Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Album Review: Madonna, "Hard Candy" (Warner Bros.)
Sunday, 15 June 2008
Hollywood Private Detective Convicted
Disgraced Hollywood private investigator ANTHONY PELICANO has been convicted of federal racketeering and other charges.
The detective, who once boasted a list of celebrity clients, was found guilty of illegally digging up information to be used in high-profile lawsuits, divorces and legal battles.
In court on Thursday (15May08), the 64 year old was accused of wiretapping stars such as Sylvester Stallone, and using illicit contacts to get information that could be used against other stars in legal disputes.
Pellicano was found guilty of 76 of the 77 counts against him.
He maintained throughout his trial that he acted alone, but his co-defendants Mark Arneson, a former cop, and an ex-telephone company worker, Rayford Earl Turner, were also convicted of racketeering.
Comedian Chris Rock and top Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz were among those who testified at the Pellicano trial, which began in February (08).
Both admitted to hiring the private detective but insisted they had no idea about his illegal practices.
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Tuesday, 10 June 2008
Ac Dc - Acdc Set For Wal-mart Lp Release
Australian rockers AC DC have signed a deal with U.S. store Wal-Mart to exclusively release their forthcoming studio album through the retail giant.
The band are set to release the as-yet-unnamed LP, their first in eight years, through the budget American store later this year (08).
The move will see the rockers follow in the footsteps of country star Garth Brooks and rockers The Eagles, who both released albums to achieve high sales through the store.
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Anger follows Lennox label reports
Billboard reports that the Daily Mirror had quoted the singer as saying that the company had ignored her calls and emails and that she was out of contract following the October release of her album 'Songs of Mass Destruction'.
Sony BMG confirmed it no longer had a contract with Lennox but the company said it hoped to work with the singer in the future, and on her current album.
In a statement, Sony BMG said: "The quotes attributed to Annie's dissatisfaction with her label arose out of a trip in December to South Africa and have no relevance to the expiry of her contract."
Sony BMG Music Entertainment UK Chairman Ged Doherty said: "We are immensely proud to have worked with Annie over more than two decades. She now has a choice as to whether she wants to continue to work with us in the future. We very much hope that she will."
Lennox's management company, 19 Entertainment, suggested the singer's quotes had been taken out of context.
Britney's ex Adnan gets death threats over sex tapes
American Pie star Biggs gets married
According to People magazine, the actor's representative Nicole Chabot confirmed the good news.
The 29-year-old star reportedly married 28-year-old Mollen last week.
The couple met in 2007 when they starred opposite each other in 'My Best Friend's Girl'. They got engaged in January of this year.
Prosecution rests its case in R Kelly child-porn trial in Chicago
A star prosecution witness cried Monday as she alleged at R. Kelly's child pornography trial several three-way sexual encounters with the R&B superstar and the alleged victim, some of which she said Kelly videotaped.
Lisa Van Allen, 27, the last witness before prosecutors rested their case, also told jurors in more than three hours of graphic and dramatic testimony that Kelly last year offered her $250,000 to recover a tape of one of the trysts.
During cross-examination, a defence attorney accused Van Allen of plotting to extort money from the singer, a claim she denied. Under further questioning she admitted she once stole Kelly's $20,000 diamond-studded watch from a hotel.
"Van Allen is an admitted thief and liar who wouldn't know the truth if she tripped over it," Kelly's business manager, Derrel McDavid, said in a statement.
Kelly, 41, faces as many as 15 years in prison if convicted of child pornography on suspicion of videotaping himself having sex with a female prosecutors say was as young as 13. He has pleaded not guilty and both he and the alleged victim, now 23, deny being on the video - which is separate from those Van Allen testified to being on.
The state, which called more than a dozen witnesses over two weeks, rested its case after Van Allen's testimony. Jurors will get Tuesday off before the defence begins its presentation on Wednesday.
Van Allen told jurors Monday she first had sex with Kelly and the alleged victim in 1998. Kelly would have been around 30 years old at the time, Van Allen about 18 and the alleged victim would have been 14, according to prosecutors' estimates.
Van Allen said Kelly told her at the time that the alleged victim was 16. The age of legal consent in Illinois is 17.
The three-way sex took place in the same home on Chicago's North Side where prosecutors say the sex tape at the centre of the case was made, Van Allen told jurors.
She said she began crying during a second sexual encounter in 1999 with Kelly and the alleged victim, causing an upset Kelly to pick up the video camera and leave the room. She said that encounter took place at the house's basketball court.
"I started crying ... because I didn't want to do it," Van Allen testified. She said Kelly complained that her crying ruined the footage and that he never kept tapes during which she cried.
A final three-way encounter took place in a trailer during a video shoot in Chicago in 2000, Van Allen said. When someone came to the trailer door, the alleged victim "had to run into the bathroom naked" because Kelly did not want others to see her there, she told jurors.
Several months pregnant, Van Allen, from Georgia, initially appeared relaxed on the witness stand and smiled frequently. But she wept when she discussed the second alleged encounter. Prosecutors paused for two minutes as she dabbed tears from her face and regained her composure.
Kelly looked on from across the room as Van Allen testified, at least once appearing to shake his head and other times leaning into the defence table, staring at his folded hands.
Van Allen told jurors that Kelly offered her $250,000 last year to recover a tape of one of the encounters with the alleged victim. She said acquaintances of hers took the tape from Kansas City to a Chicago hotel, where it was handed over to a Kelly associate who paid $20,000 in cash.
Van Allen portrayed Kelly as obsessed with videotaping his sexual exploits, testifying that he even carried around a duffel bag with his homemade sex tapes in it.
"He carried it everywhere with him," she said. "Wherever he was at, the bag would follow him."
Van Allen said she first met Kelly at the making of a music video in Georgia about 10 years ago. She later appeared in several Kelly music videos, including one for the song "I Wish," in which she braids the singer's hair.
During a 1998 Kelly concert tour, Van Allen said, she simulated sex with the singer in front of the audience.
"You didn't cry then, did you?" asked defence attorney Sam Adam Sr., who repeatedly suggested Van Allen's tears in court were disingenuous.
Before Van Allen took the stand, Judge Vincent Gaughan advised that she had been appointed an attorney, saying some of her testimony might be "self-incriminating." She was granted immunity by prosecutors.
Van Allen said she approached prosecutors about testifying in the case only several months ago - six years after Kelly was charged.
"It's the right thing to do," she explained to jurors.
But Adam said Van Allen had ulterior motives when she contacted prosecutors in March, including to help get a reduced sentence in a weapons case for a man she lives with.
Adam also noted that Van Allen told prosecutors only Monday that she stole Kelly's watch in 2001.
"So the spirit didn't move you to do the right thing, this, until today?" Adam asked. He pointed across the courtroom at Kelly. "You tried to extort that man over there," he said.
Van Allen denied the accusation, saying Kelly asked her in 2007 whether she could hand over the tape of one of their three-way encounters.
Asked whether she knew of any other copies of that tape, Van Allen gestured at Kelly across the room, referring to him by his birth name.
"Robert would know," she said.
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Dinner with Pamela Anderson for highest charity bid
The former "Baywatch" star is offering herself as a dinner guest to the highest bidder at an auction in Abu Dhabi on Saturday for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Anderson, 40, will be flying out to Abu Dhabi as the big attraction at the fund-raiser. The United Arab Emirates branch of the international foundation is hoping to make the wishes of 39 terminally ill children come true.
"We are planning to have a lot of fun and make a lot of money for the cause," the Canadian-born actress said in a statement on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Steve Gorman)
Nas reveals new album details
The album was originally going to be called 'Nigger', but Nas decided to leave it untitled following rumours that stores would not carry it with such a controversial title, as previously reported.
Nas' ninth studio album is due out in the US on July 15 and features collaborations with Mark Ronson, Stic.Man from Dead Prez, Jay Electronica, Stargate, DJ Cool & Dre, among others.
The album's first single, 'Hero', was produced by Polow Da Don. Grammy-winning producer Ronson took the helm for 'Fried Chicken', a collaboration featuring Busta Rhymes.
"We met Grammy night in LA, and he said he wanted some stuff from me for the album," said the Ronson in a statement. "I started thinking to myself, as a Nas fan, 'What kind of beats would I love to hear him over?' That's how the Dapkings and I came up with the track for 'Fried Chicken'".
--By our Los Angeles staff.
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