The fact that, of all shows, brainiac ‘ET’ is “headlining” that a swimsuit model named Marisa Miller is an “Attractiveness Expert” is so wrong on so many levels, it’s right, but isn’t even the worst of it all. That award-winning fact goes to that this “story” is shilling for a commercial shilling for a car company. Good!, car company PR machine, good. In her “interview,” she mentions her favorite feature is that the car “is good looking.” Expertise proven! *sigh!* Stay in school, girls. —PopSmartsZen
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I’m super late with this ditty, but it’s still been on my mind, and Oprah’s upcoming interview with Lady Gaga (who swears it will be her last for a long, long time) reminded me. While I was enjoying Gaga’s last summer ‘Monster’s Ball’, I was NOT enjoying her repeated mantra to her swirly-eyed audience of Little Monsters, “I hate money!” Oh sure, honey, I thought, as long as you come from some, it’s easy to say. While Ms. Gaga made her own, she also drained her accounts to a big fat Zero, proving that if you FEEL it enough, you will manifest exactly that. Powerful women and your daughters: learn about your money and be in real “charge” over the purse (strings) that are always in style, season after season. —PopSmarts
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Here’s why your very foodie PopSmarts has been banned from her own kitchen, and I stick to making reservations. For those metaphysical among you, you already know I’m a Star Child — so I don’t have any unmet need to actually look like an alien. My face likes me some eyebrows. …But back to the cooking story (read the link) of why I stay out of the domestic realm, while Gwyneth Paltrow can cook…Allegedly. Thanks for the warning, Gwynie! —PopSmarts
Eyebrowless Frida Cahlo Image: acidcow.com
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Charlie Sheen wants us to know he’s not bi-polar but bi-winning. OMG, so much talent, so much pain. I really did resist even mentioning him, but this was too much. His CHOICES have made Hollywood big wig publicity machine Stan Rosenfield (also clients: Robert DeNiro and George Clooney) choose to QUIT. Dude. — PopSmarts
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Kelsey Grammer’s ego may be massive, but apparently he’s a fractional guy. At least his “crises” are. Currently he’s on his 3/4 crisis, which somehow managed to “surprise” affected wife Camille.
Here are this English student’s idea of math for ya: While 56 year old Fraser is divorcing wife #3, the long-suffering former Camille Donatacci, 43, he’s planning his luxury wedding to 29 year old Kayte Walsh. Which equals 0.51785714, if you’re counting.
Of real psychological interest: Everyone knows his name and it’s Mr. No Prenup. This walking ego generously invites women to stick a fork in him! Good luck, future Ex-Mrs. Kayte Walsh Grammer. You’re 4/4. — PopSmarts
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Five Finger Salute – I didn’t look for days, and then this…Five (5!) of 13 stories at my local celeb gossip site were about stars either coming out or going into rehab. Emotional problems. Drugs. Alcohol. So many lessons learned, so little time in between binging, Charlie Sheen with your “hiatal hernia” operations. Gawd save us from stars with too much money and self-interested sycophants, and not enough self-worth. Then again, they look like a modernday designer-clad episode of ‘Rome’ or ‘Spartacus’ just before the mayhem and ultimate destruction. Pre-sages. —PopSmarts
Image: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
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Will you Slide4Slater, too? Beleagured JetBlue flight attendant, Steven-beer-and-slide-Slater, has hired PR agents to help him sort through the numerous media offers he’s been given for his own reality show. As I personally know two people in reality shows (I cut class the day they handed one out to everybody) — this is one that actually has promise of giving voice to the tired and put out working class. Wheeee! — PopSmarts
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Imaginary nudity sells magazines! Perpetual hottie Halley Berry can sell mags clothed but just talking (to Vogue mag) about loving to be naked. Now THAT is beautious! Our training is complete when virtual nudity can sell real magazines that sell us what we’re supposed to look like.
Image: Conde Nast
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Say it ain’t so, dawg! JLo, a diva? Nooo! She. along with Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, were high ranking possibles to replace judges Ellen DeGeneres and Simon Cowell, but the producers somehow found Lopez, ahem, difficult. An unknown source said, “Her demands got out of hand. Fox had just had enough.” Hard to imagine this behavior from the same JLo who ordered her lowly assistants back in after her to (allegedly!) snag any tiny leftovers she may have overlooked that missed getting swept into her larger unreturned bags from her Louis Vuitton ad photo shoots of the past. LV refused to work with her again. Pattern?, you be the “judge.” — PopSmarts
Image: Meryl Smith, artist, Doggie Bag “borrowing”/appropriating LV/Marc Jacobs marks
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Oh boy, my fave former overdosing drug mama is at it again. This time, Courtney Love, widow of Nirvana suicide rocker Kurt and mother of model Frances Bean, is sore that her 17 year old daughter has come into her trust fund which pays her $40,000 a month while living in a mansion with the grandmother (Love’s mom — apparently mad skillz skip a gen) who raised her. Courtney told UK’s You magazine, “It’s a lot of money for a normal person. It’s enough money to kill her, if she is doing drugs, enough money to be gone by the time she’s 22.” Muthah, pleeze! Project much? Even the controversy-seeking but observantly hilarious crew at TMZ called Frances “normal” and “quiet.” — PopSmarts
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“
“Audrey Hepburn couldn’t act,” asserts Emma Thompson who’s drafting a screenplay for the remake of the 1964 ‘My Fair Lady’. Thompson finds the icon’s appeal “a guy thing” and wants to give her new version of the “extraordinary role” more strength and bite and less “twee” (whimsy without wit). PopSmarts personally knows several women who don’t have a Hepburn obsession, but no (straight) men that find her appealing. A fashionista and humanitarian without a doubt, an actress, singer and classic role model for women, more debatable. Do you love or hate Audrey Hepburn? — PopSmarts
Images: Audrey Hepburn fashion and food!, Paramount Pictures, Emma Thompson/Starbux – WENN.com
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Go forward, Rachel, go! Cheers to former “The O.C.” star Rachel Bilson who is tired of Hollywood’s tired obsession with weight and body image. She says the craze puts unhealthy pressure on young girls to lose weight, and is “backwards and sends the wrong message.” The girl likes to eat! — PopSmarts
Image: Adriana M. Barraza/WENN.com
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Shocking Breaking NEWS! The most publicity-seeking, 10-procedures-at-once plastic surgery-loving star of ‘The Hills’ stars, Heidi Montag, 24, is seeking a divorce from her seemingly Svengali, crystal-toting (giving perfectly good crystals everywhere a bad name) hubby Spencer Pratt (who’d earlier disowned his sister for speaking the truth and being a “traitor”), 26. And I sooo want to believe in marriage! — PopSmarts
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When will full-circle-brainwashed celebs realize that “healthy” does NOT mean starving yourself and working out obsessively? For the vast majority of people, health is result of eating a functional balance of good-for-you and whatever-you-like foods in moderation — same goes for working out. “Mad Men’s stick-thin January Jones was asked by show creator Matt Weiner to put on some weight to look more like the curvaceous women of the ’60s. She told Britain’s Tattler that her beer and carb diet and not working out were helping her look like a “healthy” woman. Sigh! She got closer to (ironically ’60s-like) sanity when she added, “I wish more women would realize that’s what men like.” — PopSmarts
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“I’m lonely when I’m in relationships,” Lady Gaga explains. “It’s my condition as an artist.” Oh. Those lucky!, lucky! artists are the ones who don’t need to develop any of those annoying relationship skills. Divine sublimation. — PopSmarts
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“Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television.” – Andy Warhol
Friday love,
PopSmarts
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New books by old MTV V-jays don’t normally merit interest enough for Short Deck, but fashion editor and Project Runway judge Nina Garcia’s review of Daisy Fuentes’ book Unforgettable You said it all: “Daisy has written a fun, inspiring and insightful guide for the new MTV generation. Underwear girls, never underestimate the importance of underwear.” Meanwhile, Daisy herself let Latina magazine Siempre Mujer know that she never makes the first move in love. “I want to sit back and be impressed.” She added, “I have too many decisions to make in my life, and the last thing I want to have to do is take control of my relationship.” Boo. How is that inner or outer beauty personified, Fuentes? — PopSmarts
Image: Daisy sitting back in her underwear
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Q: What’s wrong with Pam Anderson here? A: Absolutely nothing. Today’s PopSmarts UnPlug! Award goes to the obsession with viewing celebs without makeup or with cellulite to make ourselves feel better. The only “public service” about it is to show young girls and women struggling with their self/body image that the beauty images they are held up to or strive to achieve are nothing but makeup, lighting, Photoshopping. Here’s a peek only so you can recognize yourself running around the mall…without paparrazzi invading your so-called privacy. Perception is not reality. — PopSmarts
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Words PopSmarts never thought she’d utter: Props to two Kardashian sisters! First to Khloe, who healthily admits she daily struggles with her own body image, for helping her tiny sister Kourtney recognize that she was injuring herself physically by starving and over-working out for a magazine shoot. An ambulance had to be called for her. Kourtney admitted, “I feel so embarrassed that I was punishing my body for a photo shoot.” Amen, sisters! — PopSmarts
Image: WireImage
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I found Hepburn very appealing in “Roman Holiday” and “Sabrina”. She’s supposed to be pretty good, acting wise, in “Two for the Road” with Albert Finney, which I admit I haven’t seen. She definitely was way too thin most of the time, and apparently had a whole bunch of “issues”. As for “My Fair Lady,” my mother was forever incensed that Hepburn was cast as Eliza in the movie and not Julie Andrews, who originated the role on Broadway (and whom she and my father had seen in the late 50s). She wasn’t alone, as Andrews’ Oscar for “Mary Poppins” has always been seen as a direct “in your face”.
I don’t profess to be a Hepburn afficienado or expert, I’ll just say that her appeal for me is purely a fashion icon one. I totally got what Emma Thompson’s beef was about her with regard to ‘My Fair Lady’ – it needed a beefier (literally and figuratively) actress to do the zesty role justice. Also later, I read somewhere, that Hepburn hadn’t even wanted that role, it had been foisted on her, which would account for this ok-to-solid actress turning in such a hackneyed performance in the Eliza role specifically. I highlighted this item here because our the vocal majority in our culture (as in the strongly pro-Hepburn, anti-Thompson comments under the original item) appears not to be able to discern such difference Emma Thompson silently points out, and it seemed hellbent on making her “wrong” for this sacrilege (!). Critical thinking rocks. Thanks for your share, Dave!
Emma Thompson’s beef was exactly the same as my mom’s! Disagree with Emma and your dissin’ my mom! Just saying!
BTW, I’ve always had a “thing” for Emma… Audrey, not so much…
Me, too! I always thought Emma Thompson had a knack for her own kind of womanhood. She reminds me of an Every Woman-Helen Mirren who I *really* have a chica crush on. Now THAT’S How to Be a Real Woman personified. At each of her ages!
I LOVE Audrey Hepburn. I also like Emma Thomson, but she is so wrong in saying that Audrey cant act! Im dissapointed.
Aww, ok. There may be a timing context about Audrey Hepburn’s popularity that gets some of us. Remember she was popular in the ’60s (see Mad Men for some American historic context) — a very sexist time, and she was basically (besides the fashion icon bit, which I am good with) upheld as a symbol of “goodness” and what’s right with women = sweet, demure and non-controversial. I can respect your opinion a couple freed up gens later. Sure.
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