Nick Stahl Vanishes
Los Angeles police are continuing to search for missing “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” star Nick Stahl in and around the city’s drug-infested homeless enclave of Skid Row and say they do not believe his disappearance involved foul play.
Stahl was reported missing on Monday by his wife Rose, who said she had not seen him since May 9.
Detective Carmine Sasso from the LAPD’s Missing Persons Unit told ET on Friday that Rose admitted the actor had been known to frequent the Skid Row area and was also known to disappear “for days at a time” in the past. “We are getting the information out to our patrol officers where Nick might frequent. We are trying to locate him,” Sasso said.
The Los Angeles Times reported that LAPD officers thought they had a possible sighting of Stahl on Wednesday, but it turned out to be a false alarm.
Last February, Rose filed court papers indicating that she had separated from Nick and she sought a court order allowing only monitored visits between her husband and the couple’s 2-year-old daughter, Marlo.
Britney Spears Steps Out For ‘X Factor’
It’s easy to see why Simon Cowell was eager to add Britney Spears to his panel of “The X Factor” judges.
The “Toxic” singer, 30, officially announced her participation in the show during the FOX Upfront event in New York on Monday. Spears slipped into a body-hugging, white minidress and Giuseppe Zanotti shoes to join Cowell, 52, L.A. Reid, 55, and new judge Demi Lovato, 19, on stage.
“I am so excited about this whole experience. It’s going to be so much fun and so different from anything I’ve ever done,” Spears told the crowd. “I’m ready to find the true star.”
Spears — engaged to Jason Trawick, 40, since December — changed into another sexy number backstage, opting for a purple Alexander Wang minidress. “I couldn’t be more excited to join The ‘X Factor’ judging panel. I’m a huge fan of the show and now I get to be a part of the action,” she told Us Weekly in a statement Monday. “Simon and L.A. better watch out!”
Also on display: Spears’ 3-carat Neil Lane engagement ring, worth an estimated $90,000!
Lovato, who recently dyed her hair blond, turned heads in a colorful design by Falguni & Shane Peacock. “I am totally stoked to be here,” she exclaimed. “I’m excited to represent my generation.”
Spears and Lovato have replaced former judges Paula Abdul, 49, and Nicole Scherzinger, 33, who were fired from “The X Factor” in January. Ex-host Steve Jones’ replacement has yet to be announced.
Michael Douglas Fighting The Good Fight
Michael Douglas has teamed up with the Oral Cancer Foundation to raise awareness of the deadly disease.
The “Fatal Attraction” star spent six months fighting throat cancer in 2010, undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment.
He was given the all-clear last year and has now signed up to appear in a public service announcement for the Oral Cancer Foundation, a non-profit organization set up to help those suffering from the disease.
In the PSA, which will debut in June, Douglas urges the public to undergo annual screenings for oral cancer.
The charity’s founder, Brian Hill, says, “The Foundation is indebted to Michael Douglas for partnering with us in the battle against oral cancer. Michael is a highly visible, well known actor, and a consummate professional.”
Donna Summer Dead at 63
from TMZ
Donna Summer — the Queen of Disco — died this morning after a battle with cancer … TMZ has learned.
We’re told Summer was in Florida at the time of her death. She was 63 years old.
Sources close to Summer tell us … the singer was trying to keep the extent of her illness under wraps. We spoke to someone who was with Summer a couple of weeks ago … who says she didn’t seem too bad.
In fact, we’re told she was focused on trying to finish up an album she had been working on.
Summer was a 5-time Grammy winner who shot to superstardom in the ’70s with iconic hits like “Last Dance,” “Hot Stuff” and “Bad Girls.”
She continued her dominance in the ’80s with “She Works Hard for the Money” and “This Time I Know It’s for Real.”
Summer and her producer Giorgio Moroder defined the dance music era of the ’70s and influenced acts like Duran Duran and David Bowie to enter the genre.
Summer married Brooklyn Dreams singer Bruce Sudano back in 1980. They had two daughters together.
The Hidden Truth About Hip-Hop Conspiracy Theories
The hip-hop blogosphere has been throwing fits over an anonymous letter entitled “The Secret Meeting that Changed Rap Music and Destroyed a Generation” and only Jay Smooth can see the secret order behind this shadowy intrigue.
Music by Sabzi of Common Market
R.I.P. Chuck Brown The ‘Godfather of Go-Go’
Chuck Brown, the gravelly voiced bandleader who capitalized on funk’s percussive pulse to create go-go, the genre of music that has soundtracked life in black Washington for more than three decades, died May 16 at the Johns Hopkins University hospital in Baltimore. He was 75.
The death was confirmed by his manager Tom Goldfogle. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Mr. Brown had been hospitalized for pneumonia.
Known as the “Godfather of Go-Go,” the performer, singer, guitarist and songwriter developed his commanding brand of funk in the mid-1970s to compete with the dominance of disco.
Like a DJ blending records, Mr. Brown used nonstop percussion to stitch songs together and keep the crowd on the dance floor, resulting in marathon performances that went deep into the night. Mr. Brown said the style got its name because “the music just goes and goes.”
In addition to being go-go’s principal architect, Mr. Brown remained the genre’s most charismatic figure. On stage, his spirited call-and-response routines became a hallmark of the music, reinforcing a sense of community that allowed the scene to thrive. As go-go became a point of pride for black Washingtonians, Mr. Brown became one of the city’s most recognizable figures.
“No single type of music has been more identified with Washington than go-go, and no one has loomed so large within it as Chuck Brown,” former Washington Post pop music critic Richard Harrington wrote in 2001.
Mr. Brown’s creation, however, failed to have the same impact outside of the Beltway. The birth of go-go doubled as the high watermark of Mr. Brown’s national career. With his group the Soul Searchers, his signature hit “Bustin’ Loose” not only minted the go-go sound, it spent four weeks atop the R&B singles chart in 1978.
“Bustin’ Loose” was “the one record I had so much confidence in,” Mr. Brown told The Post in 2001. “I messed with it for two years, wrote a hundred lines of lyrics and only ended up using two lines. . . . It was the only time in my career that I felt like it’s going to be a hit.”
It was Mr. Brown’s biggest single, but throughout the 1980s “We Need Some Money,” “Go-Go Swing” and “Run Joe” became local anthems, reinforced by radio support and the grueling performance schedule that put Mr. Brown on area stages six nights a week.
While rap music exploded across the country, go-go dominated young black Washington, with groups including Trouble Funk, Rare Essence and Experience Unlimited following in Mr. Brown’s footsteps.
Mr. Brown performed less frequently in his final years but still took the stage regularly. He would often comment on his golden years in rhyme.
“I’m not retired because I’m not tired. I’m still getting hired and I’m still inspired,” he said in 2006. “As long as I can walk up on that stage, I want to make people happy. I want to make people dance.”
Charles Louis Brown was born in Gaston, N.C., on Aug. 22, 1936. He never knew his father, Albert Louis Moody, a Marine. He took the surname of his mother, Lyla Louise Brown, a housekeeper who raised her several children in poverty.
Anthony Bourdain ‘No Regrets’
Anthony Bourdain has learned an important lesson over the last couple of years: You don’t mess with Paula Deen.
In a Q&A with the new Rolling Stone (in the “Big Issue,” which marks the magazine’s return to a larger format and reaches subscribers this week), the bad-boy chef, 56, admits the backlash he faced from diehard Deen fans was a little “scary.”
“A year ago, before she announced that she has diabetes, I dared to suggest that the food she was advocating was dangerous for you, and I received a lot of scary mail and Facebook posts,” Bourdain reveals. “It was the first time I’ve ever been frightened.”
The “No Reservations” host — who previously called Deen the “most dangerous person to America,” who is “proud of the fact that her food is f—ing bad for you” — says he knows he needs to work on reining in his sharp tongue.
“I don’t know what my problem is, honestly,” Bourdain says. “Why can’t I just live and let live? It’s a personal failing.”
In January, Savannah, Ga.-based chef Deen, 64, revealed on the “Today” show that she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes three years ago — and simultaneously announced a deal with pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk to endorse a drug used to treat the disease.
Bourdain immediately slammed the Food Network host’s new gig. “Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business so I can profitably sell crutches later,” he tweeted. (Speaking to Prevention magazine, Deen called his comments “very, very cruel.”)
In an April interview with “Good Morning America,” Bourdain made an effort to clarify his comments, explaining that he wasn’t attacking Deen’s illness but instead what he saw as her irresponsibility and hypocrisy.
Ellen Wins Top Humor Prize
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ellen DeGeneres, who broke ground in 1997 as the first lead character on prime-time TV to reveal she was gay, is winning the nation’s top humor prize.
The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced Tuesday that DeGeneres will receive the 15th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. She will be honored Oct. 22 with a lineup of star performers in a tribute show that will be recorded for broadcast at a later date.
In a written statement, DeGeneres said receiving the same award as past honorees Bill Cosby, Tina Fey and Will Ferrell makes her wonder, “Why didn’t I get this sooner?”
It was 15 years ago — just before the humor prize was created — when DeGeneres came out on Time magazine’s cover and as her character on the sitcom “Ellen,” to a record 46 million viewers. The popular show began losing viewers, though, and was canceled a year later. DeGeneres said at the time that ABC caved in to fear and abandoned the show. She faced tough questions over whether the sitcom was “too gay” and if she had torpedoed her career by pushing a “gay agenda.”
“When I’m accused of becoming political, I’m showing love,” DeGeneres told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in a 1998 interview. “How is that political to teach love and acceptance?”
The rejection was enough to send DeGeneres into a deep depression.
“Ellen” paved the way, though, for future shows to also break the taboo of showing gay characters. “Will and Grace” would follow, along with “Glee,” “Modern Family” and others.
DeGeneres bounced back with movie roles, including as the voice of a lead character in the animated film “Finding Nemo.” She also has a hit talk show now in its ninth season, best-selling books and had a stint as the fourth judge on “American Idol.”
Cappy McGarr, an executive producer for the Mark Twain Prize show and a Kennedy Center board member, said DeGeneres has a special style of observational humor in the tradition of Twain. She also makes people laugh across political lines.
“She’s not just a comedian,” he said. “She’s really a miracle worker. She got the president to dance, the first lady to do push-ups and (Republican) Tom Delay to laugh.”
The New Orleans native got her start as an emcee at a local comedy club in her hometown. In 1982, a videotape of her club performance won DeGeneres Showtime’s “Funniest Person in America.” By 1986, she appeared on “The Tonight Show” and became the first female comedian summoned to Johnny Carson’s desk to chat about her performance.
John Mayer: Blames Twitter For Downfall
It’s no accident that John Mayer has been avoiding the press for the past two years.
Following two explosive interviews with Playboy and Rolling Stone in 2010, where he likened his chemistry with Jessica Simpson to “sexual napalm” and blamed his split with Jennifer Aniston on his frequent tweeting, Mayer felt the need to escape.
“It was a very strange time and it sort of rocketed me into adulthood. It was a violent crash into being an adult,” Mayer, 34, said on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” Tuesday. “For a couple of years it was just figuring it all out, and I’m glad I actually stayed out of the spotlight. Because I think back then I would of said, ‘Give me two weeks or let me get out and do Ellen and let me explain myself.’ It was like, ‘No, idiot. Go away and be 33 and 34 instead of 28 for the fourth year.”
Mayer said he “had to go home for a minute” to heal from the backlash in 2010. “The plan that originally gets you out of high school and your hometown, in front of people, that plan was over. I had done it. I just sort of lost my head for a little while.”
The “Shadow Days” singer — whose new album, “Born and Raised,” will be released May 22 — was forced to cancel his 21-city tour in March in order to remove a granuloma just above his vocal cord. (He first had surgery to remove the enlarged nodule in October 2011.)
“It’s not a health concern whatsoever, but it has taken me out of singing,” Mayer told host Ellen DeGeneres, 54. “I tried to beat it the first time and couldn’t.”
John Travolta is “stayin’ alive”
An anonymous male masseur is suing John Travolta for sexual harassment, claiming that he has “proof” the actor tried to have sex with him during a massage session.
According to papers filed in a Los Angeles court and obtained by TMZ, “John Doe” says that the “Grease” actor touched his legs and genitals and made unwanted sexual advances towards him.
The suit claims that Travolta responded to an online advertisement for massage services, and picked up the masseur in a black SUV and drove him to the actor’s private bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Travolta allegedly took off all of his clothes, and rubbed the plaintiff’s legs and genitals. The masseur, an aspiring actor, told Travolta that he would not have sex with his clients. Travolta supposedly told the man that the only way he would make it in Hollywood is if he performed sexual favors.
“Hollywood is controlled by homosexual Jewish men who expect favors in return for sexual activity,” Travolta allegedly said.
Travolta then masturbated in front of the masseur, offered him a “reverse massage” and said, “Come on dude, I’ll jerk you off.”
In a statement to E! News, Travolta’s lawyers say that the claims are “fiction”: “This lawsuit is complete fiction and fabrication. None of the events claimed in the suit ever occurred. The plaintiff, who refuses to give their name, knows that the suit is a baseless lie.”
The statement continues, “Plaintiff’s attorney has filed this suit to try and get his 15 minutes of fame. John intends to get this case thrown out and then he will sue the attorney and plaintiff for malicious prosecution.”
John Doe told RadarOnline Tuesday that he has “proof to support the truth that I’m telling,” but would not reveal any specifics.
In 2010, Los Angeles-based interior designer Robert Randolph wrote explicitly about Travolta’s supposed secret gay sex life in his book, “You’ll Never Spa In This Town Again.”
Randolph claimed that starting in 1995, he saw the actor engage in countless sex acts in an L.A. bathhouse. According to Randolph, “everyone in L.A.” knows that Travolta has gay encounters.
Travolta has been married to actress Kelly Preston since 1991 and had three children together, but heir oldest son, Jett, died from a seizure in 2009. The couple welcomed a son, Benjamin, in 2011. The couple are devout Scientologists, a religion that strictly opposes homosexuality,
