she sort of gets the drift of what's going on, and I think she feels very protective of Britney."Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie have a son, Rocco, 7, and are raising a Malawian boy they want to adopt."He's the life of the party," she said of David, who she brought home from Africa in 2006. "He loves music, he's an amazing dancer. ... He's a character."She said caring for David is no different from her raising her biological children: "I thought it was gonna be, but it feels the same to tell you the truth."As for speculation that her marriage is on the rocks, Madonna said: "It is ridiculous. ... I don't pay much attention to it."The singer's spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg recently dismissed media reports that the Ritchies have split up, saying they "remain happily married." Rosenberg said that Madonna and filmmaker Ritchie, 39, were "joyfully back together at home in London" after living in separate countries for work purposes.Madonna, whose new album "Hard Candy" arrives April 29, told "Yo on E!" that she plans to spend the summer in New York, and that she might kick off a tour this fall.Source: AP

LONDON (Reuters) - Talent show winner Leona Lewis became the first British female solo artist in over 20 years to top the U.S. pop ratings on Thursday when her single "Bleeding Love" hit number one in the Billboard Hot 100 chart.The 22-year-old Londoner, who shot to fame in Britain after winning "The X Factor" in 2006, appeared on Oprah Winfrey's talk show this month, helping to boost the number of downloads of her song on the Internet and mobile phones, media reported.Kim Wilde was the last British female solo singer to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart with her 1987 song "You Keep Me Hangin' On," a cover of The Supremes song.Lewis, who Billboard compared to a young Whitney Houston in its biography, had already topped the charts in 10 countries with "Bleeding Love," which was Britain's biggest selling single in 2007.Her debut album "Spirit," due for U.S. release on April 8, has sold over two million copies so far, according to a statement from Lewis's record label SyCo Music, promoter and television star Simon Cowell's division of Sony BMG.Source: Reuters

LONDON (AFP) - Madonna, one of London's most famous ex-pat residents, will not vote for the current mayor at forthcoming elections because of his record on cutting traffic jams, according to comments released Thursday."Will Ken Livingstone get my vote? No. The traffic in London is worse than ever now. All Red Ken wants is roadworks going on everywhere," the US singer said in extracts released of an interview with British music magazine Q.Livingstone -- who earned the nickname "Red Ken" in the 1980s because of his fervent socialist views and opposition to former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's free market reforms -- is seeking a third straight term on May 1.He introduced a controversial road charging scheme in 2003 to cut congestion in central London, later widening it to west London, the area in which Madonna lives with her British film director husband, Guy Ritchie.In February this year, he also introduced a London-wide low emission zone, charging the most polluting lorries 200 pounds (254 euros, 401 dollars) a day to enter the capital to reduce air pollution.The 49-year-old Madonna, who is often spotted cycling around London or being driven by chauffeur, also complained about the underground network -- where high fares remain a bugbear -- and offered the next mayor a suggestion."I would make it so that young musicians, aspiring musicians wouldn't have to pay the congestion charge or pay taxes. They would be exempt from those kind of things so they would have more money to do other things," she said.Madonna has previously criticised various aspects of British life since moving here, including lazy builders, officious parking wardens, high fuel prices, old-fashioned hospitals and the weather.Environmentalists and the mayor's office hit back, arguing that the congestion charge had held cut traffic and carbon emissions.It was not clear whether Madonna had endorsed any other candidate for the mayoral election. A total of 13 candidates, including Livingstone, have...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Paris Hilton, the celebrity and hotel heiress who spent a stint in jail last year, said on Thursday she sees herself as a role model for young women as she prepared to judge a contest to crown Miss Turkey.Hilton, who will sit on a jury to select Miss Turkey 2008, said she valued not only beauty but also "good heart" when looking at the contestants' attributes."This is my first time judging anything like this," she told Reuters. "I'm going to look at how the girls carry themselves, what they look like, the way they dress and what they say."It might seem ironic that Hilton, 27, sees herself as a role model and is judging what other women will say about their lives and futures. She starred in U.S. reality TV show "The Simple Life" portraying herself as a rich girl overcome by the boring routine of daily, middle-class life.Hilton earned a lot of unwanted publicity in 2003 after an amateur sex video of her hit the Internet, and spent three weeks in a Los Angeles last year in a drunken driving case.But her name is used to sell a host of products around the world and she is followed by paparazzi.Hilton said 90 percent of stories about her in the media are "complete lies," and she blamed the numerous bloggers on the Internet for spreading misinformation."I don't pay attention to lies because I am a good person, I work very hard and I've built this empire on my own. I think this is an inspiration for a lot of girls out there."Asked if she was happy to be seen as a role model by girls, Hilton said: "Yes."Hilton, whose grandfather Barron Hilton decided to donate 97 percent of his $2.3 billion wealth to charity, said she did not have any hard feelings about his decision, which many presumed would drastically reduce her future inheritance."It won't affect me anyway," she said. "My grandfather is an incredible man. He is very generous. And what he is doing is amazing."Hilton's latest project is a show on MTV in which people will compete to be her friend. "...

NEW YORK - Kevin Federline says he's been on full-time daddy duty since getting custody of his two toddler sons."I spend most of the day chasing my kids around the house," he tells In Touch Weekly magazine. "Their needs define my schedule every day."Federline has had sole custody of Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 18 months, since early this year after months of bizarre behavior by his ex-wife, Britney Spears. The couple, who wed in October 2004, divorced last July.Spears is now under the court-ordered conservatorship of her father, James Spears."It is so very important to me that my children will always know and never question, that no matter what happens, they have a mommy and daddy who love them very much," Federline, 30, tells the magazine.Last week, the 26-year-old pop star was ordered by a Los Angeles court commissioner to pay Federline $375,000 to cover his attorney fees in their child-custody dispute.Federline also has a son and daughter with ex-girlfriend Shar Jackson."I will always love the mothers of my children, and I will always be there for both of them," Federline says."I believe that any good energy I put out there brings more good energy into my own life. The relationships with my kids and family will last my whole life and are the most important to me," he says.Source: AP